[kijeda]

The "keys to the Internet" is a misnomer. He is a "recovery key shareholder", which means he holds a smart card in an m-of-n configuration that allows ICANN to decrypt a backup of the Root Zone Key Signing Key in a disaster recovery scenario should the KSK need to be rebuilt.

The primary roles are the cryptographic officers, these are Internet community members who attend key signing ceremonies to observe use of the KSK.

Here are a list of the trusted community representatives: https://www.iana.org/dnssec/tcrs

[zcdziura]

> The primary roles are the cryptographic officers, these are Internet community members who attend key signing ceremonies to observe use of the KSK.

While I realize those key signing ceremonies are probably just a bunch of people sitting around playing games on their phones, waiting around for their turn to give their keys to someone who's typing in all of the appropriate commands, I want to believe they're in some sort of dungeon, wearing black, hooded robes and chanting Gregorian chants while doing it.

I dunno, maybe I'm just weird.

[kej]

It's a little more interesting than your guess, but not quite as cloak and dagger as it could be.

Here's a good article about the ceremony itself: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/28/seven-peop...