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ICANN won’t revoke Russian Internet domains, says effect would be “devastating” [arstechnica.com]:

Ukraine's request to cut Russia off from core parts of the Internet has been rejected by the nonprofit group that oversees the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). CEO Göran Marby of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) said the group must "maintain neutrality and act in support of the global Internet."

"Our mission does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the Internet—regardless of the provocations," Marby wrote in his response to Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov [icann.org]. "ICANN applies its policies consistently and in alignment with documented processes. To make unilateral changes would erode trust in the multi-stakeholder model and the policies designed to sustain global Internet interoperability."

Ukraine on Monday asked ICANN [eump.org] to revoke Russian top-level domains such as .ru, .рф, and .su; to "contribute to the revoking for SSL certificates" of those domains; and to shut down DNS root servers in Russia. Fedorov argued that the requested "measures will help users seek for reliable information in alternative domain zones, preventing propaganda and disinformation."

ICANN was “built to ensure the Internet works”

Experts warned [arstechnica.com] that granting Ukraine's request would harm Russian civilians, have little impact on Russia's government and military, and fail to achieve the goal of countering propaganda. Marby agreed with that assessment, telling Fedorov in his response:

As you have said in your letter, your desire is to help users seek reliable information in alternative domain zones and prevent propaganda and disinformation. It is only through broad and unimpeded access to the Internet that citizens can receive reliable information and a diversity of viewpoints. Regardless of the source, ICANN does not control Internet access or content.

While "ICANN and its global community are aware of and concerned about the terrible toll being exacted against your country," ICANN itself has "no sanction-levying authority," Marby wrote. "Essentially, ICANN has been built to ensure that the Internet works, not for its coordination role to be used to stop it from working."

“Devastating” effect on global system

Regarding the request to revoke top-level domains, Marby wrote that "globally agreed policies do not provide for ICANN to take unilateral action to disconnect these domains as you request. You can understand why such a system cannot operate based on requests from one territory or country concerning internal operations within another territory or country. Such a change in the process would have devastating and permanent effects on the trust and utility of this global system."

Marby's response to the request to shut down DNS root servers in Russia was brief, saying that the "root server system is composed of many geographically distributed nodes maintained by independent operators." Concerning Ukraine's other request, Marby wrote that ICANN does "not have the ability to revoke the specific SSL certificates for the domains you mentioned. These certificates are produced by third-party operators, and ICANN is not involved in their issuance."

Marby's denial of Ukraine's request cited the decentralized nature of the Internet. "No one actor has the ability to control it or shut it down. ICANN's primary role, through the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), is to ensure the consistent and unique assignment of Internet identifiers in line with global policies," Marby wrote.

"These policies were developed by a multi-stakeholder community that includes technical experts, businesses, academics, civil society, governments, and other stakeholders who worked collaboratively to solve policy and technical challenges through consensus," Marby continued. "It is a model that has allowed the Internet to flourish over decades, and this broad and inclusive approach to decision-making fosters the global public interest and makes the Internet resilient against unilateral decision-making."

Though ICANN won't sever DNS links, that doesn't mean Russians have unfettered access to the Internet. Russia is reportedly blocking Twitter, Facebook, various news sites, and major app stores, as we wrote earlier today [arstechnica.com]. Separately, US-based Internet backbone operator Cogent Communications is reportedly [washingtonpost.com] cutting off service in Russia in a move that could cause some outages and poor network performance.

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Ukraine asks ICANN to revoke Russian domains and shut down DNS root servers [arstechnica.com]:

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 [eump.org], and ICANN has confirmed that it received the letter.

Several Internet experts say that granting Ukraine's request would be a bad idea. Executive Director Bill Woodcock of Packet Clearing House [pch.net], an international nonprofit that provides operational support and security to Internet exchange points and the core of the domain name system, wrote a Twitter thread [twitter.com] calling it "a heck of an ask on the part of Ukraine. As a critical infrastructure operator, my inclination is to say 'heck no' regardless of my sympathies."

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. ICANN has previously explained [icann.org] that "root servers respond to DNS lookup requests made by DNS resolvers generally operated by Internet service providers."

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 [ripe.net] (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre) is the regional Internet registry.

Cutoff would make sites unreachable and reduce security

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 [pastebin.com] 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 [reuters.com], 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."

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