notes/20011203.NCIDN-minutes.html

ICANN/DNSO

Names Council International Domain Name (IDN) Task force Teleconference on 3 December 2001 - minutes

03 December 2001

Version updated 04 Dec with correctons provided by Marc Blanchet. Richard Lindsay is representing gTLD (not Registrar).

Version updated 05 Dec with correctons provided by Chuck Gomes.

Proposed agenda and related documents:

Selected IDN topics, Tan Tin Wee, MINC
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20011203.IDN-MINC-TanTinWee.html
Report from IETF IDN Working Group, Marc Blanchet
IDN Testbed Overview, Pat Kane, VeriSign
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20011203.IDN-VeriSign-Testbed-PatKane.ppt
How the introduction of IDN will impact the Internet and the Internet users: discussion with experts
- Understanding consequences of possible IDN
  http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-idn/Arc00/msg00031.html
- NC IDN TF - URLs to some documents
  http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-idn/Arc00/msg00034.html
Summary of the meeting and conclusions to report to the Names Council on 13 December. Next steps.

List of attendees:

Elisabeth Porteneuve IDN task force chair
Marc Blanchet (IETF Canada)
Michael Eisenberg (works with Roger Cochetti in corporate policy office)
Chuck Gomes (Verisign)
Scott Hollenbeck (Verisign chief engineer for the Registry)
Pat Kane (Verisign program manager for the implementaion of the IDN)
Richard Tindall (NC)
Richard Lindsay gTLD Registry
Richard Delmas
Greg Ruth (NC)
Masanobu Katoh (ICANN Board)
Danny Younger (GA chair)
Marilyn Cade (NC and rep. Bus. Constit.)
Youn Jung Park (NC)
Dr. Tan Tin Wee (Vice Chairman MINC)

DNSO Secretariat: Philippe Renaut -  MP3 recording, Glen de St. Géry - meeting minutes

Minutes of the meeting.

Elisabeth Porteneuve chaired the meeting.

Waiting for everyone to come on board, the terms used for domain names: Multilingual and International were discussed.

Pat Kane said:

They are synonyms and imply many different tecnologies used to internationalise domain names.
The terminolgy favoured and encouraged by the IETF and ICANN is "International"

Agenda Item 1. Dr Tan Tin Wee, not yet present so item deferred till later.
Agenda Item 2: Report from IETF IDN Working Group.
Marc Blanchet reported that there is Working group consensus on the basic architecture.
- It is an application based processing, the user will type in the language and script of his domain name, the application will process it and convert it into ASCII. This is sent to the DNS resolution for an answer, usually an IP address.
- No change has to be made in the DNS or root servers.
  The Registry and Registrar will have to modify their registration application.
  Internationalising TLDs will cause no tecnical problem, there could be policy questions
  
  Upgrading applications will take years, but the system will work without crashing. Microsoft or Unix will be able to support the system.
  
  Currently the WG is discussing additional steps - optimisations for Asian languages and some specifics about the Chinese language
  
  Next step is to reach consensus on remaing items, likely to be at the ITF in Salt Lake City.
  John Klensin's proposal based on upper layers over DNS will be discussed in a Birds-of-a-Feather session (irnss) in Salt Lake City IETF. This bof could influence the way idn handle complex language issues that can't be done in DNS.
  If a consensus happens in Salt Lake City, then the following steps will happen:
  - Validate the consensus on mailing lists.
  - Send the documents to the ISC and receive comments.
  ISC will send these to IESG. IESG will then do an IETF-wide last call. IETF process will take time even if a wg consensu is reached in Salt Lake City.
  Publishing as RFC will follow and it will become an IETF standard.
  At the time of the RFC publication, the prefix identifying the idn will be chosen.
- In conclusion: the technical issues are converging, the work is not yet finished, there is no standard, deployment must wait until the work is finished and the RFC is published.
  The winter or spring are foreseen as the timeline for RFC publication, so deployment might start at that time.
- Katoh asked about the two ways of thinking currently prevailing in ICANN, The John Klensin approach which implies layers over the DNS, so that there is more flexibilty in handling language issues and the IDN approach.
  The two approaches may be complementary. Work of the idn wg is currently related to the idn approach. John Klensin's proposal surely have more flexibility in handling language issues.
Agenda Item 3: IDN Testbed Overview,
Pat Kane outlined the Verisign testbed.
- It offers a process for customers to register international domain names in com/net/org following the IETF standards development process, within the ICANN framework in the IAB "single root" structure. All ICANN accredited registrars are eligible but must pass an Operational Test and Evaluation. 35 qualify.
- A 3 stage approach, 17 Oct 00, 10 Nov 00, 15 Jan 01 is planned with the resolution being conducted in 3 phases. The testbed status is as follows:
  - November 10, 00, Start of IDN registrations, Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts
  - February 26, 01 additional scripts introduced including letters with diacritical marks
  - April 05,01 remaining scripts supported by UNICODE
  - June 20, 01 RealNames resolution bridging technology.
  - First Quarter 02: expect the RFC to be published
  - Second Quarter 02: registrar certification
  - Third quarter 02: registration and migration of certified registrars from RACE to AMC-ACE-Z.
- The uniqueness of the DN registration in the testbed is determined by its UNICODE representation.
  The IETF has not finalised its standards and where there is change, Verisign is moving along with them.
Discussion raised key issues about the UDRP.
While it is the understanding from the Verisign team that the UDRP and WIPO can handle the problems, Katoh said that the 4 current UDRP providers for IDNs are not well equipped for international disputes and are using mainly English, to some extent Spanish, no Chinese, Japanese or Arabic. UDRP providers should be global but local expertise is important to serve different requirements.
When the demand is created, the providers will step in. The testbed process is a learning experience that is going to help full roll out of IDNs across all registries.
YJ Park and Dr.Tan Tin Wee joined the conference at this point 15.15 CET
Agenda Item 1: Selected IDN topics

Dr Tan Tin Wee divided his presentation into 3 parts:
1. Administration and management of IDN TLDs
  He gave a detailed description of the different languages, scripts and countries, showing that one size does not fit all because many languages don't share the same space. Each group wants to have their own language incorporated into the script. JEP has pulled Japanese, Chinese and Korean research to work together. The Chinese have worked on their language for 20 years while other languages like the Tamil where it is not clear where the authority lies in these different communities. Tolkein has been considered in the UNICODE space.
2. IDNA interoperability testing of localisation/folding/IDNA/Nameprep/ACE and emergent IETF standards.
  The MINC and IETFare working together to see how this interoperability testing can be done.
3. Application/vendor-independent Internet Keywords or overlapping colliding keyword namespaces?
  RealNames and Verisign were called upon to communicate their work as they progressed in this field.
  RealNames is not part of he IDN testbed.
  If keywords that look like DNs are allowed, Registrars, Registries and users could be confused. At an engineering level it could lead to vast problems and more discussion is needed before it is put in the form of a testbed.
  The IETF is exapnding the range of services by layering on top of the DNS and IP addresses. This is an important development but must not be confused with IDN. The IDN process should draw to a close soon and should not allow anything to confuse the process.
In the discussion it was emphasised that anything that affects stability should come under the close scrutiny of ICANN.
ICANN is not working in isolation and will find ways of coexisting with other groups.
Katoh spoke about the scope of ICANN on the IDN. ICANN has just launched a IDN committee and no conclusions have been reached. I do appreciate your comments . To some the committee may be very narrow, not to include anything that is not DNS saying that anything that has a direct or indirect impact on DNS must be part of the constellation.
"I do not like to close the discussion of the IDN committee to only DNS at this point."
JY Park: In the terms of reference should the ccTLD comments on IDN be in the framework of the DNSO?

Elisabeth Porteneuve replied that this important question needed a detailed answer.

Chuck Gomes asked that if there are issues that the task force considers relating to the VeriSign IDN testbed, he would request that the task force seek clarification from VeriSign to avoid misunderstandings that have occurred in the past.

Final note from IETF about terminology: Verisign presentation identifies the internet-drafts the idn wg is working on, as IETF standards. This may be misleading to the reader, since an internet-draft is a work in progress document and is by no means an IETF standard.
NEXT STEPS:

The next steps should be dealt with on e-mail.
The teleconference ended at 17.10