ICANN but I won't - Ukraine asks ICANN to revoke Russian domains and shut down DNS root servers

[Lightwreather]

Keep to the tech and economic side of things please, this is in accordance to the CS.

 

Summary

A Ukraine government official on Monday asked the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to shut down DNS root servers in Russia and revoke Russian domains such as .ru, .рф, and .su. The letter to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was posted here, and ICANN has confirmed that it received the letter.

Several Internet experts say that granting Ukraine's request would be a bad idea.

 

Quotes

Quote

Sent days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, the letter said that Russia's "atrocious crimes have been made possible mainly due to the Russian propaganda machinery using websites continuously spreading disinformation, hate speech, promoting violence and hiding the truth regarding the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian IT infrastructure has undergone numerous attacks from the Russian side impeding citizens' and government's ability to communicate."

The letter asked ICANN, which is based in California, to "revoke, permanently or temporarily, the domains '.ru', '.рф' and '.su'. This list is not exhaustive and may also include other domains issued in the Russian Federation." Next, the letter asked ICANN to "contribute to the revoking for SSL certificates for the above-mentioned domains" and to "shut down DNS root servers" in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
The letter was sent by Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister of digital transformation, to ICANN CEO Göran Marby. "Apart from these measures, I will be sending a separate request to RIPE NCC asking to withdraw the right to use all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses by all Russian members of RIPE NCC (LIRs-Local Internet Registries), and to block the DNS root servers that it is operating," Fedorov wrote. RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre) is the regional Internet registry.

The text of Fedorov's letter was also sent in an email by Andrii Nabok, Ukraine's representative to ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee, to Marby and other people at ICANN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Number Resource Organization (NRO), and the United Nations. Woodcock posted the email's full text on Pastebin Monday.

Woodcock wrote that Ukraine's request to remove Russian top-level domains from the root zone would make Russian websites and email "unreachable from outside Russia, and unreachable for some inside Russia as well, depending [on] how their ISPs and recursive resolvers are configured." Ukraine's request to shut down the root name servers inside Russia "would make connectivity spotty for many users inside Russia, but mostly regular folks, not government or military users," he added. Thirdly, Woodcock wrote that Ukraine's request to revoke "IP address delegations to Russian networks... would break the RPSL and RPKI security that protects their routing."

"Taken together, these three actions would have the effect of making Russian civilian Internet users much more vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, such as are used to compromise banking credentials and website passwords," he wrote. Woodcock explained that the actions "would have little to no effect on the Russian government or military," pointing out that what Ukraine requests "is exactly the attack the Russians practiced for last July, which means their defenses are probably at optimum readiness right about now."

Ukraine's letter to ICANN argued that the requested "measures will help users seek for reliable information in alternative domain zones, preventing propaganda and disinformation."

But Woodcock contended that Ukraine's request is a bad plan in the short term "because it would cut the Russian man-on-the-street off from international news and perspectives, leaving them with only what the Russian government chooses to tell them" and that it's a bad plan in the long term because it "would set the precedent that small industry associations in Los Angeles and Amsterdam would be playing arbiter in international conflicts, and messing with countries' supposedly sovereign country-code top-level domains. And if that were to happen, a lot more countries than just China and Russia would secede from the common-consensus-Internet that allows us to all talk to each other."

ICANN confirmed the authenticity of the letter to Rolling Stone and to CNBC. An ICANN spokesperson told CNBC, "We can confirm that we've received the letter and are reviewing it... We have no further comment at this time."

Rolling Stone quoted Justin Sherman, a fellow at the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative, as saying, "This is a huge request from Ukraine... It's very likely ICANN will just say no. The Kremlin is spreading tons of propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine, but this is not the way to go about addressing it."

RIPE NCC already seems ready to reject Ukraine's request. The group's executive board approved a resolution Monday saying that it "believes that the means to communicate should not be affected by domestic political disputes, international conflicts, or war. This includes the provision of correctly registered Internet numbering resources." The resolution further said that it is "crucial that the RIPE NCC remains neutral and does not take positions with regard to domestic political disputes, international conflicts or war," in order to guarantee "equal treatment for all those responsible for providing Internet services."

"The Executive Board of the RIPE NCC is committed to taking all lawful steps available to ensure that the RIPE NCC can provide undisrupted services to all members across our service region and the global Internet community," the resolution said.

 

My thoughts

So this happened. I'd recommend reading the Ars Technica article linked as a source because if I were to try and quote every interesting and relevant bit here, I'd be quoting the whole article. So, again a reminder to steer away from politics and try and focus on the technological or economic impact of such things. Now back to the article. I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Woodcock here, it does seem rather extreme to cut off Russia from the global web and that too ordinary civillians.

I suppose that sums up my thoughts. From what I can tell ICANN is unlikely to grant Ukraine this request. But until they make an Official decision, there isn't much more we can say.

 

Sources

ArsTEchnica

Letter To ICANN

Rollingstone

CNBC

Atlantic Council

TheRegister

InternetGovernance

[jagdtigger]

This is getting out of hand, do these goons have a efing idea how much collateral damage these rush decisions are causing? For example they booted them off SWIFT, now one of my colleges lost access to his savings because it was kept at a subsidiary of a russian bank. Guess if he is alone.....

[Guyver1]

There are two choices, nuclear war, or Russia has their second revolution from within and oust Putin either by his own military turning against him or his own people.

All the sanctions are designed to cut off the money and hopefully force the 2nd revolution, as the other option isn't an option.

[Levent]

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

This is getting out of hand, do these goons have a efing idea how much collateral damage these rush decisions are causing? For example they booted them off SWIFT, now one of my colleges lost access to his savings because it was kept at a subsidiary of a russian bank. Guess if he is alone.....

SWIFT ban has a grace period of 10 days (started two days ago), your friend will be able to get their money out of their bank unless they wait another 8 days.

[da na]

I get what they're trying to do but just wiping a bunch of websites doesn't seem like a great idea. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Booting them off the internet is overboard, its gonna ruin the lives of all the innocent civilians while putin will prob not give a crap

 

And rip trolling the poor russian squeakers

[jagdtigger]

Just now, Levent said:

SWIFT ban has a grace period of 10 days (started two days ago), your friend will be able to get their money out of their bank unless they wait another 8 days.

The bank filed bankruptcy:

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220301-european-subsidiary-of-russia-s-sberbank-to-enter-bankruptcy

 

Besides it was just an example. I agree that we have to make their lives harder but not at the expense of our own ppl.....

[BobVonBob]

1 minute ago, jagdtigger said:

This is getting out of hand, do these goons have a efing idea how much collateral damage these rush decisions are causing? For example they booted them off SWIFT, now one of my colleges lost access to his savings because it was kept at a subsidiary of a russian bank. Guess if he is alone.....

No decisions have been made yet, this is just about Ukraine making the request. ICANN doesn't seem to be receptive to the idea, which I think is the best outcome for the health of the internet as a whole, but you can hardly fault Ukraine.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

this is just about Ukraine making the request

Doesnt change anything about what i said, sanctions (be it in the request phase or already implemented) starting to loose "sanity" ....

[googleuser3212]

Booting them off the internet will leave them without the sources of information that are provided by the outside world. That would leave them only with the propaganda from the Russian government

[wanderingfool2]

I would agree that ICANN should not do anything.  They really do need to stay a neutral party in all of this (even in the event of war).  There are way too many consequences from getting rid of top level domains (and will have very little effect on the actual situation at hand as well).

 

55 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

This is getting out of hand, do these goons have a efing idea how much collateral damage these rush decisions are causing? For example they booted them off SWIFT, now one of my colleges lost access to his savings because it was kept at a subsidiary of a russian bank. Guess if he is alone.....

Things such as SWIFT were not a "rush decision", and honestly it was being speculated for weeks on end that this would happen.  Similar to when covid hit (prior to the market crashing), I liquidated all the stocks I had because I realized that things could get a lot worse.

 

The simple fact is the world is effectively at war, and sometimes decisions (like restricting flow of money) is required.  The ultimate problem being that one of the few ways sanctions and such can hurt is by hurting them in the pocket book...and ultimately that means that anyone else who has currency there will also be hurt.  The world has tried lighter sanctions in the past and it hasn't worked.  There is an invasion, not acting quickly can be the difference between a country being overtaken or not.   [Trying to avoid the politics and just talking about this generally]

 

[Master Disaster]

I'm guessing nobody behind this proposal actually thought this through, or if they did they didn't understand what the end result would be. Would it boot Russia from the internet? Yes. And which other country has no access to the outside internet? If you said DPRK then have a cookie.

 

What they have is a giant intranet which is state controlled and exists as a western propaganda machine designed to feed the people whatever Kim feels like. A literal tool used to feed people lies and keep them obeying.

 

Do we really want to be pushing Putin back towards communism?

[duncannah]

Don't they have plans to create a national intranet? This will accelerate its development and deployment

[jagdtigger]

38 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Things such as SWIFT were not a "rush decision"

I think it was, for example companies dont pay right away when the seller ships their order. Guess how much payment is stuck now? Or how about clients of banks that are a subsidiary of a russian bank? Yeah they get their money but what do you think where that is going to come from? Are you sure it wont cause price hikes in banking fees?

 

Finance is an area that you dont want to poke carelessly like this.

[BachChain]

ICANN's official stance is to be completely politically neutral in all things. That's why it was created in the first place.

[googleuser3212]

1 hour ago, BachChain said:

ICANN's official stance is to be completely politically neutral in all things. That's why it was created in the first place.

That is not a bad thing in my opinion

[komar]

2 hours ago, fiddleslessless said:

That would leave them only with the propaganda from the Russian government

and leave the rest of the world with only the western propaganda - wouldn't that be convenient to stop the few that actually read both sides to try to find some truth?

 

The whole act of trying to silence someone usually is because those in power don't agree with what they are saying.

After all:

[Vishera]

20 minutes ago, fiddleslessless said:

That is not a bad thing in my opinion

Just like LTT!

Every PC enthusiast is welcome no matter the political believes or background.

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, komar said:

and leave the rest of the world with only the western propaganda - wouldn't that be convenient to stop the few that actually read both sides to try to find some truth?

 

The whole act of trying to silence someone usually is because those in power don't agree with what they are saying.

Yep,it's always best to hear all sides of the story.

Because each side is likely to be biased in their own favor.

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, BobVonBob said:

No decisions have been made yet, this is just about Ukraine making the request. ICANN doesn't seem to be receptive to the idea, which I think is the best outcome for the health of the internet as a whole, but you can hardly fault Ukraine.

Honestly the idea of blocking the internet from large amounts of people sounds just against the entire idea of what makes the internet so great. Also if this set a example then who knows when the internet could be essentially turned off for other countries that do things others don't like. It does make me wonder if this would prompt countries to start making sure that their access to the internet isn't dependent on a third party. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, BachChain said:

ICANN's official stance is to be completely politically neutral in all things. That's why it was created in the first place.

That is good to hear otherwise the ramifications of them starting to choose sides here would like extended to future conflicts. They should definitely stay out of disputes between countries for some very obvious reasons. 

[googleuser3212]

2 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly the idea of blocking the internet from large amounts of people sounds just against the entire idea of what makes the internet so great. Also if this set a example then who knows when the internet could be essentially turned off for other countries that do things others don't like. It does make me wonder if this would prompt countries to start making sure that their access to the internet isn't dependent on a third party. 

That thought is kinda scary if you ask me

[googleuser3212]

Just now, Brooksie359 said:

That is good to hear otherwise the ramifications of them starting to choose sides here would like extended to future conflicts. They should definitely stay out of disputes between countries for some very obvious reasons. 

That is very true

[Heliian]

It's an attempt at more economic sanctions.  Viable, probably not. Worth a shot, maybe? 

 

It's also not "shutting down the internet", sounds like they just block\remove Russian sites from access.  

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, fiddleslessless said:

Booting them off the internet will leave them without the sources of information that are provided by the outside world. That would leave them only with the propaganda from the Russian government

Exactly.

 

My opinion is that the correct nuclear option regarding the internet is to target peering arrangements with Russian telecoms is to either:

a) remove routing from Russian government and businesses that fall under the sanctions, like physically have someone on the other side of the optical cables go and unplug the transceivers in the routing equipment to reduce the bandwidth available. Plus side: cripple hacking efforts. Forces routing to go through much longer, slower routers, like through China, and satellite links.

b) pause all IP4 and IP6 allocations from RIPE NCC

 

Keep in mind that a lot of collateral damage can be caused if we start tampering with the global IP4/IP6 routing or pull root DNS services. Like physically unplugging routes on the other hand can be "oops, maintenance" and since they're under sanctions, it can't be solved until sanctions are resolved.