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Mystical Cabal of Seven Actually Hold the Keys to the Web

by Terrence O'Brien on July 27, 2010 at 06:00 PM

The Seven Keys to save the Web
In the 1960s, Vint Cerf and other researchers at DARPA created ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet (and the precursor to their insane penchant for acronyms). In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee gave birth to the World Wide Web. In 1998, ICANN was formed to govern and protect the Web.

So in 2010, ICANN, realizing that the Internet was under constant threat from hackers, malware and rogue governments, entrusted a group of seven with the key to saving the Web in the event of a cyber-crisis.

It may read like the plot of a Super Nintendo RPG, but it's true. ICANN has entrusted seven people with portions of the root key needed to access the heart of the Internet. In the event of an emergency, such as a cyber-terrorist attack, the holders of the keys (which are sealed in tamper-proof bags [Ed. Note: Tamper-proof bags? Like those hard-to-open chip sacks?]) would convene at a secure U.S. location. There, they would combine their portions of the root key and initiate a reboot of the entire Internet. Among those entrusted with the keys are Vint Cerf (so-called father of the Internet), British businessman Paul Kane and U.S.-based security researcher Dan Kaminsky. These three, along with four others, are literally our last line of defense in the event of a cyber-emergency. Let's just hope none of them are secretly double agents working for an evil cabal of hackers/wizards looking to sink the planet back into the dark ages. [From: BBC News, New Scientist and DNS Community]

Tags: Cyber-terrorism, dan kaminsky, DanKaminsky, DARPA, icann, internet, paul kane, PaulKane, security, TimBerners-lee, top, VintCerf

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