War and the internet
What mustn't the internet community do? And what can it do?
In the last week of February, the Russian armed forces invaded Ukraine. Within days, amid fears of the conflict spreading to EU and NATO members states, much of the world was preoccupied with this new crisis. Global condemnation and sanctions fell on Russia. At the time of writing, however, this had not led to de-escalation. The conflict has already claimed thousands of civilian and military victims and millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes, leaving everything behind. An exodus on an unprecedented scale.
Within our industry too, the response has been disbelief and horror. Ukrainian internet organisations have received offers of help from all sides. In addition to complying with the mandatory sanctions, many organisations and companies around the world have voluntarily restricted or terminated trade or cooperation with Russian authorities, companies and citizens.
The internet sector's involvement. Act? Or protect?
However, the Ukrainian government's formal request that ICANN and RIPE-NCC should, respectively, revoke the .ru, .рф and .su domains and withdraw IPv4 and IPv6 addresses issued to Russian members, have been rejected. The main arguments for rejection were:
ICANN and RIPE-NCC were created to ensure that the internet works; and not for a role in stopping it from working
The absence of a mandate as a private party to make such a decision unilaterally
The internet infrastructure should not be used as a means to impose sanctions
The limited effectiveness of the requested sanctions in combination with a much broader negative effect on the functioning of the internet
The proposed measures could lead to erosion of trust in the multi-stakeholder model and to fragmentation of the internet
This request, and the responses from ICANN and RIPE NCC to it, fuelled the discussion about what our sector can do and who should decide on that. Opinions on what to do range from "nothing at all, we must at all costs ensure that everyone, always and everywhere has access to all information on the internet” to “cutting off everything Russian, even if well-meaning Russian citizens suffer from that and even if the proper functioning of the internet is adversely affected.”
Staying neutral is also a choice, but for whom and what?
I regard both opinions set out above as unworkable extremes. However, within many organisations and collaborative structures associated with the internet infrastructure, the first position seems to prevail so far. In the words of RIPE NCC: [we believe] “that the means to communicate should not be affected by domestic political disputes, international conflicts or war.” More a vain hope than a workable conviction, as witnessed by the images of the smoking communications tower in Kyiv, for example. And one that makes me wonder whether there has ever been a war that did not affect communication capabilities in any way. The view communicated by RIPE NCC seems to place the internet and its infrastructure above or beyond everything, even in the event of a war that has the potential to escalate to a global scale.
Target and weapon, but not an instrument?
In reality, the internet is regarded by the aggressor as a target (the infrastructure in Ukraine, for example) and used as a weapon (launching DDoS attacks on foreign entities and targeting Russian military personnel and civilians with disinformation). In such a situation, taking the position that the internet cannot and may not be used for sanctions benefits the aggressor and is therefore by consequence far from being a neutral position.
What is possible?
As mentioned earlier, the internet sector is offering help to Ukraine in all kinds of ways. But what about the aggressor? Cutting Russia off from the internet, even if that were possible, is likely to do more harm than good. Within Russia, workarounds would soon be found, creating ample room for propaganda and disinformation, and cutting off access to information from outside the country. Taking the Russian country-code domains offline is also not an option at this time, though one could wonder to what extent they still provide access to non-Russian information sources.
An international group of internet experts, politicians and others have written an open letter addressing the global internet community, in which they -in short- try to answer the questions: What mustn't the internet community do? And what can it do? In response to the second question, they propose the option of compiling a list of IP addresses and domain names used by the Russian military and propaganda websites. Such a list could then be provided to network operators in the same way as lists used to block spam, malware and DDoS attacks are. I am, on behalf of SIDN, one of the signatories to the letter. Because I believe that neutrality is not an option now. Every small contribution makes a difference, and our sector can and must contribute to sanctions against Russia. The proposed measure is in line with established working methods within our sector, and the necessary technology is already available and in use. It is by no means a silver bullet; no sanction of any kind is. But it's a small contribution that can make a difference. And it's a step in the right direction. Because I am convinced that there are more such contributions to be made.
