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I've read several articles, but I'm still having trouble understanding the reasoning, or even the technical details.
Does anyone understand what's going on?
What exactly is wrong with the current setup?
I would greatly appreciate an informed opinion.
I think a lot of politicians (ahem Ted Cruz) are trying to frame the transition in a shadowy way to discredit the current administration, but its simply a procedural thing thats been in the works for a long while.
In addition, ICANN the organization will have new accountability measures that will allow the community to challenge decisions it makes. It provides new powers like spilling its Board under certain circumstances.
One of the main drivers to change the current setup is NTIA's role above is seen as undue US government influence in what should be a purely technical operation by many. Over the years some have advocated fundamentally altering how ICANN works (like moving it to the UN) because of the US Government's influence. By transferring the primary oversight role to the multi-stakeholder community (users, business, non-profits, etc.) who have always really driven ICANN's decisions anyway, it is hoped that that criticism will go away and pressure to fundamentally alter how it works will dissipate.
Agreed, the blackout on HN regarding the ICANN transfer is very, very strange.
What exactly was wrong with the 1998 setup? ISI and Jon Postel were managing fine back then.
I also don't recall a "US control over ICANN" that could be "relinquished" being part of the original ICANN proposal. I don't think that would have gone over well with the European operators at the IETF meetings. If it had been they probably would have stuck with the CCITT's x.25 networks, Minitel and such.
In operational practice, very little will change. The staff who perform the IANA function of managing the DNS Root Zone etc. will continue to do the same job, although those staff will now work in a separate subsidiary of ICANN. One operational change will be NTIA, an agency of the Department of Commerce, will no longer be required to authorize every change to the root zone in advance. In addition, ICANN the organiza…
As you say the actual running of ICANN/IANA and the internet at large is really managed under a multi stake holder model and is very inclusive and diversified.
Arguments to the contrary are typically FUD.
ICANN has a list of squashed conspiracy theories. https://www.icann.org/iana-stewardship-questions
But for many years no one did this, except very rarely. And the honors were left to some folks in the US, IANA/ICANN. Do not be fooled by the acronyms and the fabricated processes and formalities on the official websites. IANA was essentially one person. Bless the hearts of those who worked to create the early internet but these "organizations" derive their "authority" from nowhere. The internet is an abstraction, a term to describe different networks that cooperate.
The generally static nature of the root.zone file changed recently. It has doubled, maybe tripled in size and is now filled with TLDs such as .loans and .cologne. As well as trademarks such as .google, .microsoft, etc. These can also capture traffic from users who type strings into address bars that are not FQDNs.
ICANN charged $85K+ just to bid on these beauties; they made some very easy money. Most of them are worthless. Exit time for ICANN. :)
Now that it is filled with garbage, and perhaps anticipating some finger-pointing, it is time to acknowledge that the root.zone belongs to everyone and is managed by all countries of the world, not only the US.
The "transfer". More fabricated formalities.
The truth is that anyone can exercise control over the root.zone file, and anyone can serve it. Whether you choose to follow them or not is up to you. (Most users just let default DNS settings decide this for them.)
Similar to the early IANA, one person can do this job. I maintain and serve my own root.zone. I am the only user but there could just as well be hundreds of users. This could grow to thousands which could grow to millions which could grow to hundreds of millions which could grow to...
This is what happened with the DNS. It started out small and grew big. Believe it or not it is still not that big. I could fit all domain names in existence on consumer-sized storage media.
Thus concludes an opinion. Mildly informed.
This is the primary issue I have with every single one of ICANN's rebuttals[1]: nothing will change (so they say), and yet, here we are, making a change.
Okay, then, here's a stupid question: why is a change being made? Ted Cruz may be an ass, but that doesn't make ICANN's position correct.
If nothing will change, they guess what? No change is necessary. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If something will change, then ICANN should be entirely up front about what that change exactly is. Instead, we get a bunch of denials that nothing will change, the US has no current role anyway, yadda yadda yadda, but serious you guys, we have to change this right now.
We're talking about managing the DNS system here, that's not an "insignificant" thing, as other commenters have suggested.
Yes, existing ASes can already block specific domains today. Fine. But ICANN could easily become a Title IX-type situation, where ASes are forced to block specific domain names in order to remain part of the global Internet system.[2]
It's true it doesn't police ASes that direction today, under the existing ICANN governance model, but there's (to my knowledge) no reason why that couldn't be true today (under US control), and I see no reason why adding "more stakeholders" will make the situation any less likely in the future. If anything, it makes it more likely: look at the UN. Certainly ICANN itself doesn't think it's any less likely, but here's what they don't say: with this change, it'll be extremely hard for US citizens to fix if it does come about. That's not "insignificant" to me.
[0] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/y2k-2-0-is-the-us...
[1] https://www.icann.org/iana-stewardship-questions
[2] For instance, consider how the US Justice Dept. is using "Dear Colleague" letters in 2016 to force schools to adopt a less-rigorous sexual assault policy or face loss of federal funding. ICANN could apply similar pressure to ASes in the future (not funding, but zone updates or whatever).