Status Briefing on the IDN Program Plan

Following the Autonomica laboratory test of A-labels (IDN TLDs) inserted into a replication of the DNS root zone system as NS-records, a plan for a test and evaluation facility based on the insertion of sample IDN TLDs (A-labels) in the root zone has been developed. This plan takes into consideration the recommendations provided to ICANN at many global IDN-related events. The following elements are all activities necessary to run and conduct the test and evaluations as described in the attached paper.

IDN TLD Application Evaluation Facility:

Description: A draft paper of ICANN's plans for two IDN TLD evaluation facilities and activities related to the insertion of A-labels (IDN TLDs) into the root zone. The plan includes:

• a live replication of the Autonomica laboratory test, and
• an online evaluation facility where end-users, application developers, registry operators and any other interested participants can use fully-localized domain names (IDNs) and provide feedback concerning the usability of such.

Status: The draft test plan will be published for comments prior to the San Juan meeting in June 2007. Translations are currently underway into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Future milestones: Following public comments, the plan is expected to be discussed during the ICANN meeting in San Juan (June 2007) as well as at the RSSAC meeting taking place during the IETF meeting in Chicago (July 2007). Subject to these and other consultations a finalized version of the plan will be provided for ICANN Board consideration at its 14 August 2007 meeting. ICANN Board approval will be sought for the plan, including approval of the insertion of the suggested evaluations strings (<.test> translated into a number of different languages), in the root zone. Implementation will then commence. According to the plan the evaluation facilities will be launched in late September 2007. The two facilities will have different end dates.

IANA Procedure for the Insertion of A-labels into the Root Zone:

Description: The draft procedure contains a specification for how the IANA will insert and manage evaluation purpose A-labels in the DNS. The procedure includes an emergency removal procedure which was specifically requested for the case where damaging negative effect is measured to the DNS and the TLDs must be removed from the root zone. (The expectation is that this procedure will not be invoked ).

Status: Draft procedures posted for public comment

Future Milestones: The public comment period is open until 22 June. The procedure will be submitted to the ICANN Board for discussion during the San Juan meeting. It will be implemented following standard IANA processes.

IDN TLD Root Server Performance / Tolerance Document

Description: This paper contains a draft tolerance measure that invokes the emergency procedure described above under the IANA Procedure . ICANN is soliciting root-server operator participation for monitoring of the test and to notify ICANN if negative effects are observed during the live evaluation phase.

Status: Draft document posted for public comment

Description: Geoff Huston, APNIC has agreed to participate in developing a paper describing IDN issues related to usability from the point an IDN is entered into a UI; through applications; and to the DNS. Additional expertise is needed to complete this work, in particular in the area of user-level applications that take keystrokes on some form of input device and attempt to interpret them as Unicode. This initiative was requested by the technical community and launched in order to indicate where IDN issues may arise, and enable ICANN and the technical community to make informed decisions as to what additional IDN analysis or test that might be necessary. The paper will include descriptions of issues related to: keyboards, operating systems, interaction between applications, software libraries, resolvers, and the description of how the resolution of the resulting A-label will be parsed in the systems and represented at the UI for the end user.

Status: An expert has been retained to participate in writing this paper, containing a full description of any issues related to the introduction of A-labels in the DNS root-server system, but with primary focus on what happens outside the DNS. Initial research is being conducted and has helped specify what additional expertise is necessary.

Future Milestones: ICANN is actively seeking additional expertise necessary to finalize this paper. Once completed the paper will be made publicly available and used in the continued discussions between the Technical Liaisons to the ICANN Board and ICANN staff to determine if additional IDN components need further analysis or revision.

Description: The SSAC has launched a study to identify DNS security issues associated with the potential deployment of IDN TLDs. The Study focuses on the following question: "What impact will the introduction of IDN TLDs have on the security and stability of the Domain Name System?"

The study will take into account all IDN initiatives, such as the IDN .test evaluation facilities, the IDNA protocol review, the IDN Guidelines revision, and testbed or experimental implementations in various parts of the world. At this time the committee has received a draft work plan from its chair (Ram Mohan) and development of project goals and objectives are underway. The study group draws upon the expertise of technologists from the name space and addressing technical communities.

Status: The SSAC Committee for performing this study has been formed, and held its first two teleconference meetings. A work plan has been discussed and is being drafted.

Future Milestones: The SSAC IDN study is scheduled for completion in the calendar year 2007. Its findings will be made publicly available.

Description: The IDN Guidelines version 1.0 was published in June 2003 regarding the implementation of IDNs and the IDNA protocol. The acceptance of the guidelines has been a requirement for gTLD registry operators and a recommendation for ccTLD registry operators. The guidelines are subject to on-going review and revision based on the experience gained by TLD registries. The ultimate intention is the creation of a BCP, and migrating the IDN Guidelines into a format that will more naturally support adoption by all registry operators, on all levels of the DNS, that implement IDNs. Version 2.2 of the IDN Guidelines was posted for public review on 11 May 2007. This is the first version to mention IDN TLDs.

Status: version 2.2 of the IDN Guidelines were recently posted, additional revisions are anticipated.

Future Milestones: Future revisions will be based upon the IDNA protocol review and revision and is also anticipated to have some level of dependency on the IDN Policy work.

Description: The IDN repository of TLD IDN Practice was created to support the development of the IDN technology. The repository is a set of language and script tables developed and provided by TLD registries. The IDN Guidelines specifically call for a TLD registry to publish the aggregate set of code points that it makes available in clearly identified IDN-specific character tables, and will define equivalent character variants if registration policies are established on their basis. The IDN repository was launched to publish such tables online for public access. The latest development for the IDN repository entails a functional specification to add a search mechanism and enhanced display functionality.

Status: The IDN Repository is managed by the IANA; new functionality has been defined and scheduled for implementation in June 2007.

Future Milestones: A communication plan to explain the usage and functionality of the repository is being developed.

Description: While there are ongoing consultations between the GNSO, the ccNSO, and the GAC, further work with IDN Policy remains to be completed in the respective organizations, as follows:

Generic Names Supporting Organization:

The GNSO has considered IDN TLD issues as part of its New gTLD PDP deliberations, considering modalities for including applications for internationalized top level as part of the future new TLDs application process.. The GNSO launched an IDN Working Group last year that has now finalized its report, identifying and addressing matters such as the introduction of IDN gTLDs, geo-political details, relationships with existing gTLD strings, concerns relating to existing SLD holders, and techno-policy details.

Future Milestones: The mapping of the areas of agreement in the GNSO IDN Working Group Outcomes Report to the draft New TLDs Final Report is underway, primarily as implementation guidelines. The GNSO Council is discussing the outcome and will decide on next steps at its 7 June meeting, in conjunction with overall discussion of the New gTLD PDP. It is anticipated that the Council will adopt most aspects of the IDN working group report into its policy recommendations for the deployment of new gTLDs, and essentially conclude its IDN policy work at the same time.

Country-code Names Supporting Organization and Government Advisory Committee

• The ccNSO IDN Working Group is working to provide advice to the ccNSO on the global policy issues associated with the introduction of IDNs.

A joint ccNSO/GAC Working Group is producing an issues paper on the selection of IDN ccTLD labels paralleling the ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes. This was considered at a joint meeting of the GAC and the ccNSO in Lisbon. Two presentations given at the joint meeting in Lisbon suggested that a mandated list may be possible; however, further investigation is required on the timing to develop such a list and also the legitimacy of such a list.

Status: Staff is currently meeting weekly to develop an IDN Policy Strategy and Program Plan, synthesizing material from all groups in the community working towards this effort (in particular, the work and comments of the ccNSO, GAC, and GNSO).

Future Milestones: The ccNSO and GAC agreed to post the draft issues paper for comment within their groups. Based on the comments received, a revised draft issues paper would be prepared and circulated for further comment. The aim is to present the issues paper to the Board for consideration at the ICANN San Juan meeting. It will be an issues paper for discussion only.

The ccNSO recently wrote to the Board asking that any implementation of IDNs be delayed until the ccNSO/GAC has been given adequate time to consider IDNs in the ccTLD environment. Staff is collaborating with ccNSO and GAC leadership to determine if there is a way to provide for the introduction of some IDN TLDs in line with and while conducting the policy development work.

• Information on GNSO IDN policy activities is posted at < http://gnso.icann.org/issues/idn-tlds/ > and < http://www.gnso.icann.org/drafts/idn-wg-fr-22mar07.htm >
• Information on ccNSO IDN policy activities is posted at < http://ccnso.icann.org/ >
• Information on the ccNSO GAC joint IDN issues paper can be found at http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/jointwg.htm

Description: An informal expert panel evaluated experiences gained in the implementation of IDNA since its introduction in 2003, and identified several key areas of concern. These were documented in several documents intended to trigger a formal revision of the IDNAprotocol, of which two central statements are cited below. The core components in the revision effort include: definition of valid IDN labels, inclusion based model as opposed to an exclusion based model, fixing right-to-left error in Stringprep, no Unicode version dependency. The framework for the revision can be found in RFC4690.

Status: Latest version of the revision documents are:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-klensin-idnabis-issues-01.txt

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-faltstrom-idnabis-tables-02.txt

Future Milestones: The review is moving forward following standard IETF processes. The intention is to finalize this work within the current calendar year.

Status: Several outreach and educational sessions have been and will continue to be conducted.

Description: Staff is providing outreach in many different forums: participation in IDN related events, recommending agenda and speakers to IDN-related events, financial support, day-to-day e-mail and phone correspondence, recommendations, and general information and network sharing. Face-to-face meetings have been held with governments, ccTLD registry operator representatives in the following countries (listed for 2006 and onwards): Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Jordan, Latvia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States, and more.

Future Milestones: A regularly updated calendar of IDN-related events is maintained at: http://www.icann.org/topics/idn/meetings.htm

Status: Not yet initiated, pending completion of other IDN projects

Description: The deployment of IDN TLDs is anticipated to be the last project in the development phase of ICANN's IDN Program. This project has not been launched but it will take into consideration the entire suite of project activities described above, and generate a process for the deployment of internationalized top level labels (if such is approved and considered stable for the DNS).