Transcript Introduction - Homepages | The University of Aberdeen

Public Policy: Control of Internet
Brief history of Internet
 Hardware, Software, Standards.
Domain names
 Who should control the net/web?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Control of Internet


Internet/Web is very important to modern life.
Who controls it?
»
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Specifies protocols
Decides who can use/connect to it
Specifies what activities legal/illegal
Gives out domain names
Taxes it???
etc
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Brief history: 1970s
1970s: US military created first longdistance network, ARPANet, which
connected universities, military research
labs
 US military owned and controlled it.

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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1980s: Many networks

Many more networks appeared
» VNet: Internal IBM network
– University offshoot: Bitnet, earn
» JANet: UK universities
» UUNet: cheap “network” formed using
telephone dialup lines
» Etc

Mostly email, not real-time client-server
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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1980s: Internet

Connected together all of these
networks into a global “Internet”
» Virtual network, which combined ARPANet,
VNet, JANet, etc
– ARPANet user could easily email JANet, etc
» Mostly based on protocols and conventions
from US military
» Ie, everyone else changed to what the US
military where doing
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Example: names
ARPANet: [email protected]
 JANet: [email protected]
 UUNET: network path, eg

» e.reiter!aberdeen!dundee!edinburgh
» Send email first to Edinburgh, then to
Dundee, then to Aberdeen, then to e.reiter

Everyone switched to ARPANet style
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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1980s: control
Who controlled the Internet in 1980s?
 No one controlled net as a whole

» IBM controlled VNET
» UK govt controlled JANet
» UUNet nodes controlled themselves

People switched to ARPANet standards
because wanted to, their choice
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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1990s: Integration, Web
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1980s integration efforts succeed
» 1990s internet truly looks like an integrated
network to its users, not patchworrk of
hundreds of separate networks.

WWW invented in early 1990s
» W3C (international consortium) quickly
established to set standards
» Higher priority because Web invented in
Europe, instead of US?
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Commercial Importance

Largely because of Web, Internet
became of much greater commercial
interest
» Dot.com boom
» Domain names selling for $$$$
– $7.5M for business,com (more for porn.com)!
» Beginnings of spam
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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1990s: Control

Who controlled Internet in 1990s?
» Most control still resided with individual
component networks
» International organisations (W3C, IETF.
ICANN, ISO, …) increasingly set standards
» Lawyers increasingly involved
– Lawsuits on domain names, eg mcdonalds.com
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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2000s: Internet essential

Many organisations rely on Internet
» Insist that people use it
» E-govt, E-commerce, E-Science, etc
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Internet needs to work!
» Must be fast, reliable, trusted, etc
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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2000s: Attackers
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Huge growth in spam email
» Dominates most inboxes
» Makes email less reliable/useful
– Anti-spam systems kill real emails
» Also phishing (con emails)
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Huge growth in viruses
» Many computers taken over by attackers
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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2000s
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Companies take security seriously
» 1990s: Microsoft treats computer security
as marketing tool, to encourage updgrades
– Doesn’t seriously try to make its software more
secure
» 2000s: Microsoft takes security very
seriously, tries hard to stop it
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Governance problems
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Hard to stop bad guys when there is so
little control over the net
» Change protocols – slow?
» Spamming illegal – no international control?
» Blacklist bad guys so cant use – how?
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Does global Internet community have a
duty to help poor countries?
» Eg, help pay for E Africa fibre-option cable
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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What is Internet/Web
Hardware: routers, fibre-optic links, …
 Software: browsers, servers, …
 Standards: HTTP, HTML, …
 Domain names

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Hardware
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Routers, fibre-optic links, etc still owned
by individual organisations, networks
» Individuals: you own your wireless router
» Organisations: Aberdeen Uni owns campus
Ethernet wiring
» ISP/telecom: BT owns copper wires from
your house, switches
» Govt: JANET owns link between Aberdeen
Uni and Dundee Uni
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Hardware
Very diverse ownership
 National infrastructure: LINX (more or
less) provides central hardware for UK
 Almost no hardware for Internet as a
whole

» root nameservers?
» Provided by LINX-like national sites
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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LINX

London Internet Exchange
» http://www.linx.net/
» Cooperative of UK ISPs
Interconnect point for UK ISPs,
International connections
 Support services: name/time server

» Service to Internet as a whole
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Control of Hardware
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Who can plug hardware into Internet?
» Anyone who can convince an organisation
which is currently on the net to link to you
– Person/company: convince ISP to connect you
– ISP: convince LINX to connect you
» Of course govts can regulate what
happens in their countries
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Hardware Anarchy
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Surprising works as well as it does,
» tribute to tech-support personnel keeping
their bit of the Internet going

Lack of control helps spammers?
» Always find someone to connect them to
the net
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Software
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We need software to use the Internet
and web
» Web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox,
» Web server: Apache, Tomcat,
» OS support in Windows, Linux, …

Controlled by developers
» Commercial: IE, Outlook, …
» Open-source: Tomcat, Firefox ,…
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Control via Software
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Can a commercial vendor control the
Internet through its software
» If everyone uses IE, Microsoft can “tweak”
IE to encourage people to use its products
– Default search is MSN, not Google
– Deliberately degrade browsing on competitor
websites (?????)
» Not ideal…
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Control via Software

Seems less of a problem now, because
of blossoming of open-source
» Apache, Tomcat, Firefox, etc

Net software becoming more of a
shared resource, less of a commercial
product
» Much harder for one individual or
organisation to control!
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Standards

Standards are essential to Internet
» Document formats: HTML, XML, PDF, GIF
» Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, …
» Low-level: TCP/IP
» Other: Java, Unicode, …

Who controls these?
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Protocols
Protocols mostly controlled by
international standards orgs
 W3C consortium (web)
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» http://www.w3.org/
» Most web protocols (eg, HTTP)
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IETF (Internet)
» http://www.ietf.org/
» TCP/IP, other plumbing
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Document Formats
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W3C controls many web ones
» HTML, XML, RDF, OWL, ….
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Other standards bodies
» PDF, JPEG, MPEG, …
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Some controlled commercially
» WMF graphics: Microsoft
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No one controls
» GIF: Developed by Compuserve in 1980s, now in
public domain
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Commercial Formats
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Is it OK for Adobe to control PDF, which
is a defacto standard for the web?
» Enables Adobe to sell related software?
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Adobe has now made PDF an ISO
standard
» As of 1 Jul 2008

Trend for most widely-used formats
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Java
Who controls Java programing lang?
 Sun Microsystems
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» Hold trademark
» Tried to control/restrict competitors
– Especially MS, who created C# instead…
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Now moving to open-source, standards
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Standards

1990s: there was a lot of concern about
commercial control of standards
» Java, PDF, GIF

Now trend is towards open standards
controlled by intl bodies
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Domain names
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Who controls internet names?
» Which company is business.com?
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ICANN (www.icann.org)
» Decides on top-level domain names, such
as .com
» International body, self-appointed?
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Domain names
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Verisign (company) controls .com
» Under contract from US govt
» Why should US govt control?
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Nominet controls .uk
» Private not-for-profit company
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Country domain names often controlled
by national telecomms
» http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Domain Name Control
Somewhat bizarre structure
 Historical artefact
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» Eg, US has top-level control because we
use ARPANet names
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Being rationalised?
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Who controls Internet?
Hardware: anarchy…
 Software: increasingly open-source
 Protocols: increasingly international
standards bodies
 Domain names: mixture

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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Who should control net?

No one (anarchy)
» Govts control within their country
» No one controls net as a whole
Self-appointed committees (eg, W3C)
 UN body?

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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UN Internet Agency?

Should an international body be set up
to exercise global control over the
Internet
» Control standards, domain names
» Provide open-source software
» Under UN control?
– 2005 working group, set up by sec-gen Annan

Good idea or bad idea?
Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen
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