When I first started reading about this topic of seven keys to rule the Internet, the saying, “One ring to rule them all” from “The Lord of the Rings” rang in my head constantly. It really does seem like something out of a science fiction/action movie, and it makes me wonder why Hollywood hasn’t picked up on this original idea of a movie instead of recycling their old material. That’s neither here nor there. The point is there are seven people around the world who each hold a key card that when put together can shut down and restart the Internet through the Domain Name System (DNS). Before you get any ridiculous ideas or ridicule this, just let me relay what I know to you.

Four times a year, 20 people gather both on the east coast and the west in two of the most secure buildings imaginable. To get in each key holder has passcodes, biometric hand scans, actual keys, and other futuristic hoops to jump through. There are technically 14 key holders but only 7 keys, which need to be renewed every three months, and they have been meeting since 2010. Seven people hold one of the actual seven keys, while the backup key holders have smartcards that contain a fragment of code needed to build a replacement key-generating machine.

The organization in charge of these keys and the intricate ceremonies that maintain security is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). What the organization and its selected key holders are tasked with doing is making sure the Domain Name System (DNS) is safe and authentic. The DNS is basically the Internet’s phonebook that links specific web addresses to IP addresses, which is essentially the core of the Internet. The Guardian did the original reporting on this, and their explanation of IP addresses is well done.

“Without these addresses, you would need to know a long sequence of numbers for every site you wanted to visit. To get to the Guardian, for instance, you’d have to enter ‘77.91.251.10’ instead of theguardian.com.”

Each key holder is from a different corporation, organization and country worldwide in order to have all regions represented. Each assigned person is given an actual key for the ceremony that opens a safety deposit box that contains a smartcard, which activates the machine to create the new code for each master key (very lengthy process as you can see). The master keys, when put together, can activate ICANN’s database to control the Internet in case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack or something of that magnitude.

There is a debate between countries and organizations about who should control this ceremony and the database, but recent history has proven that neither all governments nor companies can be trusted with something of this magnitude. That is why ICANN has come up with this unbiased system, and also why they stream every ceremony to prove how serious they are taking it.

People in the ceremony as well as those outside of it see it as both necessary and ridiculously theatrical. Regardless of what you think, without this authenticity, fake web addresses could easily compromise both peoples’ personal security, and even hack computer systems on a much larger scale, leading to a futuristic story that we do not want to read about.