Internet Issues
By Mr. David M. Griffith
Stabroek News
December 1, 2006
In a previous discussion, the role of the Internet in development of the ICT sector was explored. In this article two issues of great relevance to the future of the Internet will be examined. The first of these issues is purely technical while the second is administrative.
Internet Addressing
The Internet is a humongous network consisting of many networks that span the entire globe. As in any ordinary network such as an organizational LAN, each computer, as soon as it connects to the Internet, is assigned an address called an Internet Protocol or IP address which enables it to be uniquely identified on the Internet. The DHCP server of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) is responsible for assigning this address to computers whenever a user logs on to the service. ISP's and other agencies called Local Internet Registries (LIRs) receive IP addresses from Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) which are all controlled by a corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN which has responsibility for managing the allocation and assignment of IP addresses worldwide and which functions under a charter from the US Department of Commerce.
The 32 bit IP addressing system currently in use is referred to as IPV4 and is written in dotted quad notation consisting of a series of four numbers separated by periods e.g. 192.168.220.25. There are rules governing how these numbers are allocated and the entire system is administered by ICANN. Users do not have to remember these numbers and instead use the more familiar URLs such as www.stabroeknews.com, since very large computers called name servers located throughout the Internet and equipped with name translation software, perform the task of converting URLs to IP addresses.
The existing IPV4 structure can accommodate approximately 4.2 billion unique addresses and although this seems like a very large number of addresses, they have nearly all been already assigned and as of a few years ago, it was estimated that all would be exhausted sometime between 2012 and 2015. It would not be surprising if this time frame has by now been drastically revised downwards.
IPV6 Protocol
IPV6 is an upgraded version of the IPV4 standard that uses a 128 bit address scheme that can support trillions of addresses. The actual number has been quoted as having 39 digits and is said to be capable of assigning a unique IP address to every single molecule in the universe. There are however a couple of facts about IPV6 which need to be noted. Firstly IPV6 is downward compatible, which means that equipment running that standard will be able to interact with those using the older platform. Windows 2000 and higher versions of that operating system already have software features to deal with IPV6. Unfortunately however, older computers and switching equipment such as routers will be unable to resolve IPV6, and as such users of this equipment will be unable to function in the new Internet environment. At the national level, this implies that countries which do not switch over, will be unable to get new users connected (all the IPV4 addresses would have been used up) and existing users will be greatly hampered since they will be unable to access websites and users on the new platform. In any case after full implementation of IPV6, co-existence of the two systems will only be possible for a limited period time. Clearly this is a development for which we should be planning from a national standpoint and as such should be engaging the attention of our ICT Unit.
Internet Governance
The second issue of importance that I wish to discuss is the business of Internet Governance or who should control the Internet. The Internet is to a large extent controlled by a number of committees and task forces some of which like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) deal with purely technical matters while others such as ICAAN mentioned earlier deal with various administrative issues related to running the facility. What is published on the net is largely uncontrolled, uncensored and not in any way monitored, except perhaps for material that can be directly linked to terrorist activity, child pornography and the like. There are however growing demands for the "internationalization" of Internet governance and to this end a number of governments are pressing to remove oversight from ICANN and to replace it with a UN based or some similar organization. Other countries on the other hand, are taking a more cautious approach to this issue especially since as they claim, several of those pressing for change have far from desirable records with respect to human rights and freedom of information and in fact their governments regularly interfere with the rights of their citizens in using the Internet. The two cases below portray situations in which government intervention in monitoring Internet content can be acceptable and when it is not.
The Case of Mr. Shi Tao of China
Shi Tao is a Chinese Journalist who in April 2004, used his Yahoo e-mail account to leak to a US based website, details of an internal Chinese government directive instructing journalists how to handle media coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. The government forced Yahoo China to reveal the account holder information1 and as a result Mr. Shi Tao was duly arrested, charged and one year later in April 2005, given a prison sentence of ten years for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities".
The Case of Mr. Maury Travis
The case of Mr. Maury Travis was recently featured on the popular television programme CourtTV. Police in Missouri USA were unable for a long time to make any breakthrough in solving a number of brutal murders of prostitutes. DNA analysis had indicated that these victims had all been sexually abused by the same person. In addition to those found there were several other women who had mysteriously disappeared and were feared to have been victims of the same predator.
An investigative journalist wrote a newspaper piece on one of the women and to his surprise received an unsigned letter in the mail ridiculing his article and claiming among other things that the murdered woman had gotten what she deserved. Additionally, attached to the letter was a printed map with directions to a spot where the writer claimed another body could be found.
The journalist handed everything to the police who followed the map directions and indeed recovered the body of one of the missing women. Investigations subsequently revealed that the map had been downloaded and printed from a website. Extensive research identified the website from which the map was obtained. The site server's history files were then used to identify who visited it during that period and this led to an ISP whose server records were subpoenaed and analysed. The analysis revealed the IP address of a single computer that had visited the map site on the given day and this led to the identification of a Mr. Maury Travis as the user to whom that IP address was issued on that day. When police visited Mr. Travis and confronted him with the evidence he "broke down and confessed", cursing the Internet profusely.
Most persons will agree with and support the actions taken by the US authorities to apprehend Mr. Travis and bring him to justice despite the seeming breach of confidentiality of Internet transactions.
On the other hand there has been worldwide condemnation of similar actions on the part of the Government of China in the case of Mr. Shi Tao. Indeed it is widely felt that Mr. Tao's basic human rights as well as his right to confidentiality have been seriously violated and this has provided ammunition to the growing lobby to keep government control away from the Internet
An organization called the Internet Governance Forum recently held a meeting in Athens, Greece to discuss the future of the Internet. As expected, there was strong advocacy from some countries for this body to be given legislative and decision-making powers over the Internet and equally compelling dissenting views from other countries. The next meeting of this body has been set for November 2007 in Rio de Janeiro. Internet users around the globe need to watch these developments carefully and lobby their governments to oppose efforts to control and stifle it. Given the stakes involved, it is incumbent on the world's democracies to stand firm against efforts to undermine this critical instrument of free ideas.
1 Every transaction done in cyberspace is recorded somewhere on some server or similar computer and can be retrieved.