Technical protocols to support the extension of the internet address system to languages such as Chinese and Arabic should be finalised this year, ICANN boss Paul Twomey says.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been wrestling with the technical difficulties involved in integrating non-Roman character sets into the uniform domain name system (DNS) technology – the .com and .net address hierarchy that uniquely identifies all computers and resources attached to the global network.
Dr Twomey said domain name registrars in Asian nations, India, Cyrillic language countries such as Russia and Greece, and the Arab-speaking nations were eagerly awaiting the release of the protocols so they could begin establishing their own services.
“India, for instance, is very concerned to get more of their people using the web,” he said.
“There are some 150 million English speakers in India, but the rest of the population speaks in one of 22 different languages and they use one of 11 (written) scripts.
“The Indian Government is putting fibre (for broadband connections) into 500,000 villages across the nation, and they are focused on bringing the next hundred million people online.
“Once you start to think about those numbers of people coming on as active users using domain names, then you are confronted with why the DNS has to go from roman characters only to something else.”
Dr Twomey will shortly step down as ICANN president and chief executive after leading the non-profit body for the past six years; it decides technical and policy issues through a global community consultation and policy-making process.
Sometimes described as the organisation that takes care of the internet's internal plumbing, it currently manages access to about 180 million separate domain names.
Demand from new users will add to pressures on IT security, as these will inevitably bring a further spread of viruses, spam and other cyber threats and nuisances.
Dr Twomey said there was a greater role for the DNS community to play in e-security, particularly as new threats were targeting the DNS directly.
“We're building response capabilities through exercises and the stuff we're doing with DNS Security (DNSSEC),” he said.
“The collaboration with industry over the Conficker worm is another example of global community co-oordination to defeat a specific threat.
“We're also looking at DNS take-down provisions, where (bad-acting) domain names or IP addresses could be shut down. But I think there's a broader debate about who should have that role.
Dr Twomey said all internet users should be planning for resiliency as well as security and stability.
“The reality for Australian companies is that you have to work in this environment, and it's going to continue to be difficult,” he said. “Therefore you have to plan for resiliency and give yourself the capacity to keep operating.”
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25506094-15306,00.html