The Guardian newspaper was able to attend what is known as the key ceremony, which is like an official meeting organized by ICAN, the organization responsible for registering domain names and managing Internet addresses.
ICANN has a database containing domain names and corresponding IP numbers to those domains, meaning instead of using the IP number to access any website, the user writes the domain name because it is easier to memorize, and ICANN is the one that tells the browser that this domain name corresponds and matches a specific IP number.
If anyone was able to access the ICANN database, he could actually control the entire Internet. For example, he could change the IP number of any website with the domain name that matches it. For example, he could make people enter the Google website to navigate the browser and display the Facebook website, but the domain The browser's registry is the Google domain.
This opens the door wide for hackers. Imagine if you typed the website of your bank or PayPal into the address bar and directed the browser to a forged website with the same design as the requested site. This error in orientation is the result of a change that occurred in the ICAN database.
If ICAN's database was hacked and tampered with, the organization would have to rebuild the base again, so it came up with a way to make it very difficult for anyone to hack it, by choosing seven people to give each one a real key, and choosing seven other people to give them. Back up copies of those keys.
Each of these real keys opens one of seven boxes hidden around the world, and inside each box there are smart cards. When the seven boxes are opened with the seven keys and you get the seven smart cards together, what is known as the master key is formed, and it works like a computer code, that is, like... Passwords that can be used to log into ICAN's database.
The Seven Keyholders have been meeting four times a year since 2010 and a special ceremony is held to change the master key, as if creating a new password for the database.
In the place where people carrying the keys meet, strict security measures are applied, as there are locked doors that can only be opened with the keys they have, there are scanning devices, and even the room in which they meet is isolated from communications.