Chair's Report

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT TO THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

30th November 1997

INTRODUCTION

There is little doubt that the last twelve months has been a difficult and onerous one for ISOCNZ. The delegation of management of .nz began to impact on the society severely around August 1996 and the spin-off administration and policy issues absorbed a very large amount of ISOCNZ's energy and resources. Many issues emerged which we had not entirely foreseen and these have meant "making policy on the fly". Fortunately they have not caused any great difficulty, apart from the amount of work required on the part of ISOCNZ Council and the NZIRL staff.

DNS OPERATION

Clearly the management of the .nz domain has been the primary concern of ISOCNZ over the past twelve months. We appointed a DNS manager in October 1996, and were fortunate to obtain the services of Patrick O'Brien who was able to take over the DNS virtually immediately. Patrick took control of the process and turned a very negative situation into a very positive one in a spectacularly short time.

Waikato University, for most of the year, continued to carry out the services they were providing for DNS management and added billing services up until September 1997, after which billing was brought into the Registry office.

DNS registrations have climbed from around 400 per month at the time of take-over to a current level of almost 1,000. Improved systems within the Registry company have coped with this level and planning is underway to further automate the process and improve efficiency.

The Registry is currently handling 95% of requests for Domain Names within one working day and 99% within 2 days. For the price charged, this level of service is arguably one of the best of any Registry in the world.

NZ INTERNET REGISTRY LTD

ISOCNZ Council resolved, after taking extensive legal advice, to form a limited liability company to manage the DNS. The company was duly formed in April of this year and immediately took over the financial management of the DNS. Patrick O'Brien was appointed Chief Executive Officer. Two outside members were appointed to the Board and a further three elected from ISOCNZ membership. Current Board Members are:

• David Bale, Jim Higgins, John Hine, David Quigg and John Vorstermans

For the past twelve months the company office has been operating out of an ever-increasing corner of my office and they are due to move into their own premises in Grenoch House before the end of the year.

An Operating Agreement establishing the rules, relationship and responsibilities between ISOCNZ and the NZ Internet Registry Ltd has been signed by both organisations and is now the basis on which the two relate and work with each other.

While still operating at a loss, NZIRL is expected to be profitable within the next 12 months. It has, however, been established without members' funds being invested and is operating without loans or bank overdrafts. Set-up costs are still reasonably high as new systems are put in place but these should settle down within the next six months.

Now that the Registry has a good handle on the problems and has the administrative issues under control, it is moving towards establishing itself as an independent organisation. This has resulted in the new "Domainz" trading name and an appropriate Web Site reflecting the changes.

ISOCNZ BUSINESS PLANNING

Earlier in the year the Council held a two-day planning session to map out a strategy for ISOCNZ covering the next few years. A number of excellent ideas came from this session and several have already een put in place.

One of the main issues has been the communication that ISOCNZ has had with its membership and the wider Internet Community. Unquestionably, our communication, and consequently our image, has been bad over the past eighteen months while we have been busy fighting the fires of the DNS. While Patrick and the staff at Domainz have excellently addressed the operational DNS issues, we still lag a little behind on communicating our policies and even just who and why we are! We have been getting some assistance from Communications Trumps over the past few months and a new membership brochure and a "Welcome to ISOCNZ" pack have been just one result.

Communications Trumps have also been effective in getting ISOCNZ's name in the media at regular intervals and this has paid off with a much higher level of acceptance.

Our Web site still leaves a lot to be desired and a project is underway to completely revamp it now that the Registry has moved into a separate format. We hope to see the results early in the New Year, if not sooner.

In spite of the improvements we have made and the enthusiastic support from virtually all of the ISPs, we still have a vociferous minority (only about two or three people) who continue to attempt to bring us into disrepute. Some of these attempts are legally actionable and have manifested themselves in such ways as journalists "creating" news stories and making public statements that our activities "border on the criminal". Fortunately our completely open approach has resulted in a considerable loss of credibility for those people and a complaint by one of them to the Commerce Commission resulted in that organisation giving ISOCNZ a completely '"clean bill of health'

ISSUES

A number of issues have been addressed by ISOCNZ over the past year:

Blocking:

ISOCNZ intervened during the problems between Voyager and Xtra early in the year. This event illustrated the pressures coming to bear on the Net once "big business" gets involved and commercial realities begin to strike home. A second, similar situation is currently being investigated, somewhat more complex in nature, but nevertheless with the potential to weaken the fabric of the Net.

Code of Practice:

Due to some very hard work on the part of John Vorstermans, the ISOCNZ Code of Practice was finally completed around the middle of the year. We sent the draft to ISPANZ for comment and were surprised and pleased when they adopted it on the spot. The code is now mandatory for all ISPANZ members.

Intellectual Property:

ISOCNZ has been closely following developments on the international Intellectual Property scene. Jenny Shearer has taken a special interest in this area and has been our representative at meetings held to discuss the activities of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). We were successful in getting New Zealand to oppose some of the more radical "lurches" this organisation has been trying to take.

Encryption:

ISOCNZ has also been active in debating the Encryption issues and we are currently developing plans to arrange a meeting of interested parties in the whole Encryption, key registry area. There has been a suggestion that a committee is formed to manage the introduction of the whole key registry, certification/authentication system - in much the same was that the Product Numbering Council shepherded the introduction of Product Bar Codes. It is hoped that the first meeting of interested parties might take place in February 1998.

DNS POLICY

Over the past twelve months much work has been done in defining ISOCNZ's policy in managing the .nz domain. A number of issues arose during the year for which we found we had only a skeleton policy developed. We now have detailed policy in place to cover the delegated management of third level domains and are in the process of developing policy for the moderation of those second level domains we consider would be better managed by other organisations, for example .mil, .govt, .iwi, .cri etc.

One very contentious issue has been the method by which new second level domains might be created. This issue was highlighted by the activities of the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC) in declaring a new set of second level domains.

ISOCNZ's attitude to the second level domain issue is that the primary philosophy of the Net should be taken into account and that decisions such as new second level domains should be the responsibility of the Internet Community. Therefore, a process has been put in place that anyone may propose a new second level domain but the proposal will be subject to extensive open debate and voting by the Internet community. At first glance the process appears unduly pedantic, and it is deliberately so. Once second level domains are created they cannot be easily removed, so ISOCNZ must ensure that when a new second level domain is created it is not done lightly.

ISOCNZ COUNCIL

Council has met about every three months during the year. These one-day meetings have been quite onerous on Council members, especially as most councillors have been assigned to working groups which have beavered away in the intervening periods, developing policy and producing reports. Volunteers have put in much hard work and I am extremely grateful for the support I have received throughout the year. We have, from time to time, been faced with issues requiring immediate action. At these times I have used the "floating executive" approach and have called an urgent meeting of whoever can be in Wellington at a particular time. This has worked well and again I am grateful for the support of those who have given up their time to attend.

We lost several Councillors during the year - generally victims of ever-increasing workloads, and I would like to thank Arnim Littek, Liz Probert and Brenda Lobb for their efforts during the time they spent on Council. Half of Council is up for re-election this year, in addition to replacing the councillors who resigned, so we will welcome input from some new people.

ISOCNZ has a policy of allowing members to attend Council meetings as observers and I am pleased to say that we had members in attendance at all meetings except one. In each case we received very positive response from those attending.

MEMBERSHIP

Of all the facets of ISOCNZ it would be fair to say that membership is the aspect with which I am least satisfied. We had a significant drop-off in membership renewals this year and new memberships are only coming in slowly. In my discussions with other technology organisations, I find that they are all in the same boat. Belonging to organisations appears not to be too "trendy" at the moment so we are not overly concerned.

I am often asked about the benefits of membership to ISOCNZ and how we provide "value" for our $50.00 membership subscription. Basically, my response to people who want to see how they are going to get their money's worth is that they are joining for the wrong reasons. Being a member of ISOCNZ is about participation and commitment and the $50.00 is an expression of that commitment. We want members who understand that belonging to ISOCNZ provides them with the opportunity to have an impact on the way the Internet develops, not only in NZ but also around the world.

One area we do need to address is the Corporate Membership structure. Currently we only have one level of Corporate Membership at $1,000.00. We very much need a sliding scale to allow smaller organisations to belong.

FINANCE

Overall the finances of the Society are in good heart. At this time we see no forthcoming risks which could impact the ongoing financial stability, nor do we see a need for an increase in membership fees

ADMINISTRATION

We are indebted to the New Zealand Computer Society - their CEO Bev Pratt and her team - for the work they have done in carrying out the day-to-day administration of ISOCNZ and organising one-off functions such as Face to Face. At some stage in the future we may well be able to afford to have our own staffed office, but for now the present arrangement is serving us well.

OTHER TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATIONS

We are currently in the process of establishing informal relationships at Chairman/President level with a number of other technology organisations such as NZCS, TUANZ and ITANZ. The objective of these informal meetings is to see how we can work together in the future without compromising our independence.

After a visit a few months ago by ISOC President Don Heath, ISOCNZ Council resolved to initiate discussions with that organisation with a view to ISOCNZ becoming a chapter of ISOC. As many of you will be aware, we kept away from ISOC because of the rigid rules they impose on chapters, most of which we find unacceptable. Over the past year ISOC has greatly modified its stance on a number of these issues and we now feel that the time has come to continue our aim of further modifying ISOC "from inside the tent" as it were. One of the major criteria of the negotiations will be for ISOCNZ to fully retain its independence while having ISOC chapter status.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been approached by a number of Pacific Island countries to assist them with the possible formation of a "Pacific" ISOC. This would be a unique opportunity for New Zealand to partner with its Pacific neighbours and extend the Internet into areas that could derive huge benefits. Fiji Telecom has offered to set up a list for the various interested parties to discuss options and organisation and the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association (PITA) has offered to act as host for any inaugural meeting which might occur.

LEGAL ISSUES

During the year we have, several times been threatened with legal action, mainly over the activities of "name grabbers". Our policy of standing back from these situations and the ability of Patrick to be able to talk these organisations into relinquishing their names has kept us out of trouble. We may not always be able to be as fortunate, but certainly we have had a much easier time of it legally than have those registries who try to impose criteria for who should have a "right" to which name.

CONCLUSION

In all, I believe a year of considerable achievement. When I look back to last November and the problems (opportunities?) which had stacked up around us, and the progress we have made to date I feel a considerable sense of satisfaction on behalf of Council and our loyal members.

We are now at a stage that we can focus our efforts on those policy and Internet promotional and development issues which were the original priority for ISOCNZ. I also look forward to a closer relationship with ISOC, the international body and having an impact on the global development of the Net.

The coming year will be at least as productive as the last, if not more so.

Jim Higgins
Chairman

© 1997 The Internet Society of New Zealand