The former head of ICANN, two EU parliamentarians and a group of technical, security and legal experts are preparing to issue an open letter targeting the internet governance community, arguing that the time has come to develop an internet enforcement system. The letter, submitted as a draft to The Register, follows a request by Ukrainian government officials to revoke HTTPS certificates for all Russian web domains and other technical interventions.
Ukraine’s request for these online sanctions by ICANN and RIPE (Regional Internet Registry for parts of Europe, Middle East and Central Asia) internet governing bodies, where the penalty is too broad and has had too many undesirable consequences. It was rejected on the grounds that it would open.
- Rejection of Request to Sanction Russia’s Internet
But the signatories of the letter (Dutch EU parliament member Bill Groothuis; Bill Woodcock, executive director of Packet Clearing House; ICANN Ihab Osman, independent director of Germany, Felix Reda, former member of the EU parliament; Mike Roberts, founding president and former CEO of ICANN; Jeff Moss, chairman of DEF CON; Niels ten Oever, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Amsterdam; Runa Sandvik, Kurt Opsahl, security researcher and vice president and general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that something needs to be done.
The signatories say the internet management community has reached a level of maturity that comes with a responsibility to think about how to respond to humanitarian crises. They say the letter represents the beginning of a global internet governance conversation about the appropriate scope and feasibility of internet sanctions.
In the letter, “Although the special sanctions proposed by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine are overly extensive and will harm civilians, current forms of internet abuse such as spam, malware, phishing and cyber attacks are controlled and these mature mechanisms are in place,” the letter states. “We believe there are well-established mechanisms that can be easily extended to forward specific IP addresses and domain names of sanctioned entities.”
The letter also draws attention to the following words: “In the event of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the Russian army, propaganda organs and any dual-use facility should be covered, the civilian population excluded. Sanctions, proportionality, effectiveness, applicability and must meet the tests for reversibility and moderation.”
The group proposes the establishment of a multi-stakeholder mechanism. This mechanism, after negotiation and consensus, will publish the approved IP addresses and domain names in public statements. Organizations that subscribe to these notices can then choose to comply with sanctions, thereby limiting access to identified resources.
The letter ends with the words: “We invite our colleagues to engage in a multi-stakeholder negotiation using the mechanism outlined above and to decide whether IP addresses and domain names of the Russian military and propaganda bodies should be sanctioned, and for timely decisions of similar weight and urgency in the future.” We invite you to lay the groundwork.”
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