NZOC Monthly Report for June 2007
NZRS Report
NZRS have produced their monthly report for June 2007. Points NZOC would like to highlight with Council are:
§ System availability for June was 99.93% against the SLA standard of 99.9%
Total unscheduled outage time of 29 minutes 05 seconds was due to a read only script being run as part of the normal process to gather statistics from the web server for monthly reporting. A number of actions have resulted from reviewing the incident and these should prevent a repeat of this type of issue.
§ The scheduled maintenance window was utilised on 13 June 2007.
§ Performance times for key transactions for June are in the following table:
|
Transaction |
Average Response Times (in seconds) |
||
|
As per SLA |
June 2007 |
Av last 12 months |
|
|
Domain Details Query |
1.5 |
0.03 |
0.03 |
|
Domain Update |
0.8 |
0.46 |
0.43 |
|
Domain Create |
0.8 |
0.50 |
0.48 |
|
Get Message |
0.8 |
0.02 |
0.03 |
|
WHOIS |
0.8 |
0.10 |
0.12 |
|
UDAI Valid Query |
0.8 |
0.13 |
0.16 |
§ DNS SLA standards met
Server % Availability
|
|
Sep 06 |
Oct 06 |
Nov 06 |
Dec 06 |
Jan 07 |
Feb 07 |
Mar 07 |
Apr 07 |
May 07 |
June 07 |
|
NS1 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS2 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS3 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS4 |
100 |
99.97 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS5 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS6 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
|
NS7 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
Performance Stress Testing
The figures are derived from the 'stress testing' of the name servers. 1201 UDP and 121 TCP transactions are used. Measurements are in milli-seconds.
|
DNS |
Target |
UDP transactions |
TCP transactions |
||||||||||
|
|
|
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
June |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
June |
|
NS1 |
<5 / <50 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 00.07 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.37 |
0.38 |
|
NS2 |
<5 / <50 |
0.07 |
0.07 |
0.07 |
0.07 |
0.07 |
0.07 |
0.26 |
0.26 |
0.27 |
0.27 |
0.26 |
0.27 |
|
NS3 |
<5 / <50 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.09 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.38 |
0.37 |
The measurements for the Primary name servers and NS1, NS2 and NS3 are taken by running the programme on the individual servers.
SRS Zone Pushes
These figures show the average time taken from the point that the first Primary begins the zone push to the time that the last of the secondary’s acknowledges that it is up to date.
The zone push times have decreased as a result of the implementation of IXFR (incremental zone transfer)
|
Measurement |
Oct 06 |
Nov 06 |
Dec 06 |
Jan 07 |
Feb 07 |
Mar 07 |
Apr 07 |
May 07 |
Jun 07 |
|
Average Time (sec) |
1181 |
1186 |
929 |
657 |
757 |
761 |
794 |
929 |
437 |
§ The total number of WHOIS queries increased from 1,740,000 to 1,800,000.
§ The level of active .nz domain names increased from 281,635 to 286,539. An increase of 4904.
2..nz Policies and Procedures
2.1 Registrar Compliance
§ No new, significant compliance matters were dealt with in June
2.2 Policy Reviews
§ Work is progressing on the third consultation paper in respect of the Registering, Managing and Cancelling Domain Names Policy review. Feedback from NZOC at their May meeting is being incorporated into the document which will be presented to the next NZOC meeting planned for July.
2.3 Applications
§ No response has been received yet from the NZ Bankers’ Association, regarding the rewording of their proposed .bank.nz moderation policy. NZOC will consider the .bank.nz application further once the NZBA have resubmitted their moderation policy.
§ Two applications for access to the .nz zone file were declined. It was considered neither application met the ‘public good’ requirement of the policy.
3.Registrar authorisation and connection
§ Key Systems, a German based registrar, connected to the production environment in June
4.Other .nz matters
§ The initial meeting of the IDN Working Group is planned for 27 July
5.Dispute Resolution Service (DRS)
For the month of June 2007, there were 4 new electronic complaints submitted. Of these, 2 were deemed invalid. The first 13 months of the DRS to 30 June 2007 has seen 99 complaints lodged with 36 (36%) ruled invalid. Of the 63 valid complaints:
§ 16 proceeded to an Expert determination
- 10 transferred, 1 ordered cancelled, 3 dismissed and 2 awaiting decision
§ 43 proceeded to Mediation
- 27 resolved, 15 unresolved and 1 currently being mediated
6. DNC Office
The DNC was overseas during June with attendance at the APTLD meeting in Dubai, the CENTR meeting in Helsinki and the ICANN meeting in San Juan. A travel report is enclosed as Appendix 1 to this report.
7. Financial
Financial information for June 2007
|
|
Month |
|
|
YTD |
|
|
|
INCOME |
Actual |
Budget |
Variance |
Actual |
Budget |
Variance |
|
Management Fee |
$83,000 |
$83,000 |
$0 |
$249,000 |
$249,000 |
$0 |
|
Authorisation Fees |
$3,954 |
$500 |
$3,454 |
$7,954 |
$1,500 |
$6,454 |
|
DRS Complaint Fees |
$3,600 |
$2,250 |
$1,350 |
$7,200 |
$6,750 |
$450 |
|
2LD Application |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
$0 |
|
TOTAL INCOME |
$90,554 |
$85,750 |
$4,804 |
$264,154 |
$257,250 |
$6,904 |
|
EXPENDITURES |
Actual |
Budget |
Variance |
Actual |
Budget |
Variance |
|
Personnel and Staff costs |
$22,322 |
$29,517 |
$7,195 |
$87,278 |
$88,550 |
$1,272 |
|
Office and administration expenses |
$9,052 |
$10,458 |
$1,407 |
$29,755 |
$31,375 |
$1,620 |
|
Professional Services |
$853 |
$11,917 |
$11,063 |
$15,915 |
$35,750 |
$19,835 |
|
Dispute Resolution Service |
$4,600 |
$11,583 |
$6,983 |
$18,400 |
$34,750 |
$16,350 |
|
Communications |
$38 |
$2,083 |
$2,045 |
$114 |
$6,250 |
$6,136 |
|
.nz Oversight and project expenses |
$8,653 |
$6,917 |
-$1,736 |
$11,711 |
$20,750 |
$9,039 |
|
DNC Registrar Activities |
$0 |
$850 |
$850 |
$1,104 |
$2,550 |
$1,446 |
|
International |
$1,111 |
$14,917 |
$13,806 |
$41,720 |
$44,750 |
$3,030 |
|
TOTALS |
$46,629 |
$82,417 |
$35,788 |
$205,996 |
$247,250 |
$41,254 |
Frank March
Chair, NZOC
Appendix 1
DNC Travel Report – June 2007
June 2007 Travel
APTLD Dubai
3 – 6 June 2007
This was the first APTLD meeting held in Dubai and it was interesting to meet ccTLD representatives who hadn’t attended previous meetings, especially those from the Arab region.
The agenda can be seen at http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/01%20-%20Dubai%20Program%20-%201.7.pdf. There is a page with links to the presentations, at http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007.htm and the meeting communiqué can be read at http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/Dubai%20Communique%20-%20Final.pdf
As per other meetings, the first presentations focused on informing participants about the local industry. As part of that, there were two presentations given:
ICT in UAE – Director General Mr Mohammed Al Ghanim (Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/02%20DG%20Speech%20for%20APTLD%20E2.pdf)
And
.ae – Mr Mohammed Gheyath (TRA) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/03%20TRA%20presentation%20APTLD%20%5BCompatibility%20Mode%5D.pdf)
From these presentations, it was clear that a significant amount of effort and resource is going into ICT in the United Arab Emirates. A fund has been developed to drive the ICT strategy, with the money available more than could be imagined by many. The focus is widespread, from security at the local level, research and development through to scholarships to support education in ICT.
In respect of the ccTLD, .ae is undergoing major change at present with a re-delegation currently being undertaken. The government is seeking to promote accountability, transparency and the performance of .ae as they consider the DNS infrastructure is a public asset. They are currently working through a transition plan with the ‘go live’ date for the new structure set for the fourth quarter of this year.
aeDA, the .ae Domain Administration, is the new regulatory authority and the TRA will transition the aeDA to an independent entity endorsed by the TRA. The role of aeDA is similar to that of the DNC but a key distinction is that they will manage the operation of the Registry System. It was commented that a change to the new entity would encourage public confidence as UAEnic was operated by a commercial entity which is in the industry and the government did not think that the changes would get the confidence of the public with that entity running it. Thus, an independent body has been set up to run it and encourage competition in what will be a shared registry system.
Following those presentations, was one from the GAC Chair, Janis Karklins
The GAC – Current issues and means for engagement (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/04%20JK%20-%20APTLD%20meeting%20June%202007.pdf)
This started with an overview of the GAC, the Chair and three co-vice chairs (one of which is Dr Frank March from New Zealand). There was a general discussion about delegations, stability of the internet and sovereignty aspects.
An interesting presentation then followed which demonstrated the desire of many ccTLD managers to implement local scripts into the domain name system to simplify education, commerce etc for citizens. This presentation, Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project – Abdulaziz Al-Zoman. SaudiNIC (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/05%20Arabic%20Domain%20Names.pdf) discussed the Arabic issues including young children struggling with the English variations of Arabic words to input into the Internet as current ASCII based names are incapable of representing Arabic characters. Full use of Arabic in domain names will encourage great Internet use. The solution for this is at many levels including linguistic issues (defining the accepted Arabic character set), technical solutions, Arabic TLDs and Arabic root servers.
They have developed an Arabic.arabic plug-in that enables users to reach the names easily. This work can be seen at www.arabic-domains.org.
This led well into an IDN Panel Discussion involving:
- Abdulaziz Al-Zomain – Arabic .sa
- Ai-Chin Lu – Chinese .tw
- Lee Han Chuan – Tamil .sg
- Jaeyoun Kim – Korean .kr
- Nguyen Le Thuy – Vietnamese .vn
- Hiro Hotta – Japanese .jp
- Ram Mohan – Indian .in
With these participants, it was a strong panel representing a wide range of languages and experience in IDNs at the ccTLD level. They started with a brief overview of IDN implementation and how it operates in the different ccTLD registries. There were comments made about the need to go beyond just IDN domain names and get it all operational in browsers, email etc.
The general overview was followed by a presentation on IDNs – What’s happening in the root by Tina Dam, ICANN (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/07%20ICANN-IDN-status-03jun07%20%5BCompatibility%20Mode%5D.pdf). Tina announced the notice from ICANN regarding the test of IDN in the root. This announcement can be read at
http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-02jun07.htm
This was followed by other IDN presentations including:
- IDNs and the ITU-T – Jaeyoun Kim, .kr
- IDN Market trends – June Seo (.tv, .cc)
- Technical considerations for .IDN – Hiro Hotta .jp
All the IDN presentations led up to a session moderated by Keith Davidson. It was titled
Engaging with ICANN on Dot IDNs – Establishing an APTLD position and this would prove to be a key session, not only at this meeting but also at the subsequent CENTR and ICANN meetings where the work done by APTLD was presented to other ccTLD managers and generally supported by them.
A series of questions were asked arising from the IDN Work Group Draft for Discussion document (http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/draft-issues-paper-idn-cctlds.pdf). There was general consensus on the responses to these, with varying degrees of discussion before that consensus was reached. One of the key (and possibly controversial recommendations) was to limit initial applications to one IDN per country/territory. This is to try and ensure that the initial implementation is practical and that it doesn’t grind to a halt in the face of thousands of requests for IDNs.
A copy of the position that APTLD reached on IDNs is available at http://aptld.org/position/APTLD%20Position%20on%20Top%20Level%20Internationalised%20Domain%20Names%20-%20June%2021%202007%20v6.pdf
In respect of IDNs, the Asia Pacific region has a number of the most experienced and knowledgeable ccTLD managers in the world and this can be seen in the level of discussion on this matter at these meetings. This was to become more apparent at both the CENTR and ICANN meetings also.
Technical orientated presentations the next day included:
- e-Num – A Primer, experiences and opportunities – Lee Han Chuan (.sg) and Garth Miller (.cx) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/14%20sgnic_enum_APTLD_Dubai_4Jun07.pdf)
- Other new opportunities, RFID, Short-codes etc – Jaeyoun Kin (.kr) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/15%20RFID%20and%20New%20Opportunity%20(Mobile%20RFID).pdf)
- IDN Applications – What’s happening – Hsu Nai-Wen - .tw (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/16%20EAI%20Testbed.pdf)
There were also a number of general presentations given including:
- Secondary markets, domain tasters, pay-per-click, drop and catch – experiences and items to consider – Matt Bentley – SEDO (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/17%20APTLD%20Dubai_The%20Domain%20Secondary%20Market_MSB.pdf)
Though this presentation covered some of the issues around domain tasting, domain kiting, secondary markets etc, it was largely an overview of how it operates in the gTLD space and some idea of how much money can be involved. Matt stated that the sale of domain names is through three channels with the value sold through market channels (such as Sedo) worth around $US70m, those through expiring name auctions (eg Snapnames) worth around $US130m and private sale, which could be anything up to $US500m. The average domain name is worth about $1,500 on the secondary market.
- Domain Name Life Cycle – Brent Lee (webcc, Web Commerce Communications Ltd) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/18%20Domain%20lifecycle.pdf)
- Engaging with Global Registrars – A recipe for Success – Roland LaPlante (Afilias) (http://aptld.org/dubaiJune2007/19%20Afilias%20APTLD%20Update%20June%202007%20Dubai.pdf)
One of the interesting facts to come out of this presentation was that the ccTLD share of the overall domain name market has been declining and the segment has dropped from 39% to 33%. It was acknowledged that part of this is attributable to the domain tasting but I consider it likely that almost all of this is due to that given the growth rates in many of the ccTLD registries that we monitor.
There were panel discussions on the ccTLD role in ICT, on ccTLD promotion, and on the ccTLD as critical infrastructure. It was useful to hear the range of views held on these matters. Generally, especially in respect of the ccTLD being critical infrastructure, the views tended to reflect the relationship between the ccTLD and the government.
Following the conclusion of the two day meeting, there was a two day non-technical training programme undertaken. .nz contributed a number of presentations to this training which sets out to demonstrate different ways of operating a ccTLD, including policy framework, structure, use of registrars etc. The mix of experienced ccTLD managers, including those giving presentations, with those of more fledgling ccTLDs, makes for an interesting mix of ideas and discussion.
CENTR Helsinki
7 – 8 June
The agenda for the meeting can be read at https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/05/GA33-01_Draft_Agenda.pdf and a page containing links to many of the presentations is at https://www.centr.org/meetings/ga-33/.
A session focused on marketing started the meeting and included presentations from different registries in respect of promoting and/or branding their ccTLD.
- Marketing of Domain Names – EURid, Marc Van Wesemael
The .be case study outlined a new service they were introducing for monitoring domain names being registered. This would allow organisations to track if trademarks similar to theirs were being registered. In general it operates as follows:
- there is a charge for monitoring of a particular string in domain names registered
- an initial search produces a number of .be names with that particular string
- if want more detail, pay for each record delivered
- relatively cheap initial check – around 2 Euros
- more expensive if want detail – around 5 Euros per domain name
.be also outlined their promotions undertaken including substantially dropping the domain name fee, taking out magazine ads and producing boomerang cards (the free postcards you get around cafes etc). One campaign cost 500,000 Euros and generated extra revenue of 190,000 Euros so not a success financially but they consider it raised the awareness of .be.
- .SE update on marketing activities – Danny Aerts (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_03_2_Aerts_-_SE_marketing.pdf)
.se has established The Internet Infrastructure Foundation, which is funded out of the domain name administration profit. Currently don’t have a registry/registrar model and the registrants are their customers as they invoice the renewals. They are looking at possible changes in the future including the model and have a PR agency to keep .se awareness up.
- .EU Brand Awareness Survey – EURid Patrik Linden (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_03_3_Linden_-_eu_awareness.pdf)
Survey on .eu showed that 63% were aware of .eu but only 2% had one, whereas 18% had a domain name of any kind.
- Image and Branding a registry: the case of SIDN and .NL - Michiel Henneke (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_03_4_Henneke_-_nl_branding.pdf)
.nl spoke about branding the organisation behind the ccTLD – in this case SIDN
- Registrar Code of Conduct - .eu EURid (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_12_4_Braeken_-_eu_code_of_conduct.pdf)
Principle of self regulation by registrars, it is a voluntary code, so no obligation for registrars to sign up for it but EURid had to develop it as part of their contractual obligations in their bid
Council of Conduct – EURid is the Chair of the Council and the Secretariat
www.coc.eu – for information on the Code
“New Services” was the topic of the next session and this included the following presentations:
- .TEL – new services and NS providers accreditation – Neustar, Marco Bernardi (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_05_3_Bernardi_-_tel.pdf)
- New business opportunities: secure domain names – NASK, Andrzej Bartosiewicz (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_05_2_Bartosiewicz_-_securtity_tasting.pdf)
- Internet Profiling Service and Name Suggestion – Verisign, Sarah Langstone (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_05_1__Langstone_-_New_Products.pdf)
- Experience with Internet Profiling Service in .AT – nic.at, Richard Wein (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_05_2_Wein_-_at_ips_experience.pdf)
- New and future TLDs - .BERLIN, .PARIS and .NYC – dotBERLIN, Dirk Krischenowski (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_06_1_Krischenowski_-_dotBERLIN.pdf)
City top level domains proposed, including .berlin, .paris and .nyc
The proposal was outlined with the most interesting concept their proposal that a city TLD should be the same as a ccTLD in its relationship with ICANN. This concept was not universally approved by some of the participants who pointed out that in some situations a city TLD could be competing with a ccTLD if they already catered for their cities in their 2LD structure.
- Secondary Market – A realistic definition and TLDs implication – Jean-Christophe Vignes, EuroDNS (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/07/GA33_07_1_Vignes_-_Secondary_market3.pdf)
There was a session on dealing with registrar failure with presentations from Verisign, .jp and .be.
https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_8_2_Hotta_-_RegistrarFailure.pdf
Typically the examples given resulted from failing to pay and so they were removed for financial reasons rather than for failing to comply with policies
A number of admin/organisational topics were on the agenda for the Friday, including .al being approved as a full member of CENTR and OARC as an observer. In addition, there were updates from:
- Update on ICANN / IANA – Kim Davies, ICANN (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_13_3_Davies_-_IANA_service_levels.pdf)
- European Commission update – DG Infso, Gunther Wolff (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_11_1_Wolff_-_Eur_Comm_update.pdf)
- Registry updates
https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/07/GA33_12_1_Vainionkulma_-_fi_overview.pdf
https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_12_1_Ward_-_PIR.pdf
https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/07/GA33_12_1_Davidson_-_INZ_Update.pdf
https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/07/GA33_12_1_Markovic_-_RNIDS.pdf
- ccNSO Update – Peter van Roste (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_13_2_Van_Roste_-_ccNSO_update.pdf)
- Update on APTLD meeting – Keith Davidson (https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/GA33_11-7_Davidsson_-_APTLD_Update.pdf)
Main focus was on the IDN.IDN matter and the decisions reached by APTLD in respect of that. CENTR agreed with the position reached by APTLD and were keen to endorse the APTLD position given the quality and quantity of work done by APTLD. It was agreed that CENTR would advise APTLD of some proposed wording changes prior to the statement being confirmed.
CENTR have now published their endorsement of the work done by APTLD and this can be seen at https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/06/CENTR_backs_APTLD_position.pdf
Register.com visit
I met with Mark Tullos, the Director, Project Management with Register.com, an authorised .nz registrar based in New York. Mark has been the DNC contact for a short time and has shown himself to be willing to resolve any issues raised. A range of topics was discussed and it was a valuable session.
ICANN – Puerto Rico
25 – 29 June
Links to the agendas, transcripts and presentations of the ICANN meeting can be accessed through http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/
As is usual, the meeting opened with a focus on local ICT issues including a presentation from Meredith Atwell-Baker, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). She was followed by local speakers from Puerto Rico and they outlined the work being done in the Carribean on ICT matters.
Following the opening, it was a public forum where the President (Paul Twomey) presented his report
http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/files/sanjuan/presidents-report.pdf and Tina Dam spoke about IDN matters including technical evaluations of inserting IDNs into the DNS. There is an IETF meeting in July to discuss all this and a protocol revision. http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/files/sanjuan/SJ-public-forum-idn.pdf
An interesting session of that initial public forum was the one on Protections for Registrants and follows the issue around RegisterFly and their subsequent de-accreditation by ICANN but only after a lot of issues and hassles.
Many of the issues and questions raised are not relevant to the .nz market given the policy framework we have for registrar operations. One of the key features that enabled RegisterFly to operate as an accredited registrar was because they bought a company that had accreditation. We do not permit such a change in ownership for .nz authorized registrars. Any proposed new owner must be approved by the DNC first. We also have a defined policy in .nz for the process to be followed on the deauthorisation of a registrar.
http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/node/24
http://sanjuan2007.icann.org/files/sanjuan/RegistryFailoverslides.pdf
ICANN are currently amending the Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAA) and are going through discussions and consultation to reach agreement on those changes. Recent events in the gTLD space have illustrated that procedural and contractual protections for registrants must be implemented and ICANN have identified five issues relating to this:
- Registrar data escrow
- Process for amending the RAA (current agreement has not been changed for more than 7 years. One of the reasons for this is that changes can only be made through the consensus-based process of a supporting organization.)
- Registry failover
- Contractual compliance
- De-accreditation process
ICANN have started a consultation process looking at these issues and what needs to be implemented to better protect registrant rights.
Following the public forum, a joint session of the GAC (Government Advisory Committee) and the ccNSO was held. The focus of this session was on security and presenters included Steve Crocker, the Chair of the Security and Stability Committee. Steve spoke about types of Distributed Denial of Service attacks, which he considers to be the largest security issue as there is no way to really protect yourself. Types of attack that were outlined were:
- Penetration attacks, where they get inside your machine and take over
- Eavesdropping, where access is gained to the network and traffic monitored
- Man in the middle, where the attacker can substitute messages in both directions
- Flooding attacks, where an overwhelming number of messages are sent
Impact might be modification of data, destruction of data, unauthorised disclosure and denial of service. A brief overview on the Estonia attacks was also given.
Russ Mundy gave an overview of DNSSEC and commented that the most important aspect of deploying DNSSEC in a zone is to integrate the DNSSEC functions with the existing operations for the zone.
This ICANN meeting, and particularly the ccNSO agenda at it, had a significant focus on IDNs. The ccNSO started its discussions on this with a joint GAC / ccNSO meeting on IDNs in the country code space. A joint issues paper has been prepared and final discussions on the content of that was held in various sessions of the meeting. A final version of the paper was agreed and this can be seen at http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/final-draft-issues-idn-cctlds-iso-26jun07.pdf
An announcement about this joint paper is at http://ccnso.icann.org/announcements/announcement-09jul07.htm
A full day on IDNs was held on Tuesday 26 June. The joint GAC / ccNSO issues paper, and the amendments proposed by the GAC the previous day, were discussed. The meeting then moved on to some possible answers. The process followed was the same as that undertaken by APTLD at their meeting early June, and reported on earlier in this travel report.
Though there was some discussion, and some minor disagreement on some points, in general the ccNSO meeting supported the position reached by APTLD in respect of many of the issue. The position that Keith and I took at each meeting in respect of the idn.idn matter was that it wasn’t a major issue for .nz and that we would support our APTLD ccTLD colleagues for who it was a major issue and who were in a greater position to offer opinions on the options. We are happy with the position reached by APTLD, and pleased that it was supported by CENTR and also by those attending the ccNSO meeting in San Juan.
Following the full day on IDNs, the next day had a more varied agenda and started with Vint Cert and Paul Twomey talking about issues they saw affecting ccTLDs. Vint raised the issue of wildcarding of ccTLDs and suggested that ccTLD managers should consider carefully how they allow their ccTLD to be used (this refers to e.g. .cm being utilised to cover for people mistyping .com).
Kim Davies had given updates on IANA at both the APTLD and CENTR meetings, and also provided his general overview to the ccNSO meeting. He did introduce the new website and outlined the e-IANA which they were about to begin public testing on. Demonstrations to small groups were planned over the duration of the San Juan meeting and Nick Griffin arranged to attend one of those.
Other topics discussed included Registry Failover and a presentation from the AntiPhishing Working Group. One of the initiatives of the DNS Policy Sub-Committee looking at phishing is to participate in the ICANN WHOIS Working Group so as to accommodate privacy concerns while maintaining phish site takedown efficacy. They commented that most phish sites are taken down by brand owners etc, not by law enforcement, and that this generally happens within hours. Few ccTLD managers said they could take a phish site down quickly.
One of the current ccNSO working groups is looking at the issue of the ICANN
regions. Their report is at http://ccnso.icann.org/announcements/announcement-20jun07.htm
and they are recommending that the ccNSO provide input into the ICANN Regions
review and that there is a procedure for self selection for ccNSO members
affected by the “citizenship” criterion.
Public consultation on the report finishes during July and it will then
be finalised and submitted to the ICANN Board.
In the APTLD region there are a number of ccTLD that are geographically
located in the Pacific but part of another region such as .as (American Samoa),
.vu (Vanuatu).
As part of the Technical Day, Nick Griffin presented the results of his DNS
Benchmarking Project. A site has been
set up at http://www.registrybenchmarking.co.nz/
for interested ccTLDs to get a copy of the survey if they haven’t already
completed it. The results are available
only to those ccTLD managers who complete the survey.
