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DHS Wants Master Key for DNS
An anonymous reader writes "At an ICANN meeting in Lisbon, the US Department of Homeland Security made it clear that it has requested the master key for the DNS root zone. The key will play an important role in the new DNSSec security extension, because it will make spoofing IP-addresses impossible. By forcing the IANA to hand out a copy of the master key, the US government will be the only institution that is able to spoof IP addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort. There's a further complication, of course, because even 'if the IANA retains the key ... 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 [for the U.S.] 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.'"
No. It secures DNS. So you cant spoof domain names. It secures that the DNS Server is authorative so the DNS query was answered right. If somebody spoofes an IP in your network, you won't be saved.
When you pry if from my cold dead hands!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
No where in that article did it say that DNSSEC would prevent spoofed IP Addresses. This is about DNS, not about IP addresses. Also, the fact that the DHS wants they master keys does not mean they'll be able to hack into your computer without any problem. It boggles my mind that this Summary was allowed to hit the main page. wow...just wow.
The truly powerful signing key is for Windows Update. If you have that key, you can take over every Microsoft computer in the world . Change the operating system. Install anything, including a new key. Reboot the machine.
Who has that key? Do we know?
Whoever has both the DNS root key and the Windows Update signing key rules the Internet. Or at least all the Microsoft client systems. They can redirect Windows Update requests to themselves, then download their own update and have it accepted.
Unfortunately, this isn't a joke.
I still have yet to understand what fear they have of internet terrorism. When was the last time terrorists killed someone over the internet?! This sounds more like the supposedly disbanded TIA working under the guise of DHS.
By the way, how scary is it that DHS used to be the commonly used acronym associated with "Department of Human Services". And now this...
Good to know that DHS can put its hands in ANYTHING regardless of nature as long as they claim it has some association in some minor (or even non-existent but hypothetical) way.
When the story first broke about other nations wanting an independent international body to oversee the root servers and such, I was completely against it. It sounded to me like another pointless stance by the U.N., compounded by the fact that the ARPANet was invented and fleshed out here in the U.S. Not to mention the few unsavory members of the U.N. that would end up with some say as to the future of the Internet.
Now, though, I'm starting to see where I went wrong. I was assuming that the government of the United States could never be as fucked up as the one in, say, China. I was being horribly short-sighted. I should have known that this kind of shit was only a matter of time.
So how much worse could letting the U.N. have control of ICANN be than something like this? I say fuck it. Let them have it, and give it some independent oversight. For the life of me, I cannot believe that I am actually looking to foreign nations to ensure the neutrality and openness of the Internet, but there you have it.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
It isn't about terrorism at all. It is about control and about policing the rest of the world.
I hope they do that and piss off rest of the world so that they form an independent organization for such matters.