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Who Really Controls the Internet—And Why It Matters | 25
Cyber leadersPublished 12 Dec 2025
In this episode, Ciaran and James speak with Emily Taylor of Oxford Information Labs and Roxana Radu, Associate Professor of Digital Technologies and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, about who really controls the internet. Emily and Roxana discuss how internet governance operates amid shifting geopolitics, dissect the foundational protocols (and problems) that underpin the web, and explore the often-obscure institutions that keep it running.
Highlights
Behind the Guests
An introduction to Emily Taylor and Roxana Radu, covering their careers and accomplishments
Who Controls the Internet?
Decentralisation and the distributed nature of the internet, key governing bodies and diverging national controls.
- ICANN | What is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)?
- IETF | IETF and the Internet Society
- How China Governs Its Internet and Plans to Export Its Model
The Politics of Cyber Peace
How states and corporations navigate digital consensus and discord.
- Microsoft’s Digital Geneva Convention (2017) | Microsoft Is Right: We Need a Digital Geneva Convention
- WannaCry explained: A perfect ransomware storm
- Cybersecurity Tech Accord | Microsoft Blog: Cybersecurity Tech Accord
- United Nations Convention against Cybercrime | Basic facts about the global cybercrime treaty
- Confusion & Contradiction in the UN ‘Cybercrime’ Convention
- What is the UN cybercrime treaty and why does it matter?
When the Internet Meets Geopolitics
The tension between net neutrality and geopolitics
- Ukraine’s Letter to ICANN (2022) | ICANN's Response
- Internet Governance: ICANN rejects Ukraine’s request to block Russian
- Internet domains Disconnecting Countries from the Global Internet
- The Open Internet on the Brink: China, Emerging Economies and the Spread of the Authoritarian Model
- The geopolitics of digital standards: China's role in standard-setting organisations
The Resilience of the Digital Ecosystem
The technical side of the internet; from fragile legacy protocols to DNS security and IPv6.
- BGP hijacking: brief guide on protecting BGP from bad actors
- U.S.-Based Internet Traffic Was Redirected To China, Researchers Say
- DNSSEC – What Is It and Why Is It Important?
- TCP/IP Model
- What is IPv6, why is it so important, and why is adoption taking so long?
- Vint Cerf wanted to make internet secure from the start, but secrecy prevented it
Additional Resources
- UK Government Digital Transformation Government Transformation Strategy: background | From red tape to rapid progress: how digital reform is reshaping government
- RFC 7282 - On Consensus and Humming in the IETF
- International Atomic Energy Agency
- ETSI
- RIPE NCC
- Address Resolution Protocol - ARP
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Dr Roxana Radu
Associate Professor of Digital Technologies and Public PolicyDr Roxana Radu is an Associate Professor of Digital Technologies and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and a Hugh Price Fellow at Jesus College. She is an expert in the governance of digital technologies.
