On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 8:53 AM, manning bill <bmanning(_at_)isi(_dot_)edu>
wrote:
I think the US executive branch would be better rid of the control
before the vandals work out how to use it for mischief. But better would be
to ensure that no such leverage exists. There is no reason for the apex of
the DNS to be a single root, it could be signed by a quorum of signers (in
addition to the key splitting which I am fully familiar with). And every
government should be assigned a sovereign reserve of IPv6 addresses to
prevent a scarcity being used as leverage.
--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
Quorum signing with split keys was already built and tested in a
root server operator testbed (the OTDR testbed) from 1998-2005. It was
considered more fragile than the current system.
Considered more fragile by whom?
By the members of the $250m/yr NSA mole program?
Very few people in DNS land recognize the class of attack as being
realistic. Even when they have prime ministers and members of the GRU
visiting them to tell them how important the issue is to their country.
We already have one example of lobbyists attempting this type of attack
(see Martin's post). So it is far from unrealistic.
At present ICANN's power over the DNS is entirely discretionary. Attempting
to drop Palestine out of the routing tables would simply be the end of the
ICANN root zone. ICANN could continue to manage .com but their influence
over the rest of the system would end completely.
But DNSSEC changes the balance of power. With the root signed and embedded
infrastructure verifying DNSSEC trust chains, the cost of a switchover
rises remarkably. And when I tried to mention the fact I tended to get
nasty threats.
The third question of power is 'how do we get rid of you'. The answer in
the case of DNSSEC is that you can't.
Fortunately the issue is quite easily fixed, just as the problem of using
IPv6 or BGP allocations for leverage is fixable. Governments don't need to
wait on ICANN or the IETF to develop a quorum signing model for the DNS
apex, they could and should institute one themselves and tell their
infrastructure providers to chain to the quorum roots rather than the
monolithic apex root.
--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/