ISOC B. Carpenter Internet Draft L. Landweber November 1995 J. Postel N. Trio Proposal for an ISOC Role in DNS Name Space Management Abstract draft-isoc-dns-role-00.txt This draft proposes that the Internet Society should take a formal role in the oversight and licensing of competitive registries for the international Internet name space, in support of the IANA and with the assistance of the IAB. Although this draft has been discussed in various bodies, it is not final, it should not be regarded as a consensus document, and it is presented for open debate in the Internet community. Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.'' To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ds.internic.net (US East Coast), nic.nordu.net (Europe), ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast), or munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim). Table of Contents: Status of this Memo.............................................1 1. PROCESS......................................................2 2. INTRODUCTION.................................................2 3. THE PROPOSAL.................................................3 Security considerations.........................................7 Acknowledgements................................................7 Authors' Addresses..............................................7 Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 1] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 1. PROCESS The intended process for the finalisation of this document is as follows (with this version being Step 2): 1. Distribute early drafts to solicit comments from ISOC Trustees and Advisory Council Officers, IAB, IESG. 2. Based on comments on early drafts, prepare an Internet Draft for comment by the wider Internet community. 3. In parallel, organize a meeting to present the preliminary ISOC plan and obtain further feedback. All stakeholders will be invited to this meeting. 4. Also, in parallel, hold focused discussions with U.S. government officials and other key individuals regarding the transition from the current system. 5. Present the current details of the DNS plan at the Dallas IETF and solicit further input. It is expected that there will be time for IETF participants to review the Internet Draft prior to this meeting. 6. Based on all input received, describe final details in an Informational RFC and present to ISOC BOT and the IAB for ratification. 2. INTRODUCTION The recent introduction of charging for commercial (.com) domain name registration and an interest in fostering competition in this area led to discussions as to the proper role of Government, and as to the role that independent bodies such as the Internet Society (ISOC) might play. Indeed, the ISOC is prepared to provide an independent, neutral home for coordination of essential central elements of Internet infrastructure. These include the root domain and selected top-level domains of the domain name system. Therefore, this document is the draft of a proposal, to all Internet stakeholders, for increased ISOC involvement in the domain name registration process. Its goal is to address concerns of the global Internet community in the area of domain name registration and support. Its eventual adoption will require consensus from the user community and from stakeholders, including Internet service and content providers, the CIX, relevant software and hardware industries, relevant government agencies in the U.S. and elsewhere, and multinational networking organizations. Assignment of names within national domains will remain the responsibility of national authorities, and hence is not included in this proposal. The ISOC role would include setting policy, providing administrative oversight, and directly managing the selection of domain name Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 2] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 providers for non-national top level domains. It would not include managing operational infrastructure or engaging in other activities that are commonly included under the umbrella of "operations." These will continue to be the responsibility of Internet Service Providers and their representative organizations (e.g., the CIX). Examples of operational activities in this context include, among others, operation of routers and domain name servers, allocation of leaf domain names subject to global policy, and the servicing of customers. With the rapid commercialization and globalization of the Internet, it is important that responsibility for key central components of Internet infrastructure evolve away from support and oversight by the US government to an independent and international basis. ISOC is an international, individual membership and organizational, membership organization. The organizational membership provides support from a broad range of businesses and other organizations involved in significant components of the global Internet infrastructure. The approximately 5,000 individual members include many key developers, maintainers, managers, providers, supporters, and users of Internet infrastructure. Individual members are located in over one hundred countries. Because of its diverse individual and organizational membership, ISOC represents a major segment of the Internet industry and support structure throughout the world. ISOC brings a knowledgeable community to this challenging problem and, with support from the larger Internet community, it can provide a framework for institutionalizing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and related functions on a scale suited to the Internet as we expect it to be in the future. 3. THE PROPOSAL 1. The Internet Society will assume responsibility for the DNS name space. This will include: (a) determination of policies, procedures, processes, and standards for the allocation of domain names in non-country-specific top level domains such as "com," and other similar top level domains (e.g., corp, ltd or bus) that might be introduced by the IANA in the future. Policies for the assignment of domain names within national domains such as fr, us, or jp, will remain the responsibility of a party designated by the IANA in agreement with national authorities. (b) the selection, licensing, and oversight of Internet Name Providers (INPs) who are delegated to assign names within a designated portion of the DNS name space; (c) dispute resolution; (d) provision of a legal umbrella for the activity; and (e) financial oversight and accountability for funds received and Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 3] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 disbursed by the IANA, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and ISOC for this activity. It should be emphasized that ISOC is not proposing to provide direct operational services. It is merely offering to serve as a neutral body which can help to foster competition by providing support in the enumerated areas. 2. The IAB, acting through the IANA, will be designated as the ISOC entity that will be responsible to act on behalf of ISOC in matters relating to (a) and (b) above. Determination of policies, procedures, processes, standards will be done by an open process (such as normal IETF procedures), permitting input and discussion by the full range of Internet stakeholders. Such openness is an important pre-requisite to the universal acceptance of IAB recommendations. When full developed, IAB recommendations will be presented to the ISOC Board of Trustees for final ratification. The IAB has been designated to be responsible for this task because it is the oversight body for the IANA, the organization that currently has responsibility for the Internet domain name space and because of its role in the Internet standards process. It is a constituent body of the Internet Society whose members are selected by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and approved by the ISOC Board of Trustees. Because of this, references to responsibilities of the IAB should not be construed as limiting the ultimate responsibility of the Internet Society for this activity. 3. The IANA will be delegated as the organization responsible for implementing the policies, procedures, processes, and standards specified by the IAB. 4. A goal of the DNS management activity will be to provide for an efficient, flexible, stable, and low cost environment in which a choice of different INPs will be available to customers. To accomplish this, the IANA will license INPs who will be responsible for allocating portions of the name space. To provide for competition, new top level domains may be established or mechanisms may be developed to share a single top level domain among multiple INPs. 5. Each INP will be required to adhere to the policies, processes, procedures, and standards as determined by the IAB and ratified by the ISOC Board of Trustees. A failure to adhere to these policies, processes, procedures, and standards may result in the revocation of the license or other action. In this regard, it will be necessary to architect the system in such a way as to allow for graceful changeover between INPs in the event of a revocation as well as to provide legal protection for the IANA/IAB/ISOC in the event of a legal action. 6. INP licensees will pay an annual fee to ISOC. Funds raised will be used to support the DNS name space management activity described in this document. Fee structures will be set to generate only Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 4] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 sufficient funds to cover DNS-related activities of IANA, IAB, ISOC and will not fund programs or activities not connected with DNS name space management. Examples of anticipated expense categories include support staff, liability insurance for the IANA, IAB, and ISOC, overhead items such as space and computing support, and travel. It is an open issue whether support of root nameservers would be included. An estimate of required license fees will be developed as part of the continuing process of refining this proposal. 7. INPs will be allowed to determine their fees. 8. INPs will be required, where possible, to obtain liability insurance and to, in their contract with ISOC, hold ISOC and its designated representatives harmless for their actions. It will be important for INPs to have an awareness of the legal issues related to this activity and for them to have the infrastructure and financial resources to both participate in the dispute resolution process described below (see 9) and to defend themselves in cases where legal action is initiated. ISOC will also obtain liability insurance to cover its designated representatives and will also endeavor, through the specification and establishment of fair and open processes and dispute resolution mechanisms, to minimize the likelihood of legal action. One area to be addressed concerns how to deal with issues that arise when an INP is either unable or unwilling to continue to provide DNS-related services. Among the questions to be resolved are the maintenance and transfer of data and the transfer of responsibility to a new INP. 9. The purpose of this section is to propose a mechanism to resolve disputes in managing the DNS. The aim is to, as much as possible, solve conflicts outside the formal legal process. The mechanism is similar to those of many organizations and is based on an arbitration mechanism. (a) all "owners" of DNS names agree to place disputes before an arbitration panel, a DNSAP, and to accept its decisions as binding. (b) all parties agree that the DNSAP and its members will be held non liable for any of its lawful activities under this mechanism and will waive access to internal DNSAP communications. (c) members of a specific DNSAP will be drawn from a panel of senior people from a variety of fields including technology, law and business who agree to serve without pay. The specific members will need to assure themselves and the DNSAP Administrator that they have no conflict of interest in the case being considered. (d) all pleadings will be done via electronic communications: email, web presentation etc. (e) except in extremely complex cases as decided by the DNSAP Administrator, the panel will only meet electronically. Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 5] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 (f) decisions of the panel will be made as promptly as possible and the report will be issued to the parties involved as well as the DNSAP Administrator. (g) decisions will be made available to a court with jurisdiction in the event of any further action on the part of the complaining party. 10. The IAB will provide liaison, as appropriate, in this area with national governments, international organizations, Internet Service Providers, and industry and educational organizations and associations. 11. ISOC recognizes that while the DNS name space is international, the U.S. government has played an important role in the development of the Internet. ISOC will work closely with U.S. government officials to effect a smooth transition, free of financial risks, from the current administrative structure to the one described above. 12. This proposal does not initially deal with other categories of central support such as Internet addresses assignment, IPv6 address assignment, MIME-type registration, or RFC support. All of these are areas for further study. 13 It is recognized that this proposal extends the scope of activities of the ISOC and of the IAB and the IANA in particular. Dedicated staff support for these new activities is known to be essential and indeed will be the main cost leading to the need for license fees. Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 6] Internet Draft Proposal for ISOC Role in DNS Management November 1995 Security considerations None. Acknowledgements Constructive comments have been received from many members of the ISOC Board, IAB and IESG. Authors' Addresses Brian E. Carpenter IAB Chair Group Leader, Communications Systems Phone: +41 22 767-4967 Computing and Networks Division Fax: +41 22 767-7155 CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics Email: brian@dxcoms.cern.ch 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland Larry Landweber ISOC President Computer Sciences Dept. University of Wisconsin 1210 W. Dayton St. Phone; +1 608 263 7442 Madison, WI 53706, USA. Email: lhl@cs.wisc.edu Jon Postel IANA Phone: 310-822-1511 USC/Information Sciences Institute Fax: 310-823-6714 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292 Email: Postel@ISI.EDU Nicholas R. Trio ISOC Advisory Council IBM Internet Systems and Operations Phone: 914-945-1850 IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Email: nrt@watson.ibm.com PO Box 218 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 Carpenter, Landweber, et al.Expires May 1996 [Page 7]