[CCWG-ACCT] what ICANN can't regulate (was Re: Board comments on the Mission statement)

Eric Brunner-Williams ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Fri Nov 20 20:00:33 UTC 2015


On 11/20/15 9:56 AM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Another is to
> register a domain name and offer a service there.  I_think_  this is
> what we're trying to prevent ICANN regulating

Recall, when we realized what the Conficker.C mechanism for rendezvous 
was registering domain names and offering a service there, the service 
being a series of rendezvous points for the nodes participating in the 
distributed system, "we" did "something".

For our purposes today, we can identify "we" with the Corporation's 
efforts, lead by John Crain, and the Community, consisting of several 
ccTLD operators and others, including at least one Contracted Party.

For our purposes today, we can identify tasking registries to block the 
known computed strings the .C variant would attempt to register, and 
altering the A records of strings already registered and published, and 
ancillary communications.

We could point to the .C's anticeedents (which did not use the DNS to 
construct rendezvous points in real time) and sundry violations of 
national laws, which would get us off the hook, but suppose all we had 
to go on was the behavior of the .C system, like the Moris Worm system, 
of acquisition of uncontested devices -- its growing like topsy, but it 
isn't (yet) breaking any laws written for simpler criminal repurpose of 
connected devices.

Were we mistaken to have interdicted the .C variant's use of domain 
names as rendezvous points, its reconstitution infrastructure, or was 
our action correct?

Did contracts protect our conduct, or national law?

If neither is sufficient, what else could permit us to interpose on some 
distributed system?

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon


More information about the Accountability-Cross-Community mailing list