The potential for a fragmented global internet is a worrying topic, warns David Huberman, ICANN’s Technology Officer for Europe and North America. The industry is primarily concerned about Russia, Iran, and China when it comes to internet isolation, but Huberman didn’t elaborate on individual countries, simply stating that “these are authoritarian governments that want to control their people.” ICANN was established in 1998 and has been administering the system of international top-level domains with endings such as .com, as well as assigning IP addresses to them, with the aim of ensuring the secure and stable operation of the Domain Name System (DNS) for the internet. ICANN’s 78th Annual General Meeting is set to take place in Hamburg this October, with over 2000 participants.
Huberman addressed the issue of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stated that ICANN still opposes the exclusion of Russia from the internet, adding that “we say no. We have to remain neutral.” This comes as Ukraine demanded the exclusion of Russia from the internet during the start of the war in the country last year; a request which ICANN had previously rejected. However, according to Kristian Ørmen from the Swedish foundation Internetstiftelsen, the technical monitoring of the Domain Name System (DNS) is guaranteed, adding that “You can trust him, it’s transparent.” Ørmen is amongst a small group of computer specialists worldwide who monitor the security of the system, holding specific authorisations validating them to do so.
