Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen1 Public Policy: Control of Internet l Brief history of Internet l Hardware, Software, Standards

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 1

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


Control of Internet

Internet/Web is very important to modern life. Who controls it?

» Specifies protocols» Decides who can use/connect to it» Specifies what activities legal/illegal» Gives out domain names» Taxes it???» etc


Brief history: 1970s

1970s: US military created first long-distance network, ARPANet, which connected universities, military research labs

US military owned and controlled it.


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


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


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


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


1990s: Integration, Web

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?


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


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


2000s: Internet essential

Many organisations rely on Internet» Insist that people use it» E-govt, E-commerce, E-Science, etc

Internet needs to work!» Must be fast, reliable, trusted, etc


2000s: Attackers

Huge growth in spam email» Dominates most inboxes» Makes email less reliable/useful

– Anti-spam systems kill real emails

» Also phishing (con emails) Huge growth in viruses

» Many computers taken over by attackers


2000s

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


Governance problems

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?

Does global Internet community have a duty to help poor countries?» Eg, help pay for E Africa fibre-option cable


What is Internet/Web

Hardware: routers, fibre-optic links, … Software: browsers, servers, … Standards: HTTP, HTML, … Domain names


Hardware

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


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


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


Control of Hardware

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


Hardware Anarchy 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


Software

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 ,…


Control via Software

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…


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!


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?


Protocols

Protocols mostly controlled by international standards orgs

W3C consortium (web)» http://www.w3.org/» Most web protocols (eg, HTTP)

IETF (Internet)» http://www.ietf.org/» TCP/IP, other plumbing


Document Formats

W3C controls many web ones» HTML, XML, RDF, OWL, ….

Other standards bodies» PDF, JPEG, MPEG, …

Some controlled commercially» WMF graphics: Microsoft

No one controls» GIF: Developed by Compuserve in 1980s, now in

public domain


Commercial Formats

Is it OK for Adobe to control PDF, which is a defacto standard for the web?» Enables Adobe to sell related software?

Adobe has now made PDF an ISO standard» As of 1 Jul 2008

Trend for most widely-used formats


Java

Who controls Java programing lang? Sun Microsystems

» Hold trademark» Tried to control/restrict competitors

– Especially MS, who created C# instead…

Now moving to open-source, standards


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


Domain names

Who controls internet names?» Which company is business.com?

ICANN (www.icann.org)» Decides on top-level domain names, such

as .com» International body, self-appointed?


Domain names

Verisign (company) controls .com» Under contract from US govt» Why should US govt control?

Nominet controls .uk» Private not-for-profit company

Country domain names often controlled by national telecomms» http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/


Domain Name Control

Somewhat bizarre structure Historical artefact

» Eg, US has top-level control because we use ARPANet names

Being rationalised?


Who controls Internet?

Hardware: anarchy… Software: increasingly open-source Protocols: increasingly international

standards bodies Domain names: mixture


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?


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?

Documents

Dr. Ehud Reiter, Computing Science, University of Aberdeen1 Public Policy: Control of Internet l Brief history of Internet l Hardware, Software, Standards