Executive Director's Report - 16 June 2007

My apologies to Council for the delay in production of this Executive Director’s report, and also for the delays in monthly project reporting. We have had some issues with the website which have impacted adversely on our project reporting and we have been extraordinarily busy since returning from the New Year.
 

a)      Administrative and General Matters
 

Outstanding Action Points from last Council Meeting

I think only one action point remains outstanding from the last Council meeting, which states “Put together a proposed process for the InternetNZ best practice program and send it to the Technical Policy list for discussion”, and this will be attended to during July.

Website

The updating of Zope and Plone to the latest versions, along with some technical issues with the Proxy web server have caused some outages of the INZ website and some difficulties in being able to update standing pages such as the project reports. These issues are now mostly resolved and the site is more stable as a result.

We will be producing a roadmap for further development of the website in the next 2 months.

General Ledger

The new General Ledger account structure was agreed in March, but unfortunately our contractor for this task was overseas for 2 weeks, immediately prior to my departure to APTLD, which has meant that for a period of 6 weeks our only contact has been through email. Progress continues very positively however, and I am confident the new financial reports will provide more accurate and timely information to Council, despite the small delays at the start up phase.

Annual Accounts / March Accounts

The financial results for the year ended 31 March 2007 are in the final stages of audit as this report is distributed. Attached to this report are the revised monthly accounts for December 2006 through to March 2007 for Council’s approval. The final annual accounts may include some further minor year end adjustments resulting from the audit, so please consider the March accounts as a close representation, rather than an absolute year end position.

It is probable we will finish at balance date with a small surplus for the year, compared to an anticipated deficit of $341,950 in our budget. Revenue for the year was in line with budget, and the difference is therefore related primarily to under-expenditure for the year.

As can be seen, we have tended to expend to the budget limits on public policy issues, but have not been so active in the pursuit of technical policy issues. This has in part been as a result of our environment, with the ongoing commitment to the telecommunications reforms, where our impact has been significant and useful to the market. Later in the year the Copyright Act revisions also became a major focus and that had been unexpected at the time of budgeting last year. It is critical that we remain flexible in order to make the greatest gains wherever we can, rather than miss opportunities through slave-like adherence to our budget and business plans. Our emphasis in the New Year will be to ensure a more balanced approach, and to a process of continuing progress on all projects.

Staffing

The INZ staff went on a weekend “retreat” in early April, and the useful outcomes include a more useful operational plan, which should see less projects falling through the gaps during the year.  The clear view from the team is that we remain under-resourced in human resources and that resolution of this is the top priority.

Campbell Gardiner has been recruited to InternetNZ and joins us on 9 July, and will add further strength to our research and communications areas, and should go a long way towards bridging the gap.

History of the Internet

 

Keith Newman is making steady progress with the creation of content for the history book, and a review of the early chapters indicates it will be an enjoyable read. We have recently initiated discussions with some book publishers and have selected a company who we are negotiating a publishing agreement with. Keith will complete the manuscript towards the end of July, which should allow for publication of the book before the end of this financial year.

 

 

KAREN Connection

 

Council will recall last year that approval was given for InternetNZ costs to connect to KAREN, if concerns over the capital costs for new equipment for the connection were not excessive. We have been in discussions with REANNZ and our ISP FX, and FX has agreement with REANNZ to be an aggregator for supply of KAREN. Ourselves and some other FX customers will therefore be able to connect to KAREN through FX, with no capital cost requirements for us. By re-working our current connectivity agreement with Citylink and FX, it appears we will have a deal that will cost us no more for general Internet connectivity than our current costs. 

 

I have signed the agreement for connection to KAREN and it is likely that we will be connected within the next month or two. The annual additional costs to REANNZ for us will be a little over $18,000.

 

 

KAREN Advisory Council

 

I have been appointed to the KAREN Advisory Council, which meets quarterly to discuss operational issues for the advanced network.

 

 

Liz Dengate Thrush Foundation

 

The Liz Dengate Thrush Foundation was signed by the trustees in late May and has now been incorporated under the new Charitable Trusts Act. The President of InternetNZ is the “Settlor” for the Foundation. InternetNZ will provide some administrative support to the trustees to start the process through opening bank accounts, facilitating meetings of the trustees etc.

 

 

Structural Review

 

Roger Hicks will be overseas on vacation on June 16, and wished to record his apologies for being absent at the finalization stage of this project, as he would have liked to present the final report to the meeting. Roger also thanks InternetNZ for the confidence in him to chair the group and participate in this significant project.

 

 

ICT-NZ

 

I was re-appointed to the ICT-NZ Board at the AGM in May. I am continuing to discuss options on how InternetNZ might be able to interact with ICT-NZ and will advise if progress is made.

 

ICT-NZ is close to being formally launched, with a new website, membership plans etc, but is awaiting confirmation of some funding to at least ensure its financial viability, at least in the short term.

 

 

Other Sibling Relationships

 

We continue to engage solidly with our sibling organisations and ongoing operational meetings continue with TUANZ, Netsafe, ISPANZ, the Computer Society and others. Our relationship with NZNOG continues to strengthen and some news on further co-operation might be available by the time of the Council meeting.

 

 

Membership Report

 

InternetNZ Membership details as at the end of May 07

Fellows: 14
Individual: 72
Professional Individual: 56
Small Organisation: 35
Large Organisation: 6

Total membership: 183

 

 

b)      International

 

APTLD

 

The APTLD Dubai meeting concluded yesterday. Saturday 2 June was set aside for the APTLD Board strategic planning session. Sunday and Monday covered the members meeting, with all of Sunday focused on the IDN for ccTLD issues, and most pleasingly, the APTLD has come to the following agreed position on .IDNs: 

 

“APTLD would like to urge ICANN to implement a limited introduction of top level IDNs so all ccTLDs in the region can better serve their indigenous peoples by taking the following two, simple steps:

a.                       Allow each existing ccTLD to manage one additional ccTLD in an official non-Latin script of their country or territory.  The name will be chosen through consultation with the ccTLD’s local Internet community.  APTLD recognises that this may not meet the demand for a few countries with multiple non-Latin scripts, but we see this as an interim position only while technical and administrative issues are resolved.

b.                       Manage a six-month comment period for the international community to lodge substantive objections to the names chosen as not being relevant for the ccTLD.  This will ensure that spurious names are not chosen.”

 

The ICANN GAC Chair, Janis Karklins presented a useful session on the GAC’s role and especially its development of a position on IDNs. Kim Davies from IANA and Theresa Swinehart from ICANN also made useful presentations on ICANN / IANA / Internet Governance issues. Non-technical training continued through Tuesday and Wednesday, and unfortunately I missed the Wednesday sessions in order to make the start of the CENTR General Assembly meeting in Helsinki.

 

The presentations from the APTLD meeting are on-line at www.aptld.org/dubaiJune2007.htm. The final communiqué will be listed there within the next day or two.

 

It was most pleasing to see over 70 participants at the APTLD meeting, a most encouraging trend in attendance, aligning with an increasingly useful agenda. There was useful engagement into the Arabic speaking section of our region, with several middle eastern ccTLDs represented.

 

The next APTLD meeting will be in Honiara, Solomon Islands in early August, coinciding with the PICISOC annual conference. The intention for this meeting is primarily for outreach to the Pacific Island ccTLD managers, and therefore no significant attendance is anticipated from the normal attendees. The next normal APTLD meeting is likely to be aligned to the Technical Training in Bangkok, which will be timed to coincide with the ICANN Los Angeles meeting in October.

 

In summary, APTLD Dubai was a most productive and useful meeting for the region.

 

 

CENTR

 

I am currently attending the CENTR General Assembly meeting in Helsinki. More than 50 attendees are present. The agenda and presentations are online at www.centr.org/meetings/ga-33. This is the first CENTR meeting I have attended, and is proving quite an interesting experience, with many of the same issues as faced by APTLD but also some slightly divergent viewpoints. The .be and .se presentations on marketing their ccTLDs are most interesting.

 

 

ICANN Puerto Rico

 

The major issues confronting the ccNSO coming up for the ICANN Puerto Rico meeting at the end of June are likely to be:

 

1.      IDNs for ccTLDs

This remains a top priority for many ccTLDs, and most especially those who rely on non-ASCII character sets for their native language. As stated above, APTLD have developed an agreed position, and it will be interesting to see the progress of the other regional organisations in the lead up to Puerto Rico.

 

2.      ICANN Regions

The ccNSO is seeking to recommend it should define a procedure for self-selection to enable ccTLD managers who consider themselves inappropriately assigned to an ICANN Geographical Region on the basis of the so-called "citizenship" criterion, to self-select an appropriate Region. Also the ccNSO seeks to facilitate the creation of sub-regional or interregional groups as required based on issues e.g. IDNs aligned to languages and character sets

 

3.      Wildcard ccTLDs

An operator has commenced wildcarding domain names from .cm to the .com registry, allowing mistypes of .cm to resolve to his own pay per click advertising pages.  He is continuing to negotiate with other ccTLDs that are mis-types of gTLD names e.g. .et for .net, .co for .com.  See <http://www.money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/06/01/100050989/> for further details
 

The ccNSO now has its own sub-website at http://ccnso.icann.org

 

c)      Technical Policy
 

Broadband Measurement

We have been co-operating with Consumers Institute who have recently advertised for expressions of interest in the development of a useful broadband measurement tool for New Zealand. The advertising has resulted in 4 responses, including from two parties we have formerly discussed this topic with. In my absence this month, Michael Wallmannsberger has agreed to assist in the evaluation of the expressions of interest and in the technical specifications. Consumers are keen to share with us this entire project. I have suggested that InternetNZ might be able to assist with funding the actual tool development and that we have a budget line provided for in this year’s business plan.

.nz Honeypot Project

Victoria University are seeking assistance in a project to undertake an environmental scan of the .nz domain name space to detect malicious web content using client honeypot technology created at Victoria University, and already provided to the wider community through several open source options.

The total project cost is approximately $42,000 and we have been asked if we could provide $20,000 towards this cost.

InternetNZ would receive reporting from the project, including:

-          Comparisons of various other country codes specific domains.

-          Lists of malicious URLs with additional information about the nature of the URLs and the malware downloaded (e.g. report on whether antivirus technology catches the malware).

-          Additional analysis which determines where exploits originate from (often they are from other sites such as adverts running on a news site). Is it a select few servers that feed exploits to malicious URLs ( e.g. through iframe directives). It could also perform an analysis on the malicious -URLs identified. e.g. is it specific type of content (adult, gambling); is it hosted by a specific ISP, etc.

-          Report on trends on the NZ domain. are we seeing an increase of malicious URLs
 

InternetNZ could use the above reports for its own and for public purposes. We would also receive the following reports which would be confidential and provided only for information to InternetNZ Council, NZOC and NZRS.
 

-          Weekly report on zero day exploits; this includes the URLs.

-          Report on Snort IDS signatures for the URLs that contain exploits.
 

The DNC has advised that this project would probably qualify as a public good, and may therefore qualify for access to the .nz zone file, which while not essential, would give a more complete sample for the scan. If we are to proceed, it would be my intention to assist Victoria University in their application for access to the .nz zone.

I therefore recommend that Council approves this project in principle, and refer it to the Technical Policy Committee for a full review and budget allocation, from the Technical Capability Development Fund. For further information please refer to the original project outline from Victoria University which is appended to this report.

Peering

The Peering TT has concluded its round of consultation with the industry, after meeting with service providers, content providers, business users, Government users, Telecom, TelstraClear and others. This has been quite an intensive process, as we were up against time constraints prior to the Chair, Murray Milner’s departure overseas.

It is my view that we should be able to achieve industry agreement on a definition of peering. It seems that the real issue in NZ is more relating to the relatively high cost of transit, as opposed to peering. Telecom have re-engaged in the peering arena, and have conducted their own consultation on a plan to offer peering to other service providers. As a result of their negotiations, some further modification of their proposed model is likely, and it does appear to be shaping as a useful reengagement in the peering process by Telecom. If this does proceed, it will place pressure on TelstraClear who would be left as the only significant ISP not peering in NZ.

Certification Authority for NZ and NZCERT

I have been discussing these 2 issues with some prospective contractors who could undertake scoping for these 2 projects. Progress is more solid on the Certification Authority, and I will soon have documentation for review by the Technical Committee. It is likely that the cost for scoping the CA will exceed the budgeted $5,000, possibly being a $10,000 project.

Colin Jackson and Michael Wallmannsberger attended the AusCERT annual conference in May, and Colin’s trip report is attached for your information.

 

d)      Public Policy

 

Digital Strategy Summit

 

MED are organizing a Digital Strategy v2.0 Summit to be held in Auckland in early October. TUANZ are facilitating the venue, accommodation etc, and MED have also appointed a programme steering group, with myself as the INZ representative. InternetNZ has also been appointed to organise the programme for Day 3 of this Summit. I propose the establishment of a small Tiger Team to assist in this project, as follows:

 

Members: Simon Riley (Convenor), David Farrar, Keith Davidson, Jordan Carter, Richard Wood, with Frank March and Janet Mazenier as observers.

 

Purpose: Create day 3 programme for Digital Strategy Summit

 

We will incur some costs, probably mostly in relation to getting overseas speakers to this day, but we do have budget lines for “overseas speakers” and “IPv6 Hui” in the new budget which could be tapped into for this purpose, and obviously we would seek further use of international speakers where we can get some additional value. It is likely that we will have an IPv6 awareness session as part of the day 3 programme.

 

I think the opportunity to help, and to have impact on the revision of the Digital Strategy are too important to ignore, and therefore our engagement for this is essential.

 

 

Copyright

 

Lobbying in favour of InternetNZ’s position on the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill continues apace, with staff and Council members engaged in a programme of meetings with MPs across parliament. It is unclear at this point when the Bill will be reported back, or in what form.

 

 

Parliamentary Internet Caucus

 

This held a second successful meeting on 9 May, hearing presentations from Russell Brown and Jason Paris (TVNZ) on the future of digital broadcasting. The discussion among MPs was lively and a lot of information was conveyed in a very short period of time. The forum attracted over fifteen MPs and continues to generate god feedback.

 

 

Telecommunications Reform

 

There has been considerable progress since the last meeting. Government released operational separation plans in April for public comment, and InternetNZ lodged two submissions, at the end of April and mid-May, arguing in favour of the government’s model (which is very similar to what has happened in the UK) and against wholesale last-minute changes to the regulatory framework being argued for by Telecom.

 

Operational separation needs to proceed. The investment issues highlighted by Telecom to meet the government’s Digital Strategy objectives should be our next area of focus. Worldwide discussion on how to achieve investment in next generation access networks is well under way.

 

Industry Working Groups

 

The Industry working groups kicked off by Telecom and facilitated by the TCF have been making sound progress towards developing technical and operational standards for LLU and other regulated services. The TCF Board signed off the LLU matters in late May, for Telecom’s inclusion in standard terms proposals. The groups are now working on UBA and other services which are the next steps in the regulatory process.

 

Standard Terms Determinations

The Commerce Commission is proceeding with the development of the regulated services mandated by last year’s Telecommunications Amendment Act. Hearings were held in April and May to scope the STD process and agree timelines. The priorities for the industry and the Commission have been LLU and UBA, followed by associated support services. Telecom is required to submit Standard Terms Proposals to the commission covering the non-price terms of the services, which the Commission assesses, adds prices to, and then seeks public input on. Much of the material in the Proposals is developed in the Industry Working Groups mentioned above, and Telecom and the industry deserve great credit for the way they have completed a lot of work very quickly in developing sound industry positions on many of the issues in play.

 

TUANZ Telecommunications Day 2007

This was held in Wellington on 31 May with Jordan Carter and Simon Riley in attendance. The programme was similar to usual with speakers from the industry and government in the morning, followed by presentations in the afternoon from (among others) Rod Drury and Richard Prebble. The government announced the new Telecommunications Commissioner on the day, and made its position in favour of continuation of operational separation clear. Telecom CE Theresa Gattung highlighted her view that there would need to be public funding involved in rolling out very high speed broadband networks in the absence of incentives to drive Telecom’s investment in these.

Jordan Carter travel report – Australia-Netherlands Broadband Mission

Jordan’s report from attending the above Mission in the Netherlands in March 2007 is attached. It includes recommendations that largely replicate and reiterate existing InternetNZ policy, but which can usefully be reinforced by Council at this meeting. The report details several interesting services that are beginning to be seen over very high bandwidth networks, and is worth reading in full.

Recommendations:

 

1.      That the Executive Director’s report be received

 

2.      That the Day 3 Tiger Team and Terms of Reference be approved.

 

3.      That Roger Hicks apologies for not being able to present the final Structural Review report to Council be received.

 

4.      That the Victoria University “honeypot” project be given approval in principle, and referred to the Technical Policy Committee for ratification and budget approval.

 

5.      That the report of the Deputy Executive Director from the Australia-Netherlands Broadband Mission be received.

 

6.      That Council acknowledge that:

·         A rapid rollout of fibre optic infrastructure to the home is key to New Zealand’s economic future.

·         Market dynamics are not likely to lead to investment in such infrastructure in acceptable timeframes.

·         Non-market solutions, including local and central government investment, are likely to be required.
 

7.      That Council agree that:

·         InternetNZ continue to focus on securing an equitable separation plan for Telecom as an interim measure to allow the rollout of better services before fibre to the home infrastructure becomes broadly available.

·         InternetNZ focus on developing industry and political support for rollout of fibre optic infrastructure in the short term, to all households and business premises in New Zealand.

·         InternetNZ support a role for public investment in securing this rollout, either at central or local government level, or both.

·         InternetNZ take every opportunity to promote this position to key decision makers and the public at large.

·         Workstreams be developed to explore further the options New Zealand faces in making this vision a reality, under the oversight of the Public Policy Committee.
 

Keith Davidson

7 June 2007