Executive Director's Report to Council 08/11/02

This report which was begun on October 10 2002 comprises an update on activities since my last written report in August. Unfortunately I have not had time to refine it further because the International reporting took priority. However, as the final section is important, I am sending through a less than perfect version. Council may choose to make Section 9 Confidential, so I wll not place my report on the website until this is determined.

1. Action Points:

• New Directors and Officers Insurance Policy [complete]
• .bank.nz - Request for Discussion to go out [complete]
• Planning for the NGI Capability Study September Workshop and November "Event" [complete]
• AGM Implementation Issues Report [in progress]
• AGM Minutes [in progress]
• Staffing Review [complete]
• Business Cases sign-off - with Council [in progress]
• Council Interests Register update [complete]
• .bank.nz - Request for Votes, online voting commences Nov 3 [in progress]
• change to new Secure Server [complete]

2. GOVIS

I wished to note that this was a less useful experience than I had hoped. I believe our Conference speakers stand with the best in the country. The opportunity to network is never wasted, however.

3. Follow-up to E-Commerce Sector Leaders Forum

links

Forum Presentations and Bios of presenters

Five issues raised by attendees

Other useful information

• ECAT: 6 Quarters On - A progress report from the E-Commerce Action Team
• ECAT Sector Representative Reports

4. Risk Management Conference

This was of real value - as noted the

Proceedings are now available on the website (login and password sent to Council) http://www.risksociety.org.nz/

5. APTLD Country of Registration Vote

Went to Malaysia

6. Communications and Media

• There have been inaccurate statements made by some Council Members about the coverage for media releases. I note that we use MediaCom (NZPA online) and distribute via their National Pak - I ma happy to provide a full list to anyone who is interested.

• .maori.nz launch interviews:
  • RNZ, NewsTalkZB, TV3 (Te Marae - video to come), ABC (Australia), German journo, various print/online media.

• Media Releases for: .bank.nz RFD and RFV, .maori.nz launch, NGI Capability study (drafted by Cr Riley)

7. Staff Planning and Training

In progress. I am very pleased with Zofia's work, and she has now taken on the financial work of the Society, with backup from the Accountants as flagged by the Treasurer.

8. Strat Planning

This session was well attended and will form the basis of future work.

9. NZMIS.org.nz and Formal Complaint to Domainza formal complaint to Domainz

Council should be aware that I had occasion to make a formal complaint to Domainz in September. I am not satisfied with the resolution but felt that I could take no further action. Copies of the complaint including with email correspondence, and the response are below

9.a. the Complaint - 27 September 2002

The CEO
Domainz

cc Domainz Board
cc Shareholder's Representative
cc Domain Name Commissioner

Dear Derek

TWO COMPLAINTS

I accessed the Register this week in order to change the Admin Contact details, Nameserver details, and Technical Contact details on behalf of the New Zealand Maori Internet Society (nzmis.org.nz), as we have been sponsoring their domain name.

First Complaint

I successfully updated the Admin Contact details. My first complaint is that in the process of doing this the password was changed in some random manner without my requesting this. A telephone call to Domainz determined that the automatic populating of the password and hint fields Domainz has established causes this (I had noted but not comprehended that the hint fields had single numerals or digits in them). The password was reset over the phone by Domainz staff. I then relogged in to make the other updates, and our connection to the net went down. Once again the password was automatically reset without my direction. Once again a phone call to Domainz got the password reset. A Domainz staff member happened to be on our premises and I asked what the heck was going on and they said "it does that all the time". I do not find the random changing of passwords by Domainz to be acceptable.

Second Complaint

This is far more serious. I next updated the nameserver and Technical Contact details. Domainz performed the standard authoritativeness check. When that was complete I found that the Technical Contact details which I had entered had been overwritten with automatically generated details which were not the ones I entered. Even worse, those fields were 'greyed out', i.e., locked, so that I could not enter the correct details as provided by the Nameholder.

In sheer frustration I called Domainz again, and this time was referred to Tim John. Tim was very helpful, and explained that Domainz had decided to automatically populate the Technical contact details based on the .nz service provider who owned the nameservers. When I pointed out that this was a breach of the right of the Nameholder to control who their Technical contact was, he acknowledged that they'd had some complaints and this surprised him as they hadn't anticipated any problems. He offered to talk to the other 'guys' and find a work around.

Tim eventually rang back to say they'd decided to set up a third field which would allow "other" Technical contact details to be entered. I pointed out that this was still unacceptable as the automatically populated details gave another party the right to make changes to the Register. In the end Tim offered to overwrite the details in *this* case if I would send him the information. I asked him to put this in writing, his emails are copied below.

NZMIS needed urgently to change the nameservers, so this was done and I supplied Tim with the correct details despite the 'solution' being irregular. NZMIS are aware of the fact that I am making a formal complaint.

I would therefore like answers to the following questions.

1. By what authority did Domainz decide to override the Nameholder's right to enter their preferred Technical contact details.

2. By what authority did Domainz decide to force all Technical Contact details to be linked to nameserver "owners"?

3. Who did Domainz consult before making these changes?

4. When did Domainz inform all Nameholders of this change?

5. By what authority has Domainz changed the Field name from Technical Contact Details to Nameserver Administrator? (a departure from international protocols)

6. Now that Domainz has imposed this 'solution', what ability does Domainz have to revert to the former information provided by Nameholders contained in the technical contact field?

======

Email one from Tim John

X-Envelope-To: Received: from dnzexsv.domainz.net.nz (exchange.dnz.net.nz [192.168.131.6])
by extern.domainz.net.nz (8.11.2/8.11.2) with ESMTP id g8OLAjB14243
for Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:10:45 +1200
Received: by exchange.dnz.net.nz with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:04:24 +1200
Message-ID: From: Tim John To: "'exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz'" Subject: Name server information
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 09:04:22 +1200
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
X-UID: 1790

Hi Sue,

Just to confirm our conversation the other day; the current configuration of the DRS only allows one set of contact details for each physical name server in the DRS (called the NSPool).

Unfortunately, this was an oversight and we are currently working on a solution to allow tech details to be tied to each FQDN entry and not the physical ns itself. However, we will not be entertaining independent details to be set for a name server on a domain name basis.

In the meantime, I can populate the appropriate fields for the domain names in question if you can supply the details.

Cheers,

Tim

DISCLAIMER: The content of this email is confidential and may contain legally privileged information intended only for the individual or entity named above. Access to this message by anyone else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that the use, distribution and publication of the above information is prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please contact Domainz by returning the email and destroying the original. Thank you.

Email 2 from Tim John

X-Envelope-To: Received: from dnzexsv.domainz.net.nz (exchange.dnz.net.nz [192.168.131.6])
by extern.domainz.net.nz (8.11.2/8.11.2) with ESMTP id g8QNIvB09563
for Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:18:57 +1200
Received: by exchange.dnz.net.nz with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
id ; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:12:30 +1200
Message-ID: DFDB26E46F7AD611829300065B3DDB8519348D@exchange.dnz.net.nz
From: Tim John tim.john@domainz.net.nz
To: "'Sue Leader'" exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz
Subject: RE: Name server information
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 11:12:23 +1200
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
X-UID: 1968

Cheers Sue.

I'll get onto this ASAP.

As for the first paragraph, I'll try and explain it differently (just in
case you interested). Because the DRS used to allow repeated entries of the same name server (and thus increasing the size of the database unnecessarily), it was changed so that if someone entered a name server or  IP address into the technical details screen the system would check the 'pool' of known name servers and use this instead of those details typed in.

Whilst this work well for domain names hosted by the bigger players (Freeparking, 2Day etc), it doesn't allow small providers to enter their own details if they use someone else's name servers.

This latter problem is what we are trying to address at the moment.
Hopefully the fix will be released with the first wave of SRS changes being deployed.

Thanks again.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Sue Leader [mailto:exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz]
Sent: Friday, 27 September 2002 10:45 a.m.
To: Tim John
Subject: Re: Name server information

Hi Tim
At 09:04 25/09/2002, you wrote:
Hi Sue,
Just to confirm our conversation the other day; the current configuration of the DRS only allows one set of contact details for each physical name server in the DRS (called the NSPool). Unfortunately, this was an oversight and we are currently working on a solution to allow tech details to be tied to each FQDN entry and not the physical ns itself. However, we will not be entertaining independent details to be set for a name server on a domain name basis.

I don't understand this, nor how it happened in the first place.

In the meantime, I can populate the appropriate fields for the domain names in question if you can supply the details.

Please find below the full details. I've spoken with Col and Richard, and they have updated the nameservers, but the Tech Contact details are shown (incorrectly) as WebFarm. Please make these changes:

Technical Contact Details:Col Heke
7 Toroa Place
Tokoroa NZ
Email: webmaster@nzmis.org.nz
Phone: 64 7 886 8837

Thanks
Sue

Cheers,

Tim

From: "Col Heke" colinheke@coolnet.co.nz
To: "'Sue Leader'" exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz
Subject: RE: nzmis.org.nz information
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 13:31:38 +1200
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616
Importance: Normal

Kia ora Sue

Phoned but you were out anyway here are details.Here are the new name server details for nzmis.org.nz

Primary Server Hostname:ns.host4u.net
Primary Server Netaddress:209.150.128.30
Secondary Server Hostname: ns2.host4u.net
Secondary Server Netaddress: 209.150.129.3
Name Holder Name Holder Representative
NEW ZEALAND MAORI INTERNET SOCIETY
11 Old Coach Road South
Otaki
NEW ZEALAND
6001
The Chairperson
Email: mailto:richard_orzecki@xtra.co.nz richard_orzecki@xtra.co.nz
Phone: 025 305 545
Name Server Administrator
Col Heke
7 Toroa Place
Tokoroa NZ
Email: webmaster@nzmis.org.nz
Phone: 64 7 886 8837
Col Heke
Hosting at a price you can afford
www.host4u.co.nz get your own name FREE
yourname.maori.us with hosting at www.maori.us
=======

---
Sue Leader
Executive Director, InternetNZ
Level 4, 4 Bond St PO Box 11-881, Wellington
Ph: +64 4 472 1600 Fax: +64 4 495 2115
http://www.internetnz.net.nz

b. The Reply - 8 October 2002

From: Derek Locke - Domainz Derek.Locke@domainz.net.nz
To: "'Sue Leader'" exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz
Cc: board@domainz.net.nz, President@internetnz.net.nz, dnc@dnc.org.nz
Subject: Formal Complaint - Unauthorised Changes to DNS structure
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 16:49:37 +1300
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C26E7D.B8E66730"
X-UID: 2733

Sue

We have answered each of your questions below:

1. By what authority did Domainz decide to override the Name holder's right to enter their preferred Technical contact details.

In an attempt to clear-up and maintain the database as clean as possible, Domainz created a new table containing the
technical details for the name servers 'known' to the DRS and linked together by an index number. These details
would eventually be made available to Providers so that they could administer their own technical details.

2. By what authority did Domainz decide to force all
Technical Contact details to be linked to name server "owners"?

Not 'all' details were forced. Any existing name server within the DRS was identified and the appropriate technical details linked to that name server. If a customer entered the name and IP address of a name server that was not known to the DRS, then the customer would be free to enter their own details.

3. Who did Domainz consult before making these changes?

Domainz wrote to the vast majority of Providers with the plan to pre-configure the technical details and this was met with
unanimous approval. Over 200 providers supplied their technical details within days of the request. Even the few who didn't like the plan, submitted their details as they agreed there should be some level of consistency.

4. When did Domainz inform all Name holders of this change?

Name Holders were informed of this change as part of the summary of changes due to the AccPac project. An article was placed on the Media Center.

5. By what authority has Domainz changed the Field name from
Technical Contact Details to Name server Administrator? (a departure from international protocols)

In an attempt to prevent confusion to the majority of name holders, and as advised and agreed with the providers,Domainz decided that the term 'Technical Details' would be replaced by 'Name Server Administrator'. This also reflected the addition of the new NSAdmin table.

6. Now that Domainz has imposed this 'solution', what ability
does Domainz have to revert to the former information provided by
Name holders contained in the technical contact field? Domainz have acknowledged that not all scenarios involving name servers are permitted under this configuration and a solution is currently being investigated. However, Domainz are reluctant to return to offering 'free-text' fields for the entry of technical details.

In the interim, a datascrub has taken place to match a large number of missing technical details with the majority of
know name servers.

Regards

Derek

DISCLAIMER: The content of this email is confidential and may contain legally privileged information intended only for the individual or entity named above. Access to this message by anyone else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, please be advised that the use, distribution and publication of the above information is  prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please contact Domainz by returning the email and destroying the
original. Thank you.

===

Sue Leader
Executive Director
InternetNZ