IDNs At the Icann Conference in Sao Paulo

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This week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned names and Numbers or ICANN is holding its Annual General Meeting in Sao Paulo, the largest commercial hub in South America, where incidentally it has been raining almost continually for the past ten days or so. ICANN is the body that coordinates addresses on the internet. Paul Twomey, CEO of ICANN always goes to great lengths to explain that the organisation does not control or manage the Internet. He likes to compare his sophisticated set up to a snail mail postal service, where ICANN coordinates the postal address system - but does not deliver the letters, does not set prices and does not say what people can put in the envelopes. Twomey says that ICANN does not deal with e-commerce nor does it set any rules regarding hate speech or pornography ? in fact it has nothing to do with content at all. Now we know what ICANN does NOT do ? so what does it do and what is the Sao Paulo meeting all about? First of all, although the organisation is headquartered in California where it was originally incorporated, the council makes an effort to be inclusive by holding meetings in various parts of the globe.

It's also a great way to see the world. In 2004 the final meeting of the year was held in Cape Town. One of the most important topics of discussion here at the Sao Paulo meeting concerns Internationalised Domain Names or IDNs. When the Internet was initially set up, addresses could only use the 26 letters of our Latin alphabet; the numbers from zero to nine and a hyphen - the system is known as LDH - or Letters, Digits and Hyphen. This is very problematic for people in countries where English is not a common language - and it can create a lot of confusion.

Here in Brazil where Portuguese is the spoken language, people need to write addresses with a C cedilha - the C with a little tail - and a number of letters with accents. The LDH system ignores character sets used by billions of people in countries such as China, Ethiopia, Japan, Egypt and Russia. There is also a serious risk of confusion when an individual letter is pronounced differently in diverse languages. For example the letter that looks like a "P" in English is in fact an "R" in Russian.

Our letter "Y" has the value of a "U" in Russian. You might have noticed that Russian language web sites use the country code of dot RU - which is fine if you are using the Latin alphabet and thinking in English. But if you would prefer the Cyrillic alphabet ? as most Russians do - and thought in Russian - then logically all Russian addresses should end with dot "PY".

The problem is that Paraguay has already secured the dot "PY" country code top level domain. This is only a small example of problems created by Internationalised Domain Names. If you add the characters of all the major languages of the world ? the useable character set would have to increase from the existing 37 of the LDH system to more than fifty thousand. So while you ponder the enormity of that problem, I'll go back to the conference.

[Rubber Duck]

More here:

http://www.icann.org/meetings/saopau...t2-07dec06.htm

[Rubber Duck]

>>STEVE DEL BIANCO: THANK YOU. I'M STEVE DEL BIANCO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE NETCHOICE COALITIONS, A COALITION OF E-COMMERCE COMPANIES, CONSUMERS.
THIS -- MY POINT OF MY REMARKS IS TO TRY TO DRAW A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE OR BALANCE WITH RESPECT TO WHAT WE'VE HEARD OUT OF ALL THE SPEAKERS BEFORE US, WHERE THE EMPHASIS HAS BEEN HEAVY ON PROCESS REFORM AND STRUCTURAL REFORM, AND I'D LIKE TO SEE IF I CAN BALANCE THAT OUT WITH A PERSPECTIVE ON PERFORMANCE.
THIS IS MY THIRD ICANN MEETING, AND WITH EACH MEETING I GROW MORE AND MORE AMAZED AT THE COMPLEXITY OF THE INITIATIVES, THE BIG HEAVY LIFTING THIS ORGANIZATION IS TRYING TO DO. IF YOU SIT IN ON THE DETAILED PRESENTATIONS AND WORKSHOPS, YOU REALIZE WHAT IS GOING ON WITH DNSSEC. HARD ENOUGH AT THE ROOT SERVER LEVEL. GOING TO BE VERY DIFFICULT TO PUSH DOWN TO THE REGISTRY LEVEL.
ON IDNS, THE COMPLEXITY OF IDNS EXPANDS EVERY TIME I SIT THROUGH A PRESENTATION. AND ALSO NEW GTLDS, WHICH ARE LESS TECHNICALLY COMPLEX THAN THE FIRST TWO BUT THEY ADD AN ELEMENT OF CONTROVERSY.
SO EACH OF US HAS GOT TO BE WONDERING, WHEN I SEE THIS COMPLEXITY, CAN I DO IT. AND IT'S A GOOD THING WE'RE CALLED "ICANN." THAT'S HELPFUL. BUT MAYBE WE SHOULD BE CALLED "ISHALL" OR "IMUST," BECAUSE FAILURE COULD RESULT IN SPLITTING OF THE ROOT AND EVEN SUCCESS OR FURTHER DELAY IS GOING TO RESULT IN THE UNITED NATIONS AND INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM, WHO REALLY BELIEVE THEY'VE GOT A BETTER WAY.
I WAS THERE AT THE IGF MEETING IN ATHENS A LITTLE OVER A MONTH AGO, AND I DO NOT SHARE THE OPINION OF OTHERS WHO GAVE YOU A REPORT ON MONDAY THAT CHARACTERIZED THE IGF AS A BENIGN GROUP OF CONVERSATIONS THAT COMPLEMENT, AS OPPOSED TO, COMPETE WITH ICANN.
THE WSIS AND IGF STARTS WITH A VERY DAUNTING LIST OF LONG-STANDING PROBLEMS, AND THEY WANT TO LOOK APPROPRIATELY TO THE INTERNET TO HELP SOLVE THOSE PROBLEMS. AND THERE ARE ALSO LOTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS WITH THEIR OWN AGENDAS WHO WANT TO ADD THAT TO WHAT THE U.N. WOULD DO, IF IT WERE HANDED THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE KEYS.
SO THAT LOOMING PRESENCE OF THE IGF SHOULD PROD US IN TWO IMPORTANT WAYS.
FIRST IS TO AVOID MISSION CREEP, AND THE SECOND IS TO EXECUTE ON OUR BIG INITIATIVES.
BOTTOM LINE? WE SHOULD BE TALKING MORE TODAY ABOUT PERFORMANCE THAN ABOUT REFORMING OF PROCESS, OR WE WILL END UP WITH NO PROCESS AT ALL. THANK YOU.
>>VINT CERF: THANK YOU. I HOPE THAT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT THE IGF, BUT I TAKE YOUR POINT.
YES, PLEASE.

[Rubber Duck]

>>BRUCE TONKIN: ...THE OUTCOME OF THE DISCUSSION WE HAD TODAY WAS TRYING TO IDENTIFY A TIME LINE OR A TARGET FOR WHEN IDNS COULD POTENTIALLY BE INTRODUCED. AND THIS TIME LINE NEEDS TO INCORPORATE THE WORK ITEMS OF WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE IETF WITH RESPECT TO UPDATING THE PROTOCOL, WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH RESPECT TO THE TESTS THAT ICANN IS RUNNING, A BOARD DECISION TO ALLOW IDNS FROM A TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE. THEN WE NEED TO LOOK AT THE ADVICE AND THE TIME LINE OF THAT ADVICE FROM THE GAC, THE CCNSO POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AND THE GNSO NEW GTLD POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS.
THERE IS A LOT OF INTERCONNECTING EVENTS HERE AND WE FEEL THAT WE NEED TO TAKE A PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH WHERE WE IDENTIFY ALL THESE EVENTS, IDENTIFY THE DEPENDENCIES BUT HAVE A CLEAR TARGET TO TRY TO INTRODUCE THESE IDNS, ASSUMING THAT THE TECHNICAL TESTS ARE SUCCESSFUL...

Looks like a job for Alphamale!

[Rubber Duck]

Oh, my God! Only ten years in and already somebody is suggesting flow charts already!

[Rubber Duck]

....I THINK A GENERAL COMMENT I WOULD MAKE WITH RESPECT TO REFORMING THE GNSO AND I THINK IT IS THE SAME COMMENT AS REFORMING ICANN IS THAT WE EFFECTIVELY HAVE -- AND I WILL USE AIRLINE ANALOGY. WE HAVE THREE FLIGHTS THAT ARE CURRENTLY FLYING IN THE AIR AT THE MOMENT. AND THEY ARE ALL PRETTY IMPORTANT. THEY RELATE TO NEW GTLDS, THEY RELATE TO IDNS AND THEY RELATE TO WHOIS. EACH OF THOSE FLIGHTS ARE CURRENTLY FLYING.
WE ACTUALLY WANT TO LAND THOSE FLIGHTS AT SOME TIME AND WE RECOGNIZE THAT IT IS ALWAYS VERY ENTERTAINING TO START FIDDLING AROUND THE WITH SYSTEMS WHILE THEY ARE IN FLIGHT, BUT LET'S MAKE SURE THAT WE KEEP THE PLANES FLYING AND IN PARTICULAR WE HAVE A CLEAR TIMETABLE FOR LANDING THOSE PLANES AND DON'T END UP WITH THOSE PLANES IN A HOLDING PATTERN AROUND THE AIRPORTS SO WE DO WANT TO LAND THEM...

I am beginning to warm to this guy!

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

>>BRUCE TONKIN: ...THE OUTCOME OF THE DISCUSSION WE HAD TODAY WAS TRYING TO IDENTIFY A TIME LINE OR A TARGET FOR WHEN IDNS COULD POTENTIALLY BE INTRODUCED. AND THIS TIME LINE NEEDS TO INCORPORATE THE WORK ITEMS OF WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE IETF WITH RESPECT TO UPDATING THE PROTOCOL, WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH RESPECT TO THE TESTS THAT ICANN IS RUNNING, A BOARD DECISION TO ALLOW IDNS FROM A TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE. THEN WE NEED TO LOOK AT THE ADVICE AND THE TIME LINE OF THAT ADVICE FROM THE GAC, THE CCNSO POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AND THE GNSO NEW GTLD POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS.
THERE IS A LOT OF INTERCONNECTING EVENTS HERE AND WE FEEL THAT WE NEED TO TAKE A PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACH WHERE WE IDENTIFY ALL THESE EVENTS, IDENTIFY THE DEPENDENCIES BUT HAVE A CLEAR TARGET TO TRY TO INTRODUCE THESE IDNS, ASSUMING THAT THE TECHNICAL TESTS ARE SUCCESSFUL...

Looks like a job for Alphamale!

They feel they need to take a Project management approach...

errrr, if they havent already been doing that for the last few years, what approach have they been taking? The old i'll engage head in sand and hope the shoe fairies fix it ?

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by Alphamale

They feel they need to take a Project management approach...

errrr, if they havent already been doing that for the last few years, what approach have they been taking? The old i'll engage head in sand and hope the shoe fairies fix it ?

Well, I guess they have but they have been doing it on umpteen different projects which they have just realised are all part of achieving an overall strategy. So the big brain wave is why not co-ordinate all the bits that are require to achieve their strategic goals.

Hell, what's the point? You were right the first time!

[Drewbert]

Looks like no IDN decisions made by the ICANN Board this round, just a resounding "you're all doing very well". Mrs Slocombe would be proud.

[Rubber Duck]

Originally Posted by Drewbert

Looks like no IDN decisions made by the ICANN Board this round, just a resounding "you're all doing very well". Mrs Slocombe would be proud.

Showing your age there Drew.