[ga] Re: Trailing Hyphen domains (and Security and Stability statement, and the language ICANN needs in its contracts)

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Russ,

--- admin <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I remember when I registered all those trailing hyphen domains
> (http://www.icann.org/announcements/trailing-hyphens-07jan00.htm).
> VeriSign, at the time,  made all these claims of how they violated
> The RFC's
> and how such domains "broke" some programs such as some FTC clients.

That's a fantastic point, and a new document that I've not seen brought
into this debate. I just tried:

http://jjj-.com/

and it resolved to Sitefinder! Sheesh.

Reading from the ICANN statement you linked to:

"The use of domain names in this noncompliant format presents
interoperability problems. The documented format is well-known
throughout the Internet technical community. Among other things, domain
names that violate this format have the potential of causing software
written in reliance on these formats to malfunction, and several
instances of actual malfunctions have been identified.

The U.S. Government's Statement of Policy on the Management of Internet
Names and Addresses, 63 Fed. Reg. 31741 (June 10, 1998) (commonly known
as the "White Paper") specifies that preserving the stability of the
Internet should be the first priority of any DNS management system." 

ICANN has the words in its policies, and should do the right thing.

And we have another new report:

http://www.icann.org/correspondence/secsac-to-board-22sep03.htm

"VeriSign's change appears to have considerably weakened the stability
of the Internet, introduced ambiguous and inaccurate responses in the
DNS, and has caused an escalating chain reaction of measures and
countermeasures that contribute to further instability.

VeriSign's change has substantially interfered with some number of
existing services which depend on the accurate, stable, and reliable
operation of the domain name system."

Do the right thing, ICANN. Or, lose all legitimacy, and face a
replacement by the ITU or someone else. Even your new contract with
Department of Commerce can be cancelled on 120 days notice, so act, or
else others will.

If ICANN's lawyers are so inept they can't find the language, take a
look at:

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-com-25may01.htm

Paragraph I.1.C.

"C. A specification or policy established by the ICANN Board of
Directors on a temporary basis, without a prior recommendation by the
council of an ICANN Supporting Organization, shall also be considered
to be a Consensus Policy if adopted by the ICANN Board of Directors by
a vote of at least two-thirds of its members, so long as the Board
reasonably determines that immediate temporary establishment of a
specification or policy on the subject is necessary to maintain the
operational stability of Registry Services, the DNS or the Internet,
and that the proposed specification or policy is as narrowly tailored
as feasible to achieve those objectives. In establishing any
specification or policy under this provision, the ICANN Board of
Directors shall state the period of time for which the specification or
policy is temporarily adopted and shall immediately refer the matter to
the appropriate Supporting Organization for its evaluation and review
with a detailed explanation of its reasons for adopting the temporary
specification or policy and why the Board believes the specification or
policy should receive the consensus support of Internet stakeholders.
If the period of time for which the specification or policy is adopted
exceeds 90 days, the Board shall reaffirm its temporary adoption every
90 days for a total period not to exceed one year, in order to maintain
such policy in effect until such time as it meets the standard set
forth in the first paragraph of Definition 1 above."

That's *all* the language the Board needs, no more, or no less, to
force NXDOMAIN as a consensus standard on Verisign registry, and force
Verisign's hands. A 10 minute phone call of the Board, sheesh. 

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/