Technical Committee Report to Council 29/10/04

The Technical Committee met in Wellington on 28 September 2004. Gale helped with the minutes, and they should be, or soon will be, on the INZ web site. This report is a shortened digest with some modifications.

A new version of the Terms of Reference has been proposed (see below). It has been passed to the secretary for Council approval. The membership of the committee was reviewed. Those that were previously on the committee than were willing to continue will continue, and Rodney Prescott and John Russell have been added. It makes for a largish committee which we hope will mean more gets done.

The committee structure has Brendan Murray as Chair, David Harris as Deputy Chair and Michael Sutton responsible for ENUM, IPv6 and Multicast.

NZCS Scholarship Modules

Peter updated the committee on the initiative where InternetNZ will provide funds to NZCS who will administer an Internet related scholarship for year 3 university or technical college undergraduates. After some discussion it was agreed six $1500 scholarships to support students studying internet networking technology and related subjects for the 2005/06 scholastic year. Applications to include a written submission. Technical committee will approve final selections after student presentation. Peter to write a paragraph on the scholarship for NZCS to initiate.

Election Interface Specifications

It was agreed any releases should be open source and available on the website under "free downloads". Peter to ascertain the history of the election interface code whether we own it and provided we do then will [most likely] be a GPL licence, promoted on the website and members announce.

SSL servers

It was noted the Certificate server is starting to produce high value multimedia certificates. Addressing the question of what is core NZ policy and us being master certificate authority (CA), David noted Government would like to see reliable certificate authority set up and not be involved in it, whether they would pay for it or not was yet to be acknowledged. There was some discussion and David H is to put together an exploratory discussion paper laying down the pros and cons of InternetNZ being the CA for Council. Don noted the next step was to complete a business case and Rodney volunteered to assist with this. Peter noted a previous action point to contact Komodo had been parked.

Meeting Schedule

It was agreed to aim for six meetings per year in between Council meetings and one workshop.

Investigation of new spyware - positioning paper

David noted further clarification from Exec was needed to ascertain specific requirements of such a paper but that he was happy to write it once specifics were available.

Pgp/Gnupg for Councillors /Committees

After some discussion on the pros and cons Brendan to prepare paper on signing of public statements and wider issues pertaining. It was noted by Simon it's an end user issue whether it will be used, if it doesn't reward the user then people won't use it.

Video Conferencing

Michael was still waiting for the non-commercial licence to appear as of the last meeting.. He noted that everyone would have to run Java and it required a BT piece of software to convert multicast into unicast and he was waiting for it to be released to us. Since then he has received the paperwork for a non-Commercial licence from BT . Currently we are using public domain software.

DNSsec

Peter noted can't go anywhere with it at the moment. Don updated the committee that there was no solution to walk-through expected in the near future. Tech Committee will keep a watching brief.

Travel Fund

It was agreed that any travel fund applications will only be accepted from members of InternetNZ. It was agreed to request $5k for this financial year to be allocated for those putting NZ perspective either by way of presentations or panel attendance. Brendan noted events in Australia worth attending. Simon noted need to start to prepare for next year and nominating an NZNOG speaker and contributing to cost may enable speaker to engage in other initiatives whilst here.

Internet Innovation Fund

Noted this fund is for supporting internet community in pilot type projects and Tech committee would seek approval in principle from Council for $20k over next financial year. Rodney and Simon to prepare business case for Innovation Fund. The fund would be announced at NZNOG and Rodney was voted to be NOG Relationship Manager. The Relationship Manager is responsible for contact details, getting InternetNZ speaker in right place at right time and connect with Citylink for webcast. Envisaged speaker would only need 10mins at NOG to speak to Fund.

Wildcard DNS Entries

Agreed this was not an acceptable practice for NZ, Don noted there are good technical assessments of it and that it breaks end to end. Brendan to write crib card for Peter Dengate-Thrush.

Interop Lab

Brendan noted Keith had stated project now operational. Peter related that components of it needed to be cleared by Technical Committee and Simon suggested that Tech Committee could take ownership of the technical stream. Peter suggested he do dual reporting to both Exec and Tech committees.

Peter suggested that Michael attend next meeting in Christchurch to represent Technical committee and meet with Ray Hunt.

Simon noted he was happy to draft a proposal for $5k funding for "TechNZ"

IPv6 gateway access was discussed. Noted Telecom networking had made reaching gateway impossible. Michael suggested setting up an external pipe for telco or set up our own gateway. Peter to engage with Citylink/Telecom to advise what they need to do re gateway access, Michael to supply wording. Peter to discuss closing funding for testbed with Citylink. Michael to obtain printout of gateway traffic, meet with Andy Linton and provide debrief to Tech committee.

ENUM

The list had been set up and meeting with Catalyst completed, they are willing to support the process inside corporate time as appropriate. Next steps were to populate the list. Michael has convened a meeting for 29 October.

Technical Library

David H presented a document supporting the creation of a INZ Technical Library. Noted this initiative a good one to go ahead, for members only and the Secretariat to administer. The Uniforum library may be made available to incorporate. Also noted that electronic versions i.e. safari licence be investigated. Gale was contact O'Reilly about Safari and possible sponsorship. (Safari is way too expensive!) Budgetary document to be prepared for Council
Brendan Murray
Chair, Technical Committee

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

Membership for Technical Committee for 2004/2005:

• Brendan Murray (Chair)
• David Harris (Deputy Chair)
• Rodney Prescott
• Bill Parkin
• Michael Sutton
• Simon Riley
• Don Stokes
• Peter Macaulay
• Nick Wallingford
• John Russell

plus the usual ex-officio members

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Proposed modified Terms of Reference for Technical Committee

Responsibilities:
Responsible for all technical issues relating to InternetNZ.

Obligations:
To liaise with the .nz OC and Domain Name Commissioner regarding technical issues and provide advice where requested or as appropriate where some issue arises which should be brought to their attention.

Powers:
To create working groups in consultation with President
To be an advisory group to the Office of the DNC on technical issues
To approve budgeted expenditure for the Committee.

Objectives:
To be defined, based on specific requirements put to the committee from its stakeholders (including itself)."

The only real modification from the previous ToR is changing the wording of the obligations so that they are 'consultative' rather than the more 'directive' former wording.

InternetNZ Technical Committee Work Plan

1. The Committee will meet 6 times per year to address issues pertinent to the committee.
   
2. One meeting will be of the form of a full day workshop to formalise and complete projects that will benefit from full interaction. These might include presentations/discussions on current projects, budget development.
   
3. One meeting will coincide with the NZNOG Conference to ensure significant representation from INZ at a technical level and to promote interaction with an important (though not formally associated) group
   
4. Major projects/issues in place for the coming year:
   • IPv6
   • ENUM
   • Multicast
   • DNSsec

Recommendations:

1. "THAT Council ratifies the committee membership and terms of reference as detailed above."
   
2. "THAT Council accepts the Technical Committee Work Plan for 2004/05 year."
   
3. "THAT Council authorise for the current year up to $5000 from the projects fund for the provision of a Travel Grant subsidy for approved members of INZ to attend conferences or other events. (Strategy 8: Supporting Internet Innovation and Technical Leadership)."

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