Former US Cybersecurity Chief to Lead ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the private not-for-profit organization governing domain names, has hired former US Cybersecurity Chief Rod Beckstrom as its new CEO. He will be replacing current CEO Paul Twomey, who will remain as president until the end of the year.

Beckstorm has resigned the post he held as Director of the National Cybersecurity Centre at the Department of Homeland Security in March after less than a year at the helm. The move was in protest citing increased NSA interfering and lack of appropriate funding. While he has little actual experience in Internet domain name policies he believes it won't be a problem as the organization acts as a means to bring together different opinions and experts on the matter rather than providing the expertise itself.

Also, Beckstorm's security background should prove a valuable asset in his new position as growing threats, even at the most basic level, of the Internet's operations are becoming a concern for the organization. Before acting as US cybersecurity chief he was a chairman at Privada Inc, an Internet privacy solutions company.

ICANN was created by the US government over ten years ago to supervise and manage Internet domain names. Based in California, the organization is facing increasing pressure and some upcoming big decisions like the revamping of the domain name suffix system. The proposed move will allow for greater freedom and flexibility when creating domain suffixes; however, it has been met with much resistance especially from big companies worried they would have to buy thousands of domain names to protect their properties.

The corporation is still overseen by the US government, an agreement that will expire on September 30, and a lot of agencies and other governments [PDF]  are pushing to make the organization more open and independent.