Internationalising the Domain Names System Presentation for IDRC

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Internationalising the Domain Names
SystemPresentation for IDRC
Tan Tin Wee Acting CEO Multilingual Internet
Names Consortium (MINC)
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Background and History
Multilingual domain name??

• 1994-1998 Internationalization effort in the
  APNG- Multilingual Content- Multilingual Web
  Browser support- Multilingual Email
• Standardization of Encoding Character Sets

Yes! Multilingual Content
Yes! Multilingual Character Support on Browser
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If the Internet was invented inThailand, and all
Domain Names used Thai characters as a standard,
would you remember this URL?
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Lets all learn English so that we can use the
Internet???

• English ASCII is used in telecommunications
  airlines, sciences, computer languages etc etc
• ISO/CCITT/ITU-T specifications etc all in
  English.
• Internet protocols are fundamentally ASCII
  email, ftp, routing
• DNS internationalization too difficult!
• Why not stick to English ASCII?

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Consequences of Lack of multilingual support for
DNS

• Difficulty for non-native English speakers to
  remember URL and spell it correctly
• Hindrance to e-commerce if non-native
  English-speaking customers
• Impediment to training of students in Internet
  who learn English later in school (or never!)
• Disenfranchised masses and widening divide
  between digital haves and have-nots

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Solution to Multilingual DNS

• March 1998 International-isation of the domain
  name system
• iDNS Proxy System invented
• Asia Pacific testbed set up in 1998/1999

http//www.apng.org/commission/idns/
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Proof that internationalization of DNS (iDNS) was
possible

• Findings of the study and testbed was successful
• Ability to support Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
  Thai, Tamil etc at that time
• First company to start commercialising technology
  and providing robust service i-DNS.net
  International Inc in 1999

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A Flood of Technology Service Providers has
emerged

• I-DNS.net International Inc 1999
• .NU domain (Swedish in 1999)
• Neteka Inc 2000 (Toronto based)
• Network Solutions Inc (now Verisign GRS) 2000
• Worldnames in 2000
• And many many others

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Problem of Interoperability

• Tower of Babel babelisation of Internet has
  taken place.
• Balkanisation of the Internet should be
  prevented i.e. should not fragment the network
  with multiple non-interoperable standards
• Internet Engineering Task Force urgently set up
  IDN Working Group chaired by an Asian

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Problem of Non-interoperable National Character
Sets
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Internet Character Formats1994-present

• ISO 10646, rfcs 1815 and 1995
• UNICODE
• UTF-7 use in mail, RFC 1642
• Updated RFC 2152
• UTF-8 version of ISO 10646, RFC 2044
• Updated RFC 2279
• UTF-16 version of ISO 10646, RFC 2781
• Multiple representations make this painful
• Language Tagging as a solution?
• ASCII Compatible Encode (ACE) Format? lt adopted
  by IETF

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The Challenge of Interoperability

• Backward Compatible
• Future compatible
• Works for All languages everywhere, all the time
  for all peoples
• All protocols affected by internationalized DNS
  must be fixed
• Support many encodings
• Universal unambiguous
• Transition must be managed
• Administrative / management structure in place

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Multilingual Domain Names

• Industry driving this
• NSI (Verisign) and partner companies setting up
  multilingual.com services testbed
• JPNIC, KRNIC launching production level testbeds
• CNNIC, TWNIC, HKNIC, MONIC in progress
• ICANN defers to IETFs progress in IDN before
  making any decisions very slow, needs of
  multilingual masses not met quickly enough, poor
  appreciation of situation.

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MINC Formation

• Driven by APNGs initiative, and the leadership
  role in AP region, iDNS taskforce set up.

• June 2000 Inauguration of Multilingual Internet
  Names Consortium
• More than 40 Founding Members and Organisations
  from five continents

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MINC Members

• Organisational Membersinclude investors,
  industry, academia, research institutes,
  government authorities, NICs etc
• Individual Members from world wide more than
  300 members within a year of formation

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Mission of MINC

• Coordination of RD on multilingual names (not
  just Domain Names)
• Coordination on deployment of multilingual names
• Coordination with the relevant organizationsi.e.
  IETF, W3C, ICANN, Unicode, IEEE, ISO, WIPO and
  ITU
• Coordination for standards development

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Many MINC Meetings

• pre 2000 Pre-MINC meetings
• 2000.2 APRICOT in Seoul
• 2000. 3. 27 BoF during Adelaide IETF
• 2000. 5. 12-13 San Francisco Meeting
• 2000. 6. 12 - 13 MINC Launch in Seoul
• 2000. 7. 17 -19 MINC Meeting in Yokohama
• 2000. 9. 23 - 24 MINC Meeting in Singapore
• 2000.10 MINC Mtg in Dubai
• 2000.11 MINC Mtg in Los Angeles

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Many MINC Meetings

• 2000.11 MINC Meeting in Marina Del Rey (ICANN)
• 2001.1 MINC mtg in Honolulu (APAN)
• 2001.2 MINC mtg in KL Malaysia (APRICOT)
• 2001.3 MINC Meeting in Melbourne (ICANN)
• 2001.3 MINC adhoc mtg at Minneapolis (IETF)
• 2001.4 MINC outreach mtg in Amman,Jordan
• 2001 .6 MINC-ISOC Mtg in Stockholm INET

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MINC Working Groups

• Registration Policy
• Code
• Protocol Architecture
• Chinese/ Tamil/ Arabic/ .
• Survey on Implementation
• Requirement Analysis
• Interoperability Backward Compatibility Testing
• Registration Policy
• Keyword

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Membership to MINC

• Organisational Membership
• Large (US50K)
• Medium (US15K)
• Small (US5K)
• Associate Member (US1K)
• Liaison (Free by invitation only)
• Individual Membership (waived)
• http//www.minc.org/membership/join.html

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MINC Future

• 1. Global Representation in Membership
• 2. Administration upgrade
• 3. International Liaison
• 4. Coordination of Implementation, Testing of IDN
• 5. Promotion and Awareness of Deployment
• 6. Internationalization of Names in other
  Internet applications
• 7. Internationlization of Other types of Internet
  names

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1. Global Representation in Membership

• Improve Membership servicesbetter response time
  follow-up newsletter mailing lists
• Individual Membership promotion
• Organisational Membership promotion
• MINC publicity brochure
• Membership drive in Middle East, Europe and Latin
  America in 2001/2002

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2. Administration upgrade 2000-2001 plan

• Upgrading of Secretariat (based in NUS,
  Singapore)
• International search of new fulltime CEO (in
  progress)
• Incorporation of MINC (in Singapore Jun 2001)
• Website and Mailing Lists administration
• Admin of Elections, WGs, MLs
• Database of Membership information
• Membership fund accounting
• New North Asian Office (in Seoul Korea July 2001)

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3. International Liaison

• Formation of Delegates to meet witha. ICANNb.
  IETF, IESG and IABc. WIPOd. RIPEe. W3C etc etc
• Purpose is to establish permanent Liaison
  relationship and good understanding at the
  highest levels and to avoid misunderstanding of
  role of MINC

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4. Coordination of Implementation, Testing of IDN

• Delegate responsibility to various working
  groups Deployment WG, RegPolicy WG and Testing
  WG
• Coordination of their secretariat with MINC
  secretariat
• Aim for full Documentation of process and
  procedure

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5.Promotion and Awareness of Deployment

• Many countries will still be unaware of their
  language deployment feasibility
• Need to visit ccTLDs and others to promote their
  language deployment
• Combine with membership drive

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6. Internationalization of Names in other
Internet applications

• Commission projects to review the impact of IDN
  in basic internet applications such as Email,
  Directory Services, Newsgroups etc
• This is important because development of software
  to be IDN compliant has to take place smoothly

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Internationalization of Other types of Internet
names

• 1. Too early at this moment
• 2. Focus on planning and discussion phase
• 3. Identify potential research areas
• 4. Internet Keywords identified as key area (mid
  2001)

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Enabling other Language Groups towards
Self-Determination

• Chinese Language Chinese Domain Names Consortium
  CDNC www.cdnc.org
• Tamil Language International Forum for IT in
  Tamil INFITT www.infitt.org
• Arabic Language how about proposal to form
  Arabic IT and Internet Association for promotion
  of Arabicisation of Internet - AINC
• Other diasporic languages other Indian
  languages, etc.
• JDNA for Japanese language domain names
• MINC is having and will have mutual recognition
  agreements with these organisations.

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IDRCs funding

• Started Feb 1999
• Grant Awarded Internationalized Domain Names
  System (iDNS) for Asian Countries
  (98-0006/982.3.3)
• http//www.apng.org/commission/idns/ipv6/

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Objectives of IDRC grant

• Create an experimental multilingual DNS with an
  extensive testbed as a proof of concept that a
  global multilingual DNS is viable, beginning
  with Asian countries- By the time the grant was
  awarded, we had already completed the Asian
  testbed, and requested a change to IPv6 DNS. This
  IPv6 prototype proxy system was completed
  successfully.
• To develop a proxy DNS server software
  application to work-around the restriction that
  current monolingual BIND implementation places on
  the DNS.- By the time the grant was awarded, we
  had already completed the IPv4 proxy system. The
  IPv6 proxy DNS server software has been completed
  successfully.
• To operate a test-bed of pilot
  internationalized-DNS root server(s) with
  participating country code Top Level
  Domain name holders, and domain name registrars
  (NICs). Representations need to be made to the
  appropriate Internet bodies to recognize this
  root server as the official experimental root
  server for internationalized domain names.
  this has evolved into an interoperability testing
  and backward compatibility testing framework
  which is currently being championed by MINC.

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Objectives of IDRC Project (contd)

• Initiate modification (enhancement) to the
  current DNS protocol to support multilingual
  domain names. Participate in IETF working groups
  with internet-draft and/or RFCsubmission to IETF
  and technical paper submissions at international
  conferences to gain recognition. Be represented
  at related Internet DNS standards working bodies
  to participate in standardization work of the new
  internationalized domain name system. The
  project laid the groundwork for these tasks to be
  handled on a global basis through the auspices of
  the new consortium MINC which the grant helped to
  seed. IETF formed its IDN Working Group which was
  accelerated into a standards track.
• Convene, participate and chair an international
  ad hoc working group under the auspices of an
  international/regional organization (e.g. APNG,
  WWTLD, IETF, etc) to design and agree upon the
  convention to be adopted globally for the naming
  of localized domain names with respect to each
  countrieslocale preferences. We have ended up
  forming an international consortium to drive this
  forward and successfully interfaced with key
  international organisations and achieve the
  reputation and standing of an international
  organisation within a two year timeframe.

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7. Conclusion

• Future of MINC is exciting
• Global role increasing in importance
• Fills an important niche function
• Urgent need for recruitment of good staff
• Good service and support to WGs
• Leadership role in IDN names critical to the
  global development of Internet
• IDRC Funding and NUS support was crucial to the
  early formation and seed support of MINC.

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Acknowledgement
MINC acknowledges the funding from IDRC with
grateful thanks And has made provision to
recognise the contribution of IDRC By creating a
special status within MINC Honorary
Founding Organisation
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Acknowledgements

• The MINC project was funded by the Canadian
  International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
  under the Pan Asia Networking Grant
• The MINC project was hosted by the National
  University of Singapore under the APNG project

National University Of Singapore