美国为何放弃网络域名管理权

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    This post is in partnership with Time, which offers the latest news from around the world. The article below was originally published at Time.com

    美国政府上周五宣布将放弃对互联网域名管理技术职能的控制。上周末，外界对这项声明的评价褒贬不一。如果进展顺利的话，美国政府的此次放权应该不会影响用户的日常上网体验，但它标志着互联网的进化迈出了重要的一步。

    虽然美国一直打算放弃对互联网域名的管理监控职能，但这个举动还是引起了一些批评，有人担心此举或将对互联网的自由开放埋下隐患。与此同时，美国的这份声明也得到了包括谷歌（Google）、康卡斯特（Comcast）、美国电话电报公司（AT&T）和威瑞森电信（Verizon）等几大主流科技公司的积极回应。

    互联网的起源要追溯到上世纪60年代初。当时，在美国政府的资助下，美国国防部高级研究计划局（DARPA）发起的“ARPANET”项目得以发展起来。ARPANET最终与其它政府机构、学术机构和科研机构的网络形成连网，组成了一张“网络的网络”，成为现代互联网的雏形。

    从那时起，美国政府就担负起了互联网地址分配的主要监管职能，也就是负责管理大家耳熟能详的域名系统（DNS）。它可以将数字形式的网络地址解析成人们可以识别的网站名称——比如time.com。十多年来，一直是一家名叫互联网名称与数字地址分配机构（ICANN）的非盈利组织根据美国国家电信和信息管理局（NTIA）的外包合同履行域名的管理职能。

    《网络治理全球战争》（The Global War for Internet Governance）的作者、美利坚大学（American University）教授劳拉•蒂娜迪斯指出：“DNS系统就像一个电话簿，如果你知道某人的名字，你就可以找到他的电话号码，给他打一个电话。大多数人都认为这是理所当然的事，因为他们没有意识到背后有这么一个基础架构支撑着互联网的运行。”

    谁将取代美国政府的职能继续管理网络DNS？这个问题目前还是个未知数。但美国政府已经明确表示，它“不会接受由一个政府领导的组织或政府间组织来替代NTIA职能的提议”。原因是美国不希望任何一个或几个政府（比如联合国下属的国际通讯联合会）对互联网管制施加不当影响。

    蒂娜迪斯对《时代》杂志表示：“我们需要对网络域名和数字地址进行某种集中协调，因为每个域名和数字地址在全球必须都是唯一的。必须有人来确保网络地址不会出现重复。最好是多个利益相关者都扮演一定的角色，形成某种力量平衡。”

    The U.S. plan to relinquish stewardship of key technical functions that ensure the Internet runs properly drew praise and criticism over the weekend. If the process goes smoothly, it shouldn't affect the day-to-day Internet experience for users, but the shift, which was announced Friday by U.S. officials, represents an important development in the evolution of the Internet.

    Although the U.S. has long intended to give up its role overseeing the system of managing Internet domain names, the proposed transition has already attracted critics who fear that the Internet's free and open nature could be jeopardized. At the same time, the plan has received positive feedback from several major technology companies, including Google, Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

    The origins of the Internet date back to the early 1960s, when the U.S. government funded research that led to the development of "ARPANET," which was established by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ARPANET was eventually connected to other government, academic and research networks, forming a "network of networks" that would ultimately become known as the Internet.

    Since then, the U.S. government has played a key oversight role in the distribution of numbers that make up Internet addresses, as well as the Domain Name System (DNS) that translates those numerical addresses into recognizable Internet names like time.com. For more than a decade, the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has performed those functions under a contract from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

    "The DNS is similar to a phone book, where if you know someone's name, you can find their number and place a call," says Laura DeNardis, a professor at American University and the author of The Global War for Internet Governance. "Most people take this for granted because they're not aware of the technical architecture behind the curtain that's needed to keep the Internet going."

    It remains unclear what kind of entity will assume stewardship of the Internet DNS, but the U.S. has made clear that it will "not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution." That's because the U.S. does not want any single government or coalition of governments, like that represented by the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU), to exert undue influence over Internet governance.

    "We need to have some kind of centralized coordination of names and numbers, because each name and number has to be globally unique," DeNardis tells TIME. "Someone has to keep track to make sure there's not duplication of addresses. The best case scenario is a balance of power in which multiple stakeholders play a role."