You may have heard the rumor that swirled briefly last month about an Internet “kill switch” that could power down the Web in the case of a critical cyber attack. Those rumors turned out to be largely overblown, but it turns out there are now seven individuals out there holding keys to the Internet. In the aftermath of a cataclysmic cyber attack, these members of a “chain of trust” will be responsible for rebooting the Web.
As this bit of housekeeping bounces around the wired, we'll get all the inside theories; private elite hold your cyber life in their hands, government front group steals control of net, libruls hiding the truth, wingnutters comming to your computer, whatever. Take your pick and their's probably a grain of truth to it.
The part that isn't mentioned: ICANN servers drive the name to number part of the net. You can profitably think of them as the yellow and white pages of the system. If you already know your target machine's number (the 32 bit numeric representing the target) TCP-IP will route around blockage the way it was designed for. Hardlines will be uneffected. Landlines with a modem will be pressed into use. Viagara dealers and people with amazing stock secrets will probably think up brand new work-arounds. This is one more chapter in the continuing saga of people with power attempting to concentrate it and people without finding ways to get on with their lives.
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