Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 1 Public Policy: Control of Internet l Brief history of Internet l Hardware, Software, Standards. Domain names l Who should control the net/web?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 2 Control of Internet l Internet/Web is very important to modern life. l Who controls it? »Specifies protocols »Decides who can use/connect to it »Specifies what activities are lawful/unlawful »Gives out domain names »Taxes it »Etc.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 3 Governance l Suggested definition by World Summit on the Information Society (2005) ``Internet governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision- making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. l Ongoing interest at high-level: The Internet Govenance Forum (IGF) sponsored by UN.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 4 What is it? l Global network of computers. »The internetwork - a network of networks l Use shared protocols to communicate. » Currently, TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol Suite, l Specific services sit on top of TCP/IP.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 5 Prehistory l Telecomms networks »… »Transatlantic telephone cable 1859 »Telephone, 1876 »1909, Erlang invents Queuing Theory » s control of mainframes via terminals connected by wires. l 1950s and 60s: »US military types worry about robust comms »Engineers+others dream of possibilities

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 6 Prehistory l Packet Switching: 1960s »Transmission of data in packets of suitable, fixed size. »Paul Baran: reliable communications across unreliable network (robustness) »Donald Davies (UK): efficient use of channels (channel capacity) »Leonard Kleinrock: queuing theory of packet switchng »Optimizes latency: time for data to travel across network »First computer network implementation 1968 »First ARPANET message sent October 1969.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 7 Brief history: 1970s l ARPANet » first long-distance network » connected universities, military research labs. »US military owned and controlled it. l Protocols and standards start to develop »1974ish: Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn develop TCP/IP.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Many networks l Many more networks appeared »VNet: Internal IBM network –University offshoot: Bitnet, earn »JANet: UK universities »UUNet: cheap network formed using telephone dialup lines »Etc l Mostly , not real-time client-server

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Internet l Connected together all of these networks into a global Internet »Virtual network, which combined ARPANet, VNet, JANet, etc –ARPANet user could easily JANet, etc »Mostly based on protocols and conventions from US military »That is, everyone else changed to what the US military was doing »Everyone starts to use TCP/IP. l Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): promotes standards

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 10 Example: names l ARPANet: l JANet: l network path, »fred.bloggs!aberdeen!dundee!edinburgh »Send first to Edinburgh, then to Dundee, then to Aberdeen, then to fred.bloggs l Everyone switched to ARPANet style

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: control l Who controlled the Internet in 1980s? l No one controlled net as a whole »IBM controlled VNET »UK govt controlled JANet »UUNet nodes controlled themselves l People switched to ARPANet standards because wanted to, their choice l ARPANet replaced by NSFNet »Still US govt.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Integration l Late 1980s integration efforts succeed »1990s internet truly looks like an integrated network to its users, not patchwork of hundreds of separate networks. l Internet Service Providers (ISP) formed. »Access to internet possible not through university, research lab, military etc.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Web l WWW invented in early 1990s »Network of hypertext documents accessed via internet. »(http) Web-browsers (Mosaic, 1993) »World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, (international) quickly established to set standards –Technical: protocols, languages –Internationalization: should be accessible to all languages and cultures »Higher priority because Web invented in Europe, instead of US?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Commerce l Banned from ARPANet, then NSFNet »Some commercial ISPs and commerce on other networks. l 1992: US Congress passes Scientific and Advanced Technology Act. »Commerce then allowed.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Growth with Commerce From: Author: Ken Masters, Creative Commons Licensehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WIntHosts1981-July2011.jpg

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 16 Commercial Importance l Largely because of Web, Internet became of much greater commercial interest »Dot.com boom »Domain names selling for $s –$7.5M for business.com (more for porn.com) »Beginnings of spam

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Who in control? l Most control still resided with individual component networks. l International organisations increasingly set standards. »W3C, IETF, ICANN (later slide), ISO ( »Lawyers increasingly involved –Lawsuits on domain names; e.g., mcdonalds.com

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Internet essential l Many organizations rely on Internet »Insist that people use it. »E-govt, E-commerce, E-Science, etc. »Supply chains rely on it. »Banking, finance, payment systems. l Internet needs to work! »Must be fast, reliable, trusted, etc.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s: Attackers l Huge growth in spam »Dominates most inboxes »Makes less reliable/useful –Anti-spam systems kill real s »Also phishing (con s) l Huge growth in viruses »Many computers taken over by attackers.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen s l Companies take security seriously »1990s: Microsoft treats computer security as marketing tool, to encourage upgrades –Questionnable whether it seriously tries to make software more secure. »2000s: Microsoft takes security very seriously. »Relative obscurity of Mac OS protects it.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 21 Governance problems l Hard to stop bad guys when there is so little control over the net. »Change protocols – slow? »Spamming illegal – no international control? »Blacklist bad guys so cant use – how? l Does global Internet community have a duty to help poor countries? »E.g., help pay for E Africa fibre.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 22 What is Internet/Web l Hardware: routers, fibre-optic links, … l Software: browsers, servers, … l Standards: HTTP, HTML, … l Domain names l People and organizations

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 23 Hardware l Routers, fibre-optic links, etc still owned by individual organizations, networks. »Individuals: you own your wireless router and (say) the network in your house. »Organizations: Aberdeen Uni. owns campus Ethernet wiring. »ISP/telecom: BT owns copper wires from your house, switches. »Govt: JANet (and SuperJANet) owns link between Aberdeen Uni. and Dundee Uni.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 24 Hardware l Very diverse ownership l Internet backbone: high-speed data routes - has multiple owners l National infrastructure: LINX (more or less) provides central hardware for UK l Almost no central hardware for Internet as a whole »root nameservers (resolve domain names into IP adresses) »Provided by LINX-like national sites

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 25 LINX l London Internet Exchange » »Cooperative of UK ISPs l Interconnect point for UK ISPs, International connections l Support services: name/time server »Service to Internet as a whole

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 26 Control of Hardware l Who can plug hardware into Internet? »Anyone who can convince an organization which is currently on the net to link to you. –Person/company: convince ISP to connect you. –ISP: convince LINX to connect you. »Of course governments can regulate what happens in their countries. –Recent proposal in UK to require explicit opt-in by consumers for porn access. »Enforcement?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 27 Hardware Anarchy l Surprising it works as well as it does. »Tribute to tech-support personnel keeping their bit of the Internet going. »Even more so to inventors of packet- switching, and other robust protocols. l Lack of control helps criminals (e.g. spammers)? »Always find someone to connect them to the net.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 28 Software Environment l We need software to use the Internet and web. »Web browsers: Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, »Web server: Apache (C), Apache Tomcat (Java), »Apache Software Foundation, open community »Apache License, open source »OS support in Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux, Android, …. l Controlled by developers »Commercial: IE, Outlook, Safari, Entourage, … »Open-source: Unix, Tomcat, Firefox, …. »Mac OS and iOS commercial, but based on Unix.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 29 Control via Software l Can a commercial vendor control the Internet through its software? »If everyone uses IE, Microsoft can tweak IE to encourage people to use its products »IE bundled with Windows OS. –Antitrust case. United States vs. Microsoft ( ish). Settled with DoJ. »Recent change to IE. Default search engine. Deliberately difficult to change. »Deliberately degrade browsing on competitor websites.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 30 Control via Software l Seems less of a problem now, because of blossoming of open-source »Apache, Tomcat, Firefox, Opera, etc. l Net software becoming more of a shared resource, less of a commercial product »Much harder for one individual or organization to control!

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 31 Standards l Standards are essential to Internet »Document formats: HTML, XML, PDF, GIF »Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, … »Low-level: TCP/IP »Other: Java, Unicode, … l Who controls these?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 32 Protocols l Protocols mostly controlled by international standards orgs l W3C consortium (web) » »Most web protocols (eg, HTTP) l IETF (Internet) » »TCP/IP, other plumbing

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 33 Document Formats l W3C controls many web ones »HTML, XML, RDF, OWL, …. l Other standards bodies »PDF (open, ISO committee, since 2008), »JPEG (ISO committee, but patent situation complicated) »MPEG (ISO committee) l Some controlled commercially »WMF graphics: Microsoft l No one controls »GIF: Developed by Compuserve in 1980s, now in public domain.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 34 Commercial Formats l Is it OK for Adobe to control PDF, which is a de facto standard for the web? »Enables Adobe to sell related software? l Adobe has now made PDF an ISO standard »As of 1 Jul 2008 l Trend for most widely-used formats

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 35 Java l Who controls Java programming language? l Oracle »Bought SUN, the original developer »Hold trademark »Tried to control/restrict competitors –Especially MS –Sun vs. Microsoft –MS created C# instead… l Now moving to open-source, standards. l Apple just announced deprecation of Java. »Have to download separately with OS X 10.7.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 36 Standards l 1990s: there was a lot of concern about commercial control of standards »Java, PDF, GIF l Now trend is towards open standards controlled by international bodies.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 37 Domain Names l Who controls internet names? »Which company is business.com? l Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, »Decides on top-level domain names, such as.com »International body, not-for-profit, public-benefit, self-appointed? »IANA, part of ICANN ``The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for the global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other Internet protocol resources

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 38 Domain names l Verisign (company) controls.com »Under contract from US government. »Why should US govt control? l Nominet controls.uk »Private not-for-profit company l Country domain names often controlled by national telecomms »

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 39 Domain names l Security problems l DNS Cache Poisoning: corrupt data fed into Domain Name System – directs traffic to wrong address. l Border Gateway Protocol: handles core routing decisions. l Hijacking – corrupt routing tables of BGP: sends traffic to wrong address. l Security extensions proposed. l Only 13 DNS root name servers (logical clusters). Many in the US. Have been under DDoS attack.

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 40 Domain Name Control l Domain Name System (1983ish) l Historical artefact. »E.g., US has top-level control because we use ARPANet names l Under review?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 41 Who controls Internet? l Hardware: decentralized, anarchic l Software: increasingly open-source l Protocols: increasingly international standards bodies l Domain names: mixture

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 42 Who should control net? l No one (anarchy)? »Govts control within their country? »No one controls net as a whole? l Self-appointed committees (e.g., W3C)? l UN body?

Computing Science, University of Aberdeen 43 UN Internet Agency? l Should an international body be set up to exercise global control over the Internet? »Control standards, domain names? »Provide open-source software? »Under UN control? –2005 working group, set up by sec-gen Annan l Good idea or bad idea?