DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE - 10/6/2016

Welcome to the first edition on the weekly tech update. This is meant to be a newsletter that expands on the news we deliver through Daily Tech Headlines and Daily Tech News Show.

I'll be trying out some things at the start here, so please keep the feedback coming at patreon.com/dtns. It's most helpful if you comment on the post for the edition of the update you're talking about.

Let me know what you like, what you don't and what you find useful.

To start this week I'll give you an overview of the essentials and a longer look at one story. This week that longer look is at the ICANN handover.

ESSENTIAL TECH

Google announced it's new hardware strategy this week with two Pixel Phones, the Google Home connected speaker, Google WiFi mesh wirless routing, Chromecast Ultra in 4K and the DayDream View VR headset for the Pixel phones (to start).

Beyond the products themselves this signifies the shift of Google to control the hardware and software process end to end. Google will manage the design, supply chain and carrier relationships for the phone. And they'll be hoping to get you to use Home, Orb and WiFi to manage your home. Google may feel they've gone as far as they can on getting you to use their software and data through search and the next logical step is to access that software and data with their own hardware.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37551413

Oculus also had a press announcement this week introducing new lower specs for the Oculus Rift, a VR browser, $49 optimized VR earphones, the $199 Oculus Touch controls and whole room VR with an additional $79 camera. Mark Zuckerberg also indicated Oculus is prototyping a standalone VR headset that does not need to be tied to a computer.

Suddenly Oculus feels like it's playing catchup with HTC Vive. The underlying theme of the announcement though was that VR can be social, showing a lot of avatars and "real world" VR settings.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/6/13189878/oculus-connect-3-2016-news-vr-virtual-reality

Internet.org announced the winners of its Innovation challenge in Africa. Esoko connects businesses, governments and NGOs with farmers. mPedigree Goldkeys provides verification to prevent sales of counterfeits in areas like cosmetics, seeds and pharmaceuticals. SaferMom delivers health info to pregnant and new mothers. Hyperion Development is a platform for computer science education. Mutti by mPharma connects patients with affordable medicine. And Tuteria connects students with tutors, coaches, instructors and mentors.    

http://www.biztechafrica.com/article/announcing-winners-internetorg-innovation-challeng/11813/

CLOSER LOOK - ICANN AND THE GREAT DOMAIN NAME CONTROVERSY

A lot of controversy has followed a small change on last Saturday regarding how the Domain Name System is managed.

I'll state the change in one sentence then explain some more:

As of Saturday, changes to one file, (the root zone file) which is maintained by Verisign, no longer need to be rubberstamped by the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

OK so what happened?

This all has to do with managing the root zone file that underlies the domain name system. What's the root zone file? Well, let's start with domain names. Different entities manage each domain name, like .com, .gov, .tv etc.

Those domains have files that list what domains go with what IP addresses. That's the Domain Name System. So if you type in dailytechnewsshow.com that's translated into an IP address for a particular server that will know to serve up that website.

OK so the Root zone file notes what servers have the info for what top level domains. Oversimplified, it basically says, "Oh you want dailytechnewsshow.com? well this is the server that has all the .com domain names, go look there."

So, when the administrator of say .eg domain changes a server or something they'll want to note that in the root zone file. But you can't just let the root zone file be edited by anyone or you mess up the domain name system. You need someone to make sure the form was filled out correctly before you implement the change.

To ensure that, the process used to be like this:

1. Administrator of .eg sends a root zone change request to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
2. ICANN would send the request along to Verisign, who is contracted to administer the root zone file.
3. ICANN would ALSO send the request to the National Telecommunications Infrastructure Agency (NTIA) which reviewed the change to make sure it followed protocol and approved it. This is the NTIA operating what's called the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
3. Once rubberstamped by the NTIA, Verisgn would implement the change.

Friday, the contract between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce over IANA operation principally of the Domain Name System ended. Starting October 1, the IANA is a subsidiary of ICANN.

WHAT CHANGED

So here's the new procedure

1. Administrator of .eg sends a root zone change request to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
2. ICANN reviews the change to make sure it follows protocol and approves it. This is ICANN operating the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
3. ICANN sends to Verisign which implements the change.

So the big thing that changed last Saturday is that ICANN is now trusted to check that protocol is followed when a domain name administrator wants to update the root zone file. That's it.

WHAT DIDN'T CHANGE

The United States still has a lot of leverage over the Domain Name System. Much more leverage than it had in rubbertsamping root zone file changes at the NTIA. The only time the US tried to materially effect domain name issues anyway was in objecting to .xxx. It lost that battle even with operation of the IANA .

Here's the leverage the US still has.
- Verisign (in Virginia) continues to hold an indefinite contract to operate the root zone for the IANA. (This endless contract is governed by US law. Verisign can only lose the right if it doesn't perform the duties.) That means the administrator of the root zone file is goverened by US law. Pretty much forever. So really the US still has all the power it needs over that root zone file. If it wanted it for some reason.
- The US Government will continue to administer .mil, .gov, .us, and .edu. They didn't lose any 'property.' All the domains the US ran before, it still runs.
- The US government will continue to be able to order .org .com and .net domains blocked because the companies (Virginia's Verisign manages .net and .com Virginia's Public Internet Registry operates .org) that administer those domains (NOT ICANN OR IANA) are US companies goverened by US law.
- The US will continue to have international cooperation agreements that allow it to block other domains operating outside the US.

But ICANN is now governed by a multistakeholder model right instead of the by the US?
- That's not a change. Multi-stakeholders have always driven ICANN decision-making and continue to do so. Only the IANA's protocol check was not under ICANN and its multistakeholder model. Now it is

WHAT IS A MULTISTAKEHOLDER MODEL?

So who are these stakeholders? Russia? China? A presidential candidate's nonprofit foundation?

No. It's you and me. It's a combination of Internet users, administrators and some governments. This model has been running most of the Internet for decades. The Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and ICANN continue protocols agreements, policies and oversight as before.

ICANN has extended it's model to the IANA and added a few things specific to it.
- A Customer Standing Committee now monitors IANA. That means the people who actually run the domain systems monitor what happens now.
- A multistakeholder review process has been set up to evaluate and report on the performance of the naming functions.
- For the first time there is now a Service Level Agreement (SLA) set up with the Regional Internet Registries to make sure things are running smoothly.
- ICANN operates an open process that *anyone* can participate in. That means you

OK BUT YOU SAID GOVERNMENTS!!
- 160 governments act in an advisory role on one committee that must come to a consensus before it issue advice. Yes 160 world governments have to all agree on something before they can express their opinion about it to ICANN. That's the government influence.

THE END OF THE PERCEPTION

So let's go back to the fact that the US NTIA was only rubberstamping protocol. If it was such a small deal, why bother changing it?

Well that's because the fact that the US had even a small amount of involvement was depicted as "US influence"

To "solve" this influence, some countries wanted to fundamentally change the way ICANN worked. There was a move to put it under UN control. That would have meant the governments go from a limited consensus-driven advisory role, to directly overseeing ICANN. That would mean the US, Russia, China, whatever country you're worried about, would have a direct role not a limited advisory role.

So removing the NTIA from it's rubberstamping job, removed the US from any connection to the IANA or ICANN and removed the objection about perceived US influence. That particular leverage to argue that ICANN should move under the UN is now gone.

So that's it. The IANA folks who checked to make sure the forms were filled out correctly now work for ICANN instead of the IANA. And no country gets to argue that they should have more control over ICANN. Unless they can get all 159 other countries to agree with them. And then it still be just an advisory opinion.

And the Internet works exactly like it did Friday.