[IP] Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Robert C. Atkinson" <rca53@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: November 12, 2005 7:42:13 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Are "Split Roots" the Future of the Internet?
Dave:
It would be interesting (and perhaps useful to WSIS delegates heading
to Tunis) to get IPers' reaction to today's Wall Street Journal
editorial board recommendation ("Breaking Up Is Hard to Do") that the
least worst solution to the dispute about the future "control of the
Internet" is to allow national root servers ("split root"). Excerpts
from the article:
The U.S. is making apocalyptic predictions of what the U.N. would
do if given control. Those predictions are probably optimistic;
U.N. control would be a disaster. But there is a third way, as Mr.
Gore might say. That alternative doesn't serve the interests of
either the U.S. government, which enjoys the control it currently
exercises, or its critics, who would much prefer to do their
censoring under a multilateral umbrella. But if the U.S. continues
its Internet brinkmanship, the third way will become not only
likely, but inevitable.
That alternative is a fragmented Internet, without a single "root
file" that describes the locations of everything on the Net. The
U.S. government has led many to believe that this is equivalent to
dismantling the Internet itself. But it is bluffing.
Root servers could spring up in France, or Cuba, or Iran. In time,
the Internet might look less like the Internet and more like, say,
the phone system, where there is no "controlling legal authority"
on the international level. More liberal-minded countries would
probably, if they did adopt a local root-server, allow users to
specify which server they wanted to query when typing in, say,
Microsoft.com.
Would it be better if countries that want to muck around with the
Net just didn't? Sure. But they do want to, and they will, and it
would be far better, in the long run, if they did so on their own,
without a U.N. agency to corrupt or give them shelter. It's time to
drop the apocalyptic rhetoric about a split root file and start
looking beyond the age of a U.S.-dominated Internet. Breaking up is
hard to do, but in this case, the alternative would be worse.
--
***************************************
Robert C. Atkinson
Director of Policy Research
Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)
1A Uris Hall, Columbia Business School
3022 Broadway
New York, NY 10027-6902
212-854-7576
cell: 908-447-4201
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