Re: Dropping support for the .ru top level domain

[Bill Woodcock <woody () pch net>]

> On Mar 12, 2022, at 11:47 AM, Patrick Bryant <patrick () pbryant com> wrote:
> Unlike Layer 3 disruptions, dropping or disrupting support for the .ru TLD can be accomplished without disrupting the 
> Russian population's ability to access information and services in the West.


Quoting from https://www.pch.net/resources/Papers/Multistakeholder-Imposition-of-Internet-Sanctions.pdf :

Revocation of country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs)
Every ISO-3166 Alpha-2 two-letter abbreviation of a national name is reserved for the use of the Internet community of 
that nation as a “country-code Top Level Domain,” or “ccTLD.” This reservation is made expressly for the Internet 
community of the nation and not the government of the nation. Geographic, political, and sociocultural allocations of 
“internationalized” top-level domains (such as “.рф” to the Russian Federation, or “.укр” to Ukraine) are made in 
parallel with the ISO-3166 mechanism.

The primary users of any ccTLD are its civilian constituents, who may be distributed globally and may be united by 
linguistic or cultural identity rather than nationality or national identity. Removal of a ccTLD from the root zone of 
the domain name system (the sanction suggested by the letter) would make it very difficult for anyone, globally, within 
Russia or without, to contact users of the affected domains, a group that consists almost entirely of Russian-speaking 
civilians. At the same time, it would have relatively little effect upon Russian military networks, which are unlikely 
to rely upon DNS servers outside their own control.

We therefore conclude that the revocation, whether temporary or permanent, of a ccTLD is not an effective sanction 
because it disproportionately harms civilians; specifically, it is ineffective against any government that has taken 
cyber-defense preparatory measures to alleviate dependence upon foreign nameservers for domain name resolution. In 
addition, any country against which this sanction was applied would likely immediately set up an “alternate root,” 
competing with the one administered by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, using any of a number of trivial means. 
If one country did so, others would likely follow suit, leading to an exodus from the consensus Internet that allows 
general interconnection.

It would break DNSSEC within .ru, and it would disrupt civilian communication within Russia.  Not a good idea.

                                -Bill

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