Minutes | Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Board (BTC) | 28 May 2024

Board Member and Liaison Attendees: Christian Kaufmann (Chair), Alan Barrett, Nico Caballero, Edmon Chung, James Galvin, Wes Hardaker, and Patricio Poblete

Board Members with Apologies: Harald Alvestrand and Chris Buckridge

ICANN Organization Attendees: Adiel Akplogan (VP, Technical Engagement), Franco Carrasco (Board Operations Manager), Kim Davies (VP, IANA Services & President, PTI), Aaron Foley (Senior Cryptographic Key Manager), Andrew McConachie (Policy Development and Technology Director), Matt Larson (VP, Research), and Odeline MacDonald (Associate General Counsel)

The following is a summary of discussions, actions taken, and actions identified:

1. Approval of Pending Meeting's Reports – The Committee was informed that the Preliminary Report for the 29 April 2024 meeting will be distributed via email to the Committee in the coming days for review and approval.
2. Action Item Review – The Chair established the agenda for the meeting. There was one open action item discussed.
   • Action Item: ICANN org and IANA staff to add additional language to the "Reserving .INTERNAL for Private-Use Applications" Board Paper based on the Committee's feedback and present a revised version to the Committee at a future meeting or, in the alternative, circulate it via email, for the Committee's review and approval, before it is forwarded to the Board, has been completed, and this action item can be closed. The revised version of this paper is currently located in the Committee's repository for the Committee's review. Board Ops will request the Committee's approval of this paper via email.
3. KSK/HSM Rollover Project Update – The Committee was given a presentation by IANA on IANA's Key Signing Key (KSK) / Hardware Security Module (HSM) rollover. IANA provided the Committee with a brief background on the KSK rollover process and outlined the timeline for the current 2024 KSK rollover. As part of that discussion, it was noted that shortly after IANA announced that KSK-2023 was to be generated in Q2 2023, the manufacturer of the Keyper HSMs (i.e. the device storing KSKs where key operations take place) stated it will discontinue HSM manufacturing and support. After several vendors were studied, it was reported that the Thales Luna G7 HSM was chosen as the Keyper HSM successor. IANA described the requirements to introduce new HSMs, which included the attendance of the 14 Trusted Community Representatives (TCRs) across two KSK ceremonies for credential generation and distribution purposes. The Committee posed clarifying questions about this requirement. IANA closed its presentation by stating that KSK-2024 and the Luna HSM were successfully introduced in April 2024 and are scheduled for replication in July 2024. It was also noted that KSK-2024 is anticipated to be pre-published in the DNS in January 2025, with a standby period of approximately two years before the rollover scheduled for October 2026, where it will enter its active period and officially replace KSK-2017.
4. NCAP: Next Steps & ARR Process – The Chair provided the Committee with a recap of the 23 May 2024 information session attended by the Committee and the Risk Committee of the Board (BRC), in which the SSAC leadership gave a presentation on the NCAP Discussion Group's Study 2 Final Report and on SAC 124 (SSAC Advice on Name Collision Analysis). The Chair noted that the BTC and BRC did not discuss NCAP Study 2's recommendations and risks involved (a discussion that will be moved to a future date). The Chair described the next steps to be taken and completed before this discussion will take place. First, in accordance with ICANN's Action Request Registry (ARR) process, ICANN org will conduct a feasibility assessment on SAC 124 (and NCAP Study 2's recommendations, which are included in SAC 124). Second, once ICANN org completes this feasibility study, the BTC and the BRC will meet once to continue its discussion on NCAP Study 2's recommendations and risks involved at a future date. The Board Chair will discuss the conflict of interest issues associated with the BRC/BTC discussion of NCAP Study 2's recommendations and risks involved with the appropriate members of the Board at ICANN80, and from that discussion, the structure of the meeting between the BTC/BRC will be determined.
5. Updates From Technical Liaisons
   • SSAC (James Galvin): The Committee was provided with three updates. First, it was noted that the SSAC is evolving under the guidance of its new leadership and as part of this, the SSAC is looking to be more engaged with the community and increase productivity. Second, SAC125: SSAC Report on Registrar Nameserver Management has been published. One of this report's highlights is that as of September 2020, there were over 500,000 domains that were exposed to resolution hijacking risk. The Committee was encouraged to review SAC125 and share any feedback about the future of work described in the report. Finally, it was noted that the SSAC is going to have evergreen topics, and that there are five of them: (i) DNS Abuse; (ii) DNSSEC; (iii) Next Round of New gTLDs; (iv) New namespaces; (v) Internet governance (as it relates to Security, Stability and Resiliency). The SSAC will be consistent about having discussions, as well as giving presentations to the community, on these topics.
   • RSSAC (Wes Hardaker): Updates to the RSSAC's three active bodies of work were given: (i) The Root Server System messaging for non-technical audiences is progressing well; (ii) RSS Security Incident Reporting work party's document is close to finalization; and (iii) the Guidelines for Changing Root Server Addresses (which seeks to provide a published document that can be referenced in community discussions and announcements of root server address changes) is starting its work. The Committee had a brief discussion on whether RSOs temporarily losing connection to another (resulting in the root zone not being updated) amounts to a security incident reporting identifiable event.
   • IETF (Wes Hardaker): It was reported that the next IETF meeting (IETF 120) will be held in Vancouver in July 2024.
6. Any Other Business – The Committee discussed whether the Committee and ICANN org should continue to monitor the area of alternate namespaces and have regular discussions around this topic. ICANN org reported it is currently working on a new document as part of the OCTO series on the topic of alternate namespaces. This document will cover what is currently being observed in regard to alternate namespaces, and how they are developing. Once completed, OCTO will present this document to the Committee (likely around September 2024) for discussion. The Committee also discussed whether ICP-3 should be updated in light of alternate namespaces, if so, how it should be updated, and who (e.g. ICANN org staff) would make this determination and update the policy.
   • Action Item: ICANN org (OCTO) to research the development of ICP-3 and determine whether ICP-3 should be updated, and if so, how it should be updated, and by who (e.g. ICANN org staff) in light of alternate namespaces. Once ICANN org presents its findings to the Committee, the Committee will assess whether to add alternate namespaces as a standing agenda item (with regular or periodic updates) in future Committee meetings.

The Chair called the meeting to a close.