Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Seven (7) Keymasters Entrusted with Encrypted Smart Cards to Restart Internet if DNSSEC is Damaged in Disaster

Click this picture or this link for a discussion on these "keys" by Vint Cerf, the "Father of the Internet"

This story about the seven (7) "keymasters" sounds too crazy to be true, so that means it is probably true. If the Internet is ever disabled from some disaster, five (5) of these seven (7) people will be needed to reboot the Internet like some super cyber Wonder twins times 2 and a half. I have no idea what type of disaster would be able to take out the entire Internet architecture without also destroying most of the humanity, so this project doesn't really make any sense.
Paul Kane - who lives in the Bradford-on-Avon area - has been chosen to look after one of seven keys, which will 'restart the world wide web' in the event of a catastrophic event.

Mr Kane, based at the University of Bath's SETsquared Innovation Centre, will be the key holder for Western Europe. Six other people from across the globe have also been asked to look after a key.
And like something out of the Simpsons episode "...The Curse of the Flying Hellfish," these keymasters will meet in some secure location to unite their keycards in order to reboot the 'Net'.
The basic idea is that in the event of an Internet catastrophe, the DNSSEC (domain name system security) could be damaged or compromised and we'd be left without a way to verify if a URL is pointing to the correct website. That's when the holders of these smart cards would be called into action...
Source: BBC; Gizmodo

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