The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Okay. Shall we start? No? Maybe? Possibly? No?
>> Hey, can everybody hear me okay? Okay. Can everybody hear me okay? No? Yes? No? Maybe? So let's give this a try. Is that working? Yes. Excellent. Very good. Okay. I can't hear myself though. (low voice) okay. Everybody, thank you first of all for your patience. Everybody can hear me? Okay. Good. Good. So yes. Thank you for your patience. And with this being day 0, we are obviously testing out things and making sure they're working well. So apologies for running late.
So this session is the Technical Community Safeguarding the internet you want. It is an important topic because it goes to the underlying nature of the Internet and how do we safe guard that for the future ahead?
As we look to have this session, we wanted to focus in on how the Internet works at its core and in that regard, the role of the Technical Community is Safeguarding that. At its foundation, the Internet is a network of networks and it is a revolutionary system that's transformed the way we communicate, accessing communications and conduct business as we have all experienced. From ICANN's perspective are the functionality of the Domain Name System or the DNS is a vitally important area on how we navigate the Internet. It simplifies web navigation and it helps support devices to find a way to connect to them. Essentially what it does, it translates human friendly domain names into numerical IP address the devices use to find one another. It is a simple form of seamless communication and in this session, we want to explore this technical foundation through all the experts on the panel and explain the nature of the Technical Community itself. We developed together standards and protocol, allocate IP addresses and other resources and oversee the coordination of the Domain Name System. The work is inherently multi‑stakeholder and inclusive by its nature. Both in how we are organized and how we collaborate. Today we're joined by three groups of people from the Technical Community who are going to provide their insights.
First, we have Olaf Kolkman, who is going to share how approximately 70,000 autonomous networks interconnect and we all know and is the foundation of our Internet Society. Olaf is a long‑time leader in the Internet engineering task force IETF, the community of engineers and other experts responsible for the development of Internet standards.
Next we're going to hear from Ulka Athale at right NCC, a regional Internet registry. Ulka will explain the process of a network to the Internet. She'll explain the role of IP addresses and are the resources and how the global numbers system, the five regional Internet registries or IARs.
And my colleague from ICANN for the Middle East region will provide an overview of ICANN's multi‑stakeholder community and our role in coordinating for the domain system globally and the importance of our partnerships with organizations like the IETF, the Internet society and the IARs.
So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Olaf to begin.
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: Yeah. Thank you very much. The idea was that I would have a graphic so that I can show you a little bit and maybe that turns up. But without that, I'm doing to try and explain the underpinnings of the Internet anyway. So most people when they go on the Internet, thigh grab this device ‑‑
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Can you hold for one minute? We seem to have a Zoom room connection issue.
>> I'm sorry, everybody. It is day 0 and there seems to be a mismatch between the online Zoom room and the sound we're hearing in the room. If you can give us one minute, please we'll get back to the IGF technicians and we'll announce here in one minute. If not, we'll go back to where we were. Thank you.
>> This is ‑‑ but this is a take away of our presentation. The Internet is now the people in this room cannot connect to the right Zoom room. The reception might be internet has not been ‑‑ (audio cutting in and out).
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Say something?
>> Something.
>> I'm going to remove that.
>> ULKA ATHALE: Usually we open a map or a browser and that's our experience connecting to the Internet. But that's not exactly what the Internet is. If you would ask me. As a technologist who's been working on Internet technology for a long time, to me other the Internet is a network of networks that gives you a perceived notion of global interconnectivity. So you could see this connects to ‑‑ I connect to that big Cloud I have all the (?) that live in that Cloud. But how does that Cloud work? In fact, when I connect to a network to the Internet, you connect to a Wi‑Fi network, telephone number and there you are. Suddenly ‑‑ you are connected to the network that is maintained here at the IG ‑‑ you connect ‑‑ (audio cutting in and out) so you can communicate to any other data that is connected to the Internet. And you will talk about how those ‑‑ how is this connected? You can't hear me? Okay. They have handed you an IP address and you will know how to connect to other networks that are near to it. They will connect to other networks. So we have 70,000 networks that independently operate to give us global connectivity. And the magic of all of that are the standards. The magic that makes that work are open standards and (?). (audio cutting in and out) so we will (?) as one big Cloud. I as a user with a (audio cutting in and out) works for enter‑‑ (silence) perhaps the headsets are disconnecting? It is the headsets? Okay. Day 0, people. Day 0.
[Laughter]
Oh, yeah, yeah. So normally you would conceive as connecting to the Internet through, you know, it's a big clock that other people are connected. For instance, (?) or What's App. But internally, there are 70,000s of them that all are interconnected and give you the perception of a global connectivity. Now, all these networks make their own business choices. The network here has chosen to connect you through Wi‑Fi and has a captive portal, but they connect probably to a network that provides a connectivity to the rest of the Internet provides. There might be connecting to, for instance, a network that provides trans‑Atlantic fibers. So all these networks make their own decisions about how to connect. And what they ship are very tiny envelopes of information called data grams or packets. Basically when you connect to the Internet and you use a service, your device at the end splits up and those are shipped over the Internet just like you would have a book, you tear out the pages and put them in envelopes and hand them over to the postal system. And the Saudi portal system would hand them over to the next portal system that transfers it over the ocean, that gives it to the postal office in say the U.S. and their the book gets delivered page by page. They're agreed upon. How you tear up the book and that's a global standard. All the networks make their own business decisions as I say. Together, they provide us the image of global connectivity and there are many users of that global network. Facebook is an application that uses that global network. What's App is an application that uses the global network. The worldwide web itself is an application that uses that network. There are a few functions that you need in order to interoperate here special that's what my colleagues will talk about. You need every device that is connected to this Internet to have a unique address just as in the postal system, if you want to deliver an envelope to somebody, a piece of mail to somebody, you need to have a unique address of that person. The Internet works the same. There are organizations that provide you unique addresses and they will be talked about, but we don't think in addresses. We think in names. So we also need a name system, a naming system that provides us that connectivity. So this gives you, I hope, in sufficient time a little bit of context. The Internet is build out of a network of networks that provide you global connectivity in addition to a number of global services that you need to hook that up. Once you have that running, you can provide the things that we interconnect as humans with. Facebook, What's App, signal, Amazon, your local website, article these ‑‑ all those types of things.
>> ULKA ATHALE: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ulka Athale. I'm just waiting to get my slides up on the board, please.
I can start talking a little bit about what I'm going to explain in my presentation. You will see them in a minute. Day 0, people. As Olaf mentioned, the internet is on foundational network of networks. And from their registry or Technical Community perspective, the other net is something distinct from the worldwide web. In our daily experience as users, if you can't get a message on What's App, you say the Internet is down, but it can be What's App that's not working or you can't connect to a website. It is not the Internet that's down, but your access to a part of it. Can you hear me? Then it is just my headset that's dropping off.
As you can see who will be my first slide, the Internet and the web are two different things. And from the perspective, the web is one of many different applications that runs on the foundational network of networks, one of the 70,000. Would you like to keep going, Theresa? Otherwise we'll run out of time. So let me explain now that we're a bit clear on what we mean by Internet because you will keep hearing this with registries RIRs. Let me explain what it is we do as a regional Internet registry. If you decided you want to be a part of this 70,000 network of networks and you decide that now you want to get yourself on to this big global thing called the Internet, how would you go about it? Your first protocol would be contact your local regional Internet registry and RIR managing the number of resources in a particular part of the world. And which RIR you go to would depend where in the world you are based. Five regional registries, one for each couldn't minute ‑‑ continent. Latin America and the other part of the Caribbean, Middle East and parts of central Asia.
How did the RIR come to be? It was chiefly universities and physics departments from the universities who were collaborating on this thing called Internet protocol networking. The web hadn't been invented yet. There were no PCs yet. The U.S. Department of Defense handed over the management of this to ‑‑ well, one of the universities saying, it is chiefly universities working on it. You guys look after it yourself. Please stop bothering us about this. Someone that is very, very famous a man called John Pastel. Thigh will talk to you about John Pastel's note book. This note book when John Pastel was approached by universities and are the groups asking for IP addresses, this new IP thing, he would write down lovely. We have slides. You will see that's us. Saudi Arabia is also part of the service region. And here we are with John Pastel. So John ‑‑ I don't hear myself anymore. But if you hear me? Perfect. So John handed out IP addresses and he would write down in his notebook who he gave the IP addresses to. But then this networking thing can't getting bigger and bigger and bigger and at some point, it was too much. So he stopped using one notebook and formulized it and gradually the RIR system came into being. Write FCC was first set up. And then the span of the management domain names away from the management of IP addresses and Fahd will be talking about that.
What is it that RIRs do? We manage the distribution of Internet number resources and by that, we mean IP addresses and autonomous system numbers. We maintains services including who is that is looking who was. We provide the CMS. That is not all we do. We support Internet infrastructure through technical (inaudible). This is super important. (audio cutting in and out) otherwise the system starts to fall apart. We also provide security features. And above all, when we work, we work with the support of our local communities. Local means a (?). So we have community driven processes for policy development and community management is a very important role. And also training and capacity building in the areas in which we work. Shall we go? Give it a second. Could I have the next slide, please? Well, we have it up on the slide anyway. Yeah. Okay. I will keep going. I was going to give you a quick overview of an IPB6 IP address. Can I have the next slide? There we go.
We talk about the Internet number resources, we are referring to IP addresses, there are two kinds. IPV4, IPv6 and autonomous system numbers. They are connecting to one another. That is usually referring to an autonomous system which contains IP addresses or prefixes.
So these are the Internet number resources that are registers.
So how are these resources registered? So IP addresses are registered (inaudible) and IANA manages all the IPV4 spaces. They hand over a block. And on my slide, you will see this example. Thigh further allocate these IP addresses to what our terminology call a local Internet registry. But that would be anything run with the own independent note work. The Internet service provider, media provider, content network so those are our numbers and then your Internet service provider finally allocates your IP address to you as the end user. So we don't do that directly. We give the addresses to an Internet service provider, also governments and universities. I think Fahd will be going into this more. I wanted to refer to this. IP addresses and domain names interact with one another, but they're not the same thing. You see a screen shot of the website and you see WWW.RIPE NCC.com. You will see the IP address connecting. It was an IPv6 address.
But this is actually what I would like to focus on. All the RIRs are not for profit organizations. We are independent bodies. We are not governmental entities. We are all membership based organizations. So the way it works is anyone that wants to run an independent Internet and wants resources, signs up and be a member, signs a contract with us and then we give them the IP addresses. We are all not for profits. And the fees are for services. We're not buying IP addresses. You are getting services from us. And finally, we are community driven. Our governing boards are elected by members and as organizations, we are all committed to being open and transparent.
And each RIR operates in accordance with three factors. The community policies and each RIRs are community. They're members to people running the networks and the actual Internet service providers, people using the IP address. They set the policies and we implement the policies. This is something very important. We are all established in whichever jurisdiction you are established in. The network applies to the RIR. We fulfill a specific function in the global Internet government system. There are different bodies that will reference the ICANN, which manages domain name and then (?) that manage the IP addresses.
The approach to government is multi-stakeholder. So starting from 1992, the multi-stakeholder is not new. It is written into the definition of how the RIRs operate. They're a technical community. Academia are the founders of the Internet in a sense. Civil Society and Internet users, this is who we do this for. Governments and national organizations keep in mind government also run their own networks. Governments are also members of the RIRs. And the Private Sector, of course.
Each RIR has its own version of this policy development process, but this is ‑‑ these are common elements. Anyone can participate in developing policies including you. The policies are set in a bottom‑up. They're documented and published, discussions on policies take place on public mailing lists. If there's a particular topic, you can go to our RIR web accesses and see what's in discussion.
Want to participate and I will give a couple examples. You are thinking this looks interesting. How would I get started? We have an online academy. This is free. You need to make an account. We publish a lot of research and articles on our websites and if you have any questions, we have a booth. We'll be there all week.
>> There are no physical notebooks. I think it is metaphorical. But yeah.
>> ULKA ATHALE: I heard so much about John Pastel's note books. I've been misinformed.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I had the same visual. Thank you so much. You really highlighted an important aspect to this conversation. Important nature of multi‑stakeholder is inherent. It is inherent to our community and the governance around that. And I think that's an important aspect on how operationalized this thing. I will turn it over to my colleague to talk about Domain Name Systems, the other element of this system. And Fahd, over to you.
>> FAHD BATAYNEH: Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. I hope I am audible. My name is Fahd Batayneh. I will present the Domain Name System. I need my slides.
>> You might have noticed a word governance. The reason why we do this is maintain interoperability. We need coordination on IP addresses so that they're unique. And that coordination is done in a bottom‑up fashion by the stakeholders that coordinate to make this network run. The standards development is done bottom‑up by the stakeholders who need this to get stuff working on the Internet. And I think what Fahd will say is we need coordination to make sure the TNS names are unique. Sorry for filling up the time with additional.
>> FAHD BATAYNEH: My slides up now. So ICANN standards for the other net corporation assigned names and numbers. Can you hear me? We play a coordination role so we want regulate. We don't run the Internet. We play a coordination role. We coordinate with many active players in the domain name industry. Whether ‑‑ my clicker please. Whether technical ‑‑ sorry. So my presentation involves a lot of visuals really. Okay. It's working. Thank you. So ICANN plays a coordination role. We are into the coordination of mostly domain names. My colleague Ulka spoke about coordination and the numbers world. Of course, Olaf spoke about protocol development of the ITF. So there are technical organizations and ICANN is considered one of the technical coordinations that are into the Internet governance ecosystem. But it is not just technical. There are many non‑technical players who are responsible for different elements of the Internet. ICANN has a very unique model of governance that has three components. So the heart of the ecosystem is the ICANN community, the ICANN community is a group of volunteers from across the world, thousands of volunteers who are really keen and eager to drive policy development of the other net identifying systems forward. We also have the ICANN Board of Directors and inside this room, we have a number of esteemed board members when you can talk to and then, of course, there is ICANN the organization. We are a little bit over 400 staff members working on different elements of ICANN's work.
Our multi‑stakeholder model is bottom‑up in a sense that when policies are developed, it is really the community using these policies. Once they are final and approved, they are executed and implemented. It is very different from the top down approach where a policy is developed and then it is enforced on its citizens.
Now, what's the role of domain names? Why do we use domain names? Domain names ‑‑ an IP address is always behind a domain name. If I ask anybody in the room, do you know what's the IP address of your website, I'm sure very few of us, if maybe none of us, knows what's the IP address of any website whether Google.com or whatever. And that's why we use domain names. So domain names are easier for us to remember. We can remember names. Even tougher for us to remember numbers. Behind one name, you can have several IP addresses whether IPV4 or IPv6. I will not get into those.
This is how a fully qualified domain name looks like. So we start at the top, which is that dot. This is where all the translation starts and I will explain quickly using cartoons how the Domain Name System actually functions. Now, below the dot is a top level domain. You name it. Of course, there are thousands of top level domains whether generic or country codes. And top level domain that we select, we can register domain name under it according to the policy of that top level domain. And then, of course, once we have the domain name, we can register as many sub‑domains as we wish.
Of course, there's been an caption to the top level domain name space. So today, you can find top level domains of more than three characters. You can find top level domains in local languages. So in Saudi Arabia, there are many you can find top level domains in Chinese, Japanese, you name it.
And I'm really getting a little bit technical, but I will try to keep it extremely easy to understand. So these are the different components of the Domain Name System. And maybe I'll take a pause here and inform everybody in the room that there is a difference between a domain name and the Domain Name System. So the Domain Name System is really the technical part of things. Whereas we as human beings register a domain name, Google.com or maybe IGF. Now the different components of the Domain Name System include authoritative name service and they have the authority to provide answers. We have the recursor and this is ‑‑ I will explain resolve us are all about. We have caching. So in any other system or IT system, they have caching facility. So rather than going through an entire process, you would find ‑‑ you might find an answer. And then we have the client resolve and this is the starting point of any domain name inquiry.
I will show a quick demonstration and easy manner on a domain name starts. You have the stop resolver. Your laptop has a stop resolver. You fire up a web browser and you type in a URL. WWW.example.com. Now, what happens is that the resolver would send the query. ISP has a recursor in house or through one of the order providers. But the stub resolver would send your query to the nearest, which is maybe for your ISB. Ask the question: What is the ‑‑ now, the stub resolver would say I don't know and I don't have it in my cache. So let me go and ask the root service system. So it goes ‑‑ what's the IP address of WWW.example.com? The answer comes back where it says I don't know. But here is the name server of the dot com server. It sends the name question to the dot com server, which is named here. It says what's the IP address. Now it says I don't know. But here is the name server of example.com. By the way, there's a difference in this example between. Example.com and WWW.example.com just to be clear. Now, the query goes again. So the recursor sends the same question to the example.com server. It says what's the IP address of WWW.example.com and this one example has the answer. So it sends back the IP address and the recursor sends it back to the stub reserver. So you can ski the recursive is at the center of this entire domain name.
Now, if you have a cache, the stub resolver would send the question to the resolver and it would find it inside the cache and then the cache sends back the answer. So that was really quickly how the DNS functions from the governance and technical standpoint. Thank you. Back to you.
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: In reality, the main system has millions of servers providing this of translating names. That is not a thing that is maintained in one place. It is globally distributed and one of the things about the Internet, that 70,000 networks and the services that make the Internet connect, they're global and distributed. I think that's an important take away. There is not one domain name. There is not one authoritative service. There is not one database that maintains all the information that's globally distributed. I think that's an important take away. Locally distributed and maintained.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Connectivity issue is not whether the system is working the addressing system. It is about whether you have access to that system itself. I think it's a great observation. I'm cognizant of time. We have about another 10 minutes. I realize we had some glitches to start, but first, I think maybe we turn it over to the floor or the virtual participants to see if we have any questions. Otherwise, I have some questions for the panelists. Any questions?
>> (?)
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: So the easy answer is every computer has one address, and it is unique. What we need to be seen is for instance, in your house, you have a house network. You are using private addresses, which are unique within your house, but not unique within the system. Those addresses are within your router translated to the IP address. And your IP address of your router in the house, that is the translation to unique global. I didn't say hack. That is a hack (inaudible) with the amount of devices that we have. The IPv6 is strictly not necessary. The story is that you all have unique addresses no matter whether you're in the house or outside of the house. You're connected. And there are many systems on first level.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Did you want to add anything to that?
>> ULKA ATHALE: (low voice) (voice cutting in and out).
>> THERESA SWINEHART: (low voice) any other questions? Yes, sir.
>> (low voice).
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: Questions to maintain the IP address and the systems.
>> FAHD BATAYNEH: That's a very important question. With ICANN, there's a lot of work on the contract of parties to really litigate and reduce which we call the security. Now, to your specific question, there are several tools that can help get more information on any domain name. So there is for example, the (?) to give you some idea about the domain name itself. GDPR is much more limited. You can ask the registrar for that information. It is a long discussion. Now, the other part about knowing about the more technical aspects of the domain, you can always look at the (?). If you do a simple one, it gives you more information. You start (?) so on and so forth. You get some sense. Now, it is also a reputation block list. So those are the places where you can maybe get some information. Talking to your local law enforcement, when it comes to the domain name aspect, you can talk to ICANN. You can maybe get in touch with one of our experts and can point you on what you can do actually.
>> ULKA ATHALE: (low voice).
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: (low voice) there are some laws pertaining to privacy or there are different requirements or even approaches to responding to requests of organizations that you don't know. And I think it's fair to say that this is one of the more wicked issues in the Internet. How do you find who is responsible for something in the end and people accounted.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Thank you. Thank you. We have one question from a virtual remote participant, which I'll read out. In the context of maintaining a squire and accessible Internet, what are the current challenges in balancing the decentralization of domain registrations with the need for robust security measures? Would you address such as domain squatting, phishing and misinformation? This question comes from Ihmad (?) my apologies for any mispronunciations.
>> FAHD BATAYNEH: I answered some parts of this question in my earlier intervention, but actually, Ulka reminded me that ICANN (audio cutting in and out) must have been because the e‑mail ID. Can I contact the registrar. You can run your inquiries through them. If the registrar doesn't respond, then there is this channel where you can approach ICANN and have your case explored and investigated through the ICANN compliance team. And then, there are many other parts you can talk to your law enforcement agency and so yeah.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I will just add recently through the very hard work of the contracted parties themselves, there's been amendments to the contracts to address the d NS abuse and enabled endorsement through the compliance measures. Thank you very the very guide question and thanks to all the parties involved in achieving that objective.
We are currently at time and so thank you first for your patience in being day 0 participants in testing out how this all works.
>> OLAF KOLKMAN: Day 0 Guinea pigs.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: Yes. And thank you also for your questions and the information Safeguarding the other net you want is fundamentally important to all of us and the future of it. So thank you very much and have a good rest of the meeting here. Thank you.