The Great Virtual Blackout

This coming July thousands of Internet users may find themselves without service because of a US judicial decision.

Amaury E. del Valle informatica@juventudrebelde.cu 
May 30, 2012 20:48:54 CDT

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Some people believe the alarm is an exaggeration and probably it is a publicity strategy, but the fact is that thousands of computers in the world might lose their Internet connection this coming July 9.

This was the deadline the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) set to “turn off” the machines infected by malignant program DNSChanger, a Trojan that affects Windows, Mac, OS and Linux operating systems.

The virus is able to modify, in infected equipment, the DNS configuration (Domain Name Service) so they can use illegitimate servers controlled by attackers who can then access the machines.

DNS’s or Domain Names are numeric sequences that identify connected computers and servers without which it would be almost impossible to maintain their worldwide connectivity.

Although the pirate network that created the virus was dismantled last November 11th by means of an international operation named Ghost Click carried out by the FBI and a number of collaborating private companies and organizations. The effects of its actions have not been totally solved as yet.

Calculations from several sources indicate that DNSChanger altered the navigation data of about four million computers in more than one hundred countries and although most have returned to normal, many remain infected.

This harmful software is particularly dangerous because the Trojan modifies not only the DNS configuration of the infected machine, switching it from legitimate servers to manipulated ones, but also accesses the navigation routers to which it is connected and also changes the servers in such a way that every computer navigating through them is compromised.

Since the main function of this malignant program is to redirect the navigation of the “zombie” machines through bogus servers, it can open spurious sites the user does not want, and endangers the confidentiality of its information and the security of any entity.

This explains the concern of companies and governments all over the world that cooperated with Ghost Click operation to detect and stop the creators of DNSChanger.

What came as a surprise to many was that the FBI and the Justice Department were the ones to set July 9 as the deadline to shut down the infected computers. This showed --to whoever still had doubts-- who the real bosses of the Internet are.


The Zero Hour

Since the discovery of the bogus networks, created in 2007, until the capture of the creators of DNSChanger, a task force integrated by the FBI and the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) worked to launch a number of mitigation and disinfection countermeasures.

They took control over the illegitimate DNS servers and replaced them with clean and functional servers in such a way that those users that had been infected with the malware could maintain their on-line services without problems. 

The cybernetic blackout was initially planned for March 8, but pressure exerted by individual users, companies that provide services, companies and multiple entities, forced the US authorities to delay the action for 120 days.

But the zero hour will strike on July 9th, and the victims of DNSChanger –whether they know it or not- will be disconnected from the web.

There have been many criticisms of the way the US authorities have handled this virtual crisis, because even when their intentions are good, the way they go about it is not satisfactory since it subordinates the functioning of the World Wide Web to a US judicial decision.

DNSChanger has –unintentionally-- brought back the debate on Internet governance and the extraterritoriality of US laws as applied to the world information highway.

Located on US territory, the big Internet controlling companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail, among others, and the giant providers of technology such as Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett Packard or IBM, just to mention a few examples, are in practice subject to US judicial and governmental decisions.

Something similar happens to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) founded in 1998 as a nonprofit association and which according to its web site (http://www.icann.org), “groups people from all over the world whose aim is to ensure that the Internet is safe, stable and inter-operative”

Although they ensure “ICANN does not control the content of the Internet, cannot stop junk mail and does not manage Internet access”, they admit that “thanks to their coordinating function of the system of names in the World Wide Web, they have great importance in the expansion and evolution of the Internet”.

So much so that if they veto the granting of domain names or DNS’s to a given country, this would be virtually out of the web, and isolated from the whole world if we consider the importance of this international communication mechanism.

This has not happened, and almost everybody recognizes it would be totally crazy to do it. But no matter how crazy it may seem, if any US dignitary ever came up with the idea, ICANN would have to comply with the laws of the country where it is based, because no world agreement guarantees its immunity or preeminence over them, despite of the fact that everybody understands its functions are supranational

The bad “good intentions”

Many believe that it is an exaggeration to talk about the use by the US of its world power over the new information and communication technologies, especially the Internet. They think this is a hypothesis that has not become concrete.

But a few examples would suffice, among them the case of Cuba, to provide evidence of the cruel reality. So much so that the US prevented the Island from connecting to the web until 1994, and still today the Island has no direct access to the huge fiber optic cables that are only a few miles from its shores.

They have also been responsible for the excessively increased prices of Cuba’s technological purchases, because the manufacturers set additional charges in fear of US sanctions. Cuban computer users are more vulnerable to malignant programs because they must resort to spurious software copies since they cannot acquire the original software.

Whether the worldwide unplugging of thousands of computers on July 9 becomes a fact, or not, remains to be seen. However, behind the “good intentions” of the FBI and the Justice Department, we can see one more demonstration of the power that a few exert over a global tool that should be as Martí put it: “For all and the benefit of all.”