History of the .int Top Level Domain

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• History of the .int Top Level Domain

ITU-T Workshop to Develop a Recommendation to
Clarify the Management of ".int(.int Document
005) Geneva, Switzerland 9-11 September 2003
Robert Shaw ltrobert.shaw_at_itu.intgt ITU Internet
Strategy and Policy Advisor
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Napoleon History is the version of past events
that people have decided to agree upon.
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The story of .int starts with .nato

• According to Paul V. Mockapetris (PVM), inventor
  of the Internet Domain Name System (DNS)
• In early days (date?), the Network Information
  Center (NIC) received a request from Mark Pullen
  of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  (DARPA) to create the .nato Top Level Domain
• As the NIC was either partially or fully funded
  by DARPA at that time, this was promptly done

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Early days of .int

• PVM joins ARPA and suggests to NATO
  representatives that nato.int is better choice
  and they agree
• .int is created and nato.int is created
• PVM as proposer of .int ends up managing it
• March 1994 RFC 1591 - Domain Name System
  Structure and Delegation refers to PVM as
  managing .int

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Early days of .int

• Mockapetris continues to manage the domain after
  leaving ARPA and returning to USC Information
  Sciences Institute (ISI), home of IANA (aka Jon
  Postel)
• In 1995 Mockapetris during visit to Geneva for
  global standards conferences approaches ITU to
  take over management of the .int domain
• PVM I tried to get the ITU to take it over, my
  logic being that they should become a stakeholder
  in the DNS

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November 1996

• Currently, registration in .int is done by IANA,
  and the plan is for ITU to take over management
  when a mutually acceptable policy is worked out.
  
• Jon Postel

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.int Registrations

• Intended for intergovernmental treaty
  organizations
• At some point, .int starts getting used also for
  Internet infrastructure uses by IANA (e.g.
  tpc.int, e164.int)
• This later complicates things greatly
• Some very unusual delegations made (e.g.,
  ymca.int, nd palestine.int)

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Draft .int policy

• Discussions with Jon Postel, Brian Carpenter and
  Scott Bradner and draft policy document I prepare
  is agreed to by Internet Archiecture Board (IAB)
  in early 1996
• Policy document refers Internet infrastructure
  uses to IAB review

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Transfer About to Happen

• May 1998 ITU and IANA work out procedure for
  transfer of the .int TLD to ITU
• IANA - May 1998 This procedure seems fine to
  us. One note is that the .INT domain has no
  working Whois service. I am currently
  constructing the database, but the former records
  are horrid. This should be finished within the
  next 2 weeks. Other than that, it looks fine to
  us. Thanks. Josh and jon

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Transfer About to Happen

• Fall 1998 ICANN created and Jon Postel (IANA)
  dies
• April 1999 www.nic.int set up by ITU and IANA
• June 22, 1999 ITU Council endorses management of
  .int by ITU
• September 1999 ITU presents policy documents to
  United Nations Information System Coordination
  Committee in NYC and gets endorsement

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Post ICANN history

• .int gets tied up in messy politics of ICANN US
  Department of Commerce ISI transfer of IANA
  function to ICANN
• ISI staff and IAB Chair attempt to arrange
  transfer of .int to ITU
• Endless emails involving NTIA, ISI, IAB and ICANN
  and finally seem to get green lights but.

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Post ICANN history

• December 1999 email to Louis Touton, General
  Counsel, ICANN
• Dear Louis,
• Speaking with Karen Rose at NTIA she said that I
  should speak with you on how we make the
  contractual arrangements between ICANN and ITU
  for management of .int. I don't know whether
  you're familar with the policy docs for .int or
  the history but we need to discuss how to best
  move forward on this as it's been dragged out for
  a long time

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Post ICANN history

• January 2000 email to Mike Roberts, CEO, ICANN
  and Karen Rose, NTIA
• Mike, Karen,
• I've left messages with Louis Touton and sent
  him email on moving forward on discussions on
  making the .int transfer to ITU happen but have
  not got any response.
• Many emails later.

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Post ICANN history

• Mike Roberts, CEO of ICANN
• Transfer to ITU is on our to-do list
• Transfer to ITU is queued
• ICANN Staff Member Internet Community not
  ready ???
• 2001 and later
• ICANN removes ITU as secondary for .int and
  replaces it with ICANN
• ITU writes to ICANN, requests that ITU related
  DNS resource records be not changed without
  discussion with ITU
• ICANN removes nic.int delegation from ITU
• ICANN removes references to planned transfer to
  ITU on .int registration pages

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ITU Plenipot Resolution

• Fall 2002 ITU Plentipotentiary Conference
  Resolution 102 adopted by ITU Member States in
  instruction to Director of the the
  Telecommunication Standardization Bureau calls
  for development of Recommendation to clarify the
  management of .int

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Conclusion The Way Forward

• Lets forget the historical record and use this
  workshop as a step to demonstrate positive
  cooperative measures

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