Van het net geplukt;

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/87655

Department of Homeland and Security wants master key for DNS

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was
created after the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a kind of
overriding department, wants to have the key to sign the DNS
root zone solidly in the hands of the US government. This
ultimate master key would then allow authorities to track
DNS Security Extensions (DNSSec) all the way back to the
servers that represent the name system's root zone on the
Internet. The "key-signing key" signs the zone key, which is
held by VeriSign. At the meeting of the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Lisbon, Bernard
Turcotte, president of the Canadian Internet Registration
Authority (CIRA) drew everyone's attention to this proposal
as a representative of the national top-level domain
registries (ccTLDs).

At the ICANN meeting, Turcotte said that the managers of
country registries were concerned about this proposal. When
contacted by heise online, Turcotte said that the national
registries had informed their governmental representatives
about the DHS's plans. A representative of the EU Commission
said that the matter is being discussed with EU member
states. DNSSec is seen as a necessary measure to keep the
growing number of manipulations on the net under control.
The DHS is itself sponsoring a campaign to support the
implementation of DNSSec. Three of the 13 operators
currently work outside of the US, two of them in Europe.
Lars-Johan Liman of the Swedish firm Autonomica, which
operates the I root server, pointed out the possible
political implications last year. Liman himself nomited
ICANN as a possible candidate for the supervisory function.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which
handles route management within the ICANN, could be
entrusted with the task of keeping the keys. An ICANN/IANA
solution would offer one benefit according to some experts:
there would be no need to integrate yet another institution
directly into operations. After all, something must be done
quickly if there is a problem with the signature during
operations. If the IANA retains the key, however, US
authorities still have a political problem, for the US
government still reserves the right to oversee ICANN/IANA.
If the keys are then handed over to ICANN/IANA, there would
be even less of an incentive to give up this role as a
monitor. As a result, the DHS's demands will probably only
heat up the debate about US dominance of the control of
Internet resources.