RE: [ga] Most Popular Invalid TLDs Should Be Reserved

["Ram Mohan" <rmohan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George,
I write as SSAC's Liaison to the Board.  I will take your suggestion forward
regarding a study on invalid TLDs into the SSAC's planning session at the
Sydney meeting.

Regarding lack of prohibition for wildcarding for new gTLDs, may I refer you
to SSAC's recent publication of an advisory regarding the prohibition of
redirection and synthesis of DNS responses[SAC041 -
http://www.icann.org/en/committees/security/sac041.pdf].

It may also interest you that SSAC has requested that this topic & SSAC's
recommendations on the matter be executed via a formal Board resolution at
the upcoming Sydney board meeting.

Regards,
Ram
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Ram Mohan
e: rmohan@xxxxxxxxxxxx | m: +1.215.431.0958
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-----Original Message-----
From: George Kirikos [mailto:gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 2:21 PM
To: GNSO GA Mailing List
Cc: dave.piscitello@xxxxxxxxx; steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ga] Most Popular Invalid TLDs Should Be Reserved



Hi folks,

Some of the root server operators post public statistics for their domain
name traffic at the top-level. For example, the graph (which can take a bit
of time to generate, given ICANN's slow servers) for the L-root server's
most popular TLD queries:

http://stats.l.root-servers.org/cgi-bin/dsc-grapher.pl?window=604800&plot=qt
ype_vs_valid_tld&server=L-root

demonstrates, to no one's surprise, that .com is king. What's more
interesting, though, especially given the new gTLD debate, is to look at the
most popular invalid (non-existent) TLDs:

"http://stats.l.root-servers.org/cgi-bin/dsc-grapher.pl?window=604800&plot=q
type_vs_invalid_tld&server=L-root

This list will vary depending on caching and the geographical location of
the root server, but for the L-root, .local, .belkin, .home, .lan, .invalid
.domain, .localdomain, .wpad, .corp, .maps, .html, .router, .host, .mshome,
.htm and so on show popularity in the past week.

Given what transpired with the wildcarding of .cm

http://www.circleid.com/posts/nation_of_cameroon_typosquats_com_space/

and the current lack of a prohibition of wildcarding for new gTLDs (despite
our own input into the public comment periods), it's clear that these TLDs
will be in demand by those who hope to take advantage of the built-in DNS
traffic hardcoded into routers, LANs and other private networks, and from
typos of existing TLDs.

I recommend that the Security and Stability Advisory Committee compile
statistics on invalid TLD queries across all root servers, and from popular
ISP-run DNS servers, in order to create a Reserve List. The list of at least
the top 1000 invalid TLDs should be made public to ensure transparency, and
be pruned only with the consensus support of the community.

Sincerely,

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