ICANN Writes US Government Requesting Independence

Combat Wombat writes with word that IP address and domain name overseer ICANN has put in a request to the US government, asking to be freed from ties to the United States. A 'lengthy' report was sent to the US Dept. of Commerce, and covers the numerous steps the organization has already completed along the road to independence. The BBC reports that a meeting will be held soon in response to the report, a reaction to the expected end of US control. "The meeting marks the half-way point for the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) under which ICANN was tasked to comply with a series of 'responsibilities' deemed necessary for its release from official oversight. The JPA grew out of the original Memorandum of Understanding that established Icann and signalled the beginning of the end for US control."

Re:Won't happen.

[farkus888]

a long long time ago darpa was the only entity on the internet. then universities came on, and now its everybody. if you think darpa still has their mission critical systems on the internet you are mistaken. rolling out your own backbone has become simple and cheap enough that its worth it for them for the increased security that keeping their data out of the internet cloud provides.

Re:Won't happen.

[Jesus_666]

And if the USA ever decides to use ths asset agains someone, they instantly lose it. Europe is already immune; we could just switch over to ORSN and decide to ignore US standards on IP address usage. Other regions/countries can set up alternative DNS roots as well.

ICANN is not much of an asset because the USA have to cooperate with everyone anyway, lest they want the internet to fragment.

Re:Won't happen.

[VGPowerlord]

I don't mean to sound rude, but do you actually understand where ICANN's power comes from? What ICANN inherited from IANA is this:

1. Control of the IPv4 global distribution. IANA (now ICANN) assigns IP blocks to the 5 Regional Internet Registries: ARIN (North America), RIPE (Europe), APNIC (Asia and Australia), LACNIC (Central and South America), and AfriNIC (Africa).
   
2. Control of the contents of the A root DNS server.

The control of one is used to keep control of the other. ICANN equivalents wouldn't have either of these, and thus not have either the power or the leverage to enforce their edicts.

Since ICANN controls both, wresting one of those away would be very difficult. It'd be better off trying to take away both at once. The problem then is... who would control them next?