Scaremongering and top level domains

Qian Hualin, of ICANN’s board of directors

Does registering a website under “.com” or “.net” leave one vulnerable to an American attack? In an interview with the 21st Century Economic Report, Qian Hualin, the Chinese member of ICANN’s board of directors, speaks about problems that might occur if the US decides to block access to root servers. The interview runs under the subdued headline, “ICANN director Qian Hualin: .com and .net are insecure.”

The interview is in reaction to a US annoucement that it would not be handing over control of the world’s root servers to the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Qian recommends that Chinese sites move from the TLDs administered by the US to the “.cn” domain, whose subdomains are under China’s control.

So key departments in our country, like CCTV for example, should use CCTV.cn. At the last NPC and CPPCC sessions, representatives proposed requiring CCTV to switch to the “.cn” domain.

Later on in the article, Qian is more measured than the shock headline would lead one to believe:

First, this is how America has done it all along, so there’s no reason to worry too much. Second, security is your own matter. If we all register in “.cn” it will greatly reduce the risk of encountering this problem. It’s fast, cheap, and more secure. We should do our best to avoid risks by working towards security in every way we can. Media entities across the country should use “.cn”. Third, the Internet is in widespread use, and the worldwide network ought to continue as a single unit. Setting up a second network shouldn’t be done as long as no malfunctions have occured to split up the existing network. Doing so would destabilize the Internet and do no one any good.