7 Days Before Obama Gives Away Internet & National Security
In one week, President Obama will allow what remains of the United States' control over the Internet to pass to a California non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This is a reckless and dangerous decision that has serious national security consequences that have not been fully considered.
Currently, ICANN has a contract with the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to manage the naming and numbering functions associated with the Internet. The most important of these is the assignment of Internet Protocol Addresses (IP Addresses) to domain names. This is called the IANA function – Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. ICANN performs this function pursuant to its contract, then NTIA reviews the assignment, and authorizes Verisign to post the IP Address to the "A server" – the authoritative root zone server that is the "master" file of all IP Addresses. This A server is replicated to all of the other root zone servers globally on a daily basis. This is how a domain name gets online.
Domain Name -→ IP Address Assigned -→ NTIA Reviews & Authorizes -→ Verisign Posts
Thus, the integrity of every IP Address for every domain name on the Internet is under U.S. control and stewardship. The NTIA contract with ICANN expires October 1, 2016. Even though it could be extended for any period through September 2019, upon expiration, President Obama has agreed to let the Department of Commerce hand full control over the IANA functions to ICANN, effectively ceding the last control that the U.S. has over the Internet to an ambitious non-profit organization that will have no ties to the U.S. Government.
>https://www.forbes.com/sites/jodywestby/2016/09/24/7-days-before-obama-gives-away-internet-national-security/#2129f20b30d4