The internet is getting a new system of global security. There are seven guardians watching over it.
The Guardian has an interesting story that reads like something out of a best selling spy thriller.
Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: seven keys, held by individuals from all over the world, that together control security at the core of the web.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers referred to as ICANN, is the private non-profit organization responsible for managing the internet's domain name system, DNS that matches the names of websites with their assigned IP address. It determines what actually happens when you click on www.dailykos.com. If somebody with a nasty sense of humor hacked this system they could send you to Free Republic. ICANN is in the process of implementing a new security system that is intended to give the system a very high level of protection. I am inclined to doubt that there is any such thing as perfect protection in a rapidly evolving tech world.
There are seven people worldwide who hold partial keys to unlock the system. They meet four times a year under elaborate security procedures to create a new master key. There are an additional seven people who serve as their backups. The reporter writing the article was allowed to attend one of these meetings. He describes the security rituals in great detail. There is also a short video of the event.
This new system should certainly improve security from your garden variety criminal hackers. I would be doubtful that it could withstand an onslaught from a determined government agency such as the NSA. If the movement to break up the internet that has been suggested by countries such as Brazil and Germany after the Snowden revelations were to take off, it would certainly change to role of centralized management services such as this.
International institutions whether they are financial or technological require trust to operate effectively. The US government has had the upper hand with the internet since much of the major infrastructure is located on US soil. The revelations about the activities of the NSA have caused much of the rest of the world to feel that the necessary trust has been betrayed. Although ICANN is not a government agency it is US based. That alone is causing some people to question these new security arrangements.