A letter sent to ICANN and IANA by a Ukrainian representative to the Governmental Advisory Council (GAC) of ICANN calls for urgent and strict sanctions against the Russian Federation in “the area of DNS regulation”. The letter urges ICANN to permanently or temporarily revoke the Russian top-level domains “.ru”, “.рф” and “.su” and shut down the DNS root servers located in St. Petersburg and Moscow. ICANN is also asked to help revoke SSL certificates for Russian domains. A separate request is also sent to the RIPE NCC asking it to “withdraw the right to use all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses from all Russian members of the RIPE NCC (LIR – Local Internet Registries), and to block the DNS root servers that he exploits”. .” The Ukrainian representative said that the “atrocious crimes” that have been made possible are mainly due to the Russian propaganda machinery using websites constantly spreading disinformation, hate speech, promoting violence and hiding the truth about the war in Ukraine. “The Ukrainian IT infrastructure has suffered numerous attacks from the Russian side, preventing citizens and the government from communicating.”
The Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and Parts of Central Asia (RIPE NCC) has so far taken a neutral stance and said it “does not take a position on national political disputes, international conflicts or war”.
“[I]It would be a very bad idea if ICANN were to step in and start removing entire domain extensions because of this type of request,” notes Michele Neylon, CEO and Founder of Blacknight, an Irish domain registrar and information technology company. accommodation. He writes: “The Internet is used by everyone, whether they are supporters of a regime or not, denying access to everyone in Russia would be a terrible idea for many reasons. At least it would also play into Putin’s narrative about the West and encourage him and others to push ahead with plans for alternatives to the current internet. And that’s not a good thing at all. »
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