Icahn says he can’t and won’t cut Russian internet – IT Pro – News

Icann will not block Russian sites at the certificate level. The organization says it was set up to preserve the internet, not to stop it. Icann also says it does not have the technical ability to shut down the Internet.

The Internet organization writes it in Letter to Ukrainian Minister of Digital Affairs Mykhailo Fedorov† Earlier this week, Icahn asked if the organization could help shut down the Internet in Russia. Icann can do this by canceling the Russian tld .ru file, as well as the SSL certificates associated with these domains. Fedorov also asked if Icann could shut down root servers located in Russia.

Icann says he is just a “technical coordinator” who oversees various internet technologies. “In this role, we are ensuring that the operation of the Internet is not political, and we have no authority to impose sanctions,” the organization wrote. “Icann was created to make the Internet work, not to spread our coordinating role so that it stops working.”

In addition, Icann also says that it is not technically possible to block TLDs or revoke SSL certificates. For country-specific domain names, Icann can only exercise requests from the countries themselves, the organization says. “International agreements do not give ICANN the opportunity to unilaterally close these areas.” If Icann breaks those agreements, it will have a “devastating and lasting effect on trust” of the Internet. Icann also says that SSL certificates for certain domains cannot be revoked, because they are issued by third parties and for which Icann is not responsible. Icann says that the root servers are also maintained by independent administrators, so they can’t and won’t do anything about that either.