ICANN warns of foreclosure: Authoritarian states encapsulate the population

A senior official at the international Internet administration ICANN has warned of a fragmentation of the global Internet. “The potential fragmentation of the Internet is a worrying topic,” said ICANN’s Technology Officer for Europe and North America, David Huberman, of the German Press Agency on Wednesday evening in Rust, southern Baden, on the sidelines of the Cloudfest industry meeting.

Industry experts are primarily focusing on Russia, Iran and China when it comes to Internet isolation. Huberman did not comment explicitly on individual countries. “These are authoritarian governments that want to control their people,” he said simply.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), based in the USA, has been administering the system of international top-level domains with endings such as .com since it was founded in 1998 and assigning IP addresses to them. The central task is to ensure the secure and stable operation of the Domain Name System (DNS) for the Internet. The organization’s 78th Annual General Meeting will be held in Hamburg in October with more than 2000 participants.

Exclusion of Russia not considered

The Internet administration remains opposed to banning Russia from the Internet, Huberman said in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “We say no. We have to remain neutral.” At the start of the war last year, Ukraine demanded that Russia be banned from the Internet. ICANN had already rejected that.

Kristian Ørmen from the Swedish foundation Internetstiftelsen said that the technical monitoring of the Domain Name System (DNS) is guaranteed. “You can trust him, it’s transparent,” he said. Ørmen belongs to the very small circle of computer specialists worldwide who monitor the security of the system and have special authorizations for it.

(kbe)