[CPWG] Are Blockchain Domains within the Mission of ICANN - WAS RE: Questions to the board about distributed DNS

[Evan Leibovitch]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 6:51 AM Chokri Ben Romdhane via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org>
wrote:

A useful article about DNS Service Model Based on Permissioned Blockchain
> The authors of this article propose a model to:
> Avoid DNS Collison and to manage DNS chain using combining cctld and gtld
> servers.
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348330406_DNS_Service_Model_Based_on_Permissioned_Blockchain
>

Hi Chokri,

Thanks for this article. It offers an interesting take on how to improve
the existing DNS's technical infrastructure using blockchain. I am not
qualified to comment on either the technical or practical suitability of
taking this from theory to reality.

However, this use of blockchain was not the source of the threats that
started this thread, which inferred not just a new technology but a direct
challenge to ICANN's management of a single DNS. The statement

*"It is quite possible that Blockchain domains present a threat to the DNS
> or certainly impacts the DNS."*
>

explicitly proposes that the threatened use of blockchain lies outside
ICANN's DNS and may indeed be *designed* to compete with it. Further
fearmongering of risk to ICANN is borne by the offer of hypothetical
scenarios such as

*"For example, will ICANN be able to delegate new TLDs in the DNS if there
> are conflicting Blockchain domains?"*
>
Just as it is vital to differentiate the different interests of registrants
and Internet end-users (which for reasons unknown has long been a challenge
to At-Large) it is also very important to separate the technical from the
political. This issue seeks only to exploit blockchain as a buzzword and a
tool of political leverage, rather than any offer of an innovative way for
ICANN to manage the DNS.

Cheers,
- Evan
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