September 2016 – SSAC Liaison Report
(as at 27 September 16)
1. SSAC WORKSHOP. The SSAC held its Annual Workshop in Washington DC on 11-13 September. The Workshop was attended by 22 of the 30 SSAC Members. The agenda focused on status of IANA Transition, progress of current Work Parties, potential topics for future Work Parties, and briefings on other technical topics of interest. Lyman Chapin and I briefed the Workshop on the current status of CCWG Accountability Workstream 2, and I facilitated a discussion on the topic of Diversity and its relevance to the SSAC.
2. SSAC WORK PARTIES. I participated in the SSAC Work Party which planned the program for the Annual SSAC Workshop in September.
3. SSAC REPORTS. There has been one SSAC Report issued in the last month:
SAC084: SSAC Comments on Guidelines for the Extended Process Similarity Review Panel for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process (31 August 2016) has been published on the SSAC documents web page at: https://www.icann.org/groups/ssac/documents with the file at https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/sac-084-en.pdf.
It also has been posted to the Public Forum at: https://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-proposed-epsrp-guidelines-20jul16/msg00002.html.
In this report, the SSAC advises that it considers that the EPSRP does not adhere to the principles of conservatism, inclusion and stability which have been reflected in ICANN IDN guidelines that have been in place for more than a decade. Adherence to these principles is critical for the continued interoperability and stability of the DNS root zone and deviation would increase the risk of root zone instability. The underlying difficulty with all IDNs, including those that are intended to be ccTLD names, is that Internet domain naming does not work like natural language. This is why a conservative approach to approving new IDN TLDs was adopted as a principle. The EPSRP has not solved any part of this problem; it simply provides a way around the original criteria, in a way that increases the risk of instability in the DNS root zone.
The Report recommends that the ICANN Board not accept the proposed guidelines for the EPSRP, as those guidelines represent a threat to the security and stability of the DNS. The Board should request a revision of the guidelines that more accurately reflects the principles of conservativism, inclusion, and stability.
For information, two experts external to the SSAC (IETF Members, I believe) participated in the Work Party that produced this report.
4. SSAC REPRESENTATION ON CCWG ACCOUNTABILITY. I attended CCWG Meetings on 30 August and 20 September. There have been no meetings of the Diversity Sub-Group Meeting (on which I am an Observer) since 8 August.
