CDAC, ICANN to Set Up Cyberattack Combat Centre

CDAC has joined hands with the US-based agency ICANN to set up a research facility that will help tackle cyberattacks and online security threats.

NEW DELHI: The Center for Development and Advanced Computing (CDAC) has joined hands with the US-based agency, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), to set up a research facility that will help tackle cyber attacks and online security threats.

The institution has been named, Center for Excellence in DNS Security. Officials from the CDAC, an agency of the union ministry of communications and IT, and the ICANN signed an expression of intent regarding the same on Thursday.

ICANN allocates web addresses and assigns unique protocol numbers on the internet. A non-profit body, it functions under a contract with the US government, where the US department of commerce vets changes and additions to top level domain names (for example, country codes like .in or .pk).

"We are always in doubt when accessing the internet whether whatever is being shared is visible to someone else. We need to dispel this fear, which is associated to the internet," said J Satyanarayan, secretary, department of telecommunications.

Much of the conversation around Thursday's announcement focused on ICANN's role in the governance and management of the internet infrastructure, and the need for an equal participation of other countries in the same. At the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) conference where the announcement for the center was made, Union communications and information technology minister Kapil Sibal stressed on a "consensual approach" in deciding the institutional framework of the internet.

"India is a natural multi-stakeholder society. It shouldn't be a huge effort [for India] to lead us in this space of multi-stakeholderism," ICANN president and CEO Fadi Chehade said at the Ficci conference, later in the afternoon.

The ICANN has been on the receiving end of criticism for its US-centric nature of operation. The organization has stepped up its drive for international engagement since the revelations of the US surveillance program by whistleblower Edward Snowden in June this year. They recently also announced three new panels on resource management and internet governance with a studied cosmopolitan constitution of members.

Last week, they urged Brazil president Dilma Rousseff to take on a more prominent role in evolving a new model of internet governance. The announcement of the India center is the latest in the series of ICANN's efforts.

Civil society activists do not read much political significance in the development. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society acknowledged ICANN's "accelerated globalization" post Snowden, but saw little political impact of this move.

"It's a small, very technical research center. It's good as long as it doesn't mean that India is okay with US oversight over the ICANN. There are still several public interest issues with the ICANN," says Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director, IT for Change, a Bangalore-based NGO involved in research and advocacy.