Zoom chat: 2021-10-06 At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG)

07:58:28 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Morning/Afternoon/Evening all.
07:58:34 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
Hello all, welcome
08:03:33 From Devan Reed - ICANN Org to Everyone:
Welcome to the At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group Call on Wednesday 6th September 2021 at 13:00 UTC
08:03:58 From christopher wilkinson to Everyone:
Hello, No sound?
08:05:16 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
sorry for being late - busy day today
08:05:25 From Amrita Choudhury to Everyone:
Hello everyone
08:06:15 From Priyatosh Jana to Everyone:
Hi everyone...
08:07:29 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Hello all
08:07:38 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
apologies for joining late
08:07:49 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
Noted
08:07:59 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
There has also been another leak of Epik server data. This time it involves the US Republican Party data.
08:08:24 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Greetings. - Dr. T V Gopal, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Guindy Campus, Anna University , Chennai, INDIA.
08:09:18 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Specifically the Texas US Republican Party data. This is an endto end compromise with complete bootable server images of an ICANN accredited registrar's network infrastructure being leaked. 110K people/registrants are directly affected.
08:10:01 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
Sorry, I'm late … Internet Access via the atlantic seems to be somewhat unstable
08:10:17 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
@ John - any further details?
08:10:57 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Holly the hashtag #EpikFail has been covering it on Twitter but the Washington Post has run the initial leak as a frontpage story.
08:11:20 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
I lost Bill
08:11:37 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Thanks John
08:11:46 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
now back
08:11:59 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Holly The registrar had been storing creditcard data in plaintext against PCI standards. Some high profile political personalities in the US had their CC data leaked.
08:12:38 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
@ John - how wonderfully delightful
08:13:17 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
(sorry - I should a bit more sympathetic)
08:14:27 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Holly There's also a very long thread on the Namepros discussion forum. (Namepros is the main Domainer forum.) Most of the regs were apolitical and were there for the low registration fees and sales platform. It is a disaster for the registrar and the registrants have had to change their CCs.
08:15:17 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Now I really am sympathetic
08:16:47 From Devan Reed - ICANN Org to Everyone:
RTT Link: https://www.streamtext.net/player?event=ICANN
08:17:06 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
interesting the case about the two different “ǝ”
08:17:56 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
And distinguishing between some of the diacritic marks would be a challenge
08:18:27 From Dave.Kissoondoyal to Everyone:
Hello everyone.. sorry for being late
08:18:56 From Chokri Ben Romdhane to Everyone:
Hi all and sorry
08:18:58 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Æ (lowercase: æ) Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese
08:19:40 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
There's also a prospective Class Action suit in the offing. In the most recent ICANN registrar reports, the registrar had around 600K gTLD regs. ICANN needs to have a position on this mess if it escalates.
08:19:43 From christopher wilkinson to Everyone:
Among the diacritics and punctuation marks I do not see there uppercase period which is used in Catalan: as in “l·l”
08:20:35 From christopher wilkinson to Everyone:
NB on an Apple keyboard, this is found on uppercase 3
08:21:01 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
I thought that “e” was the worst case - but now seeing the “o” variations I am surprised
08:21:38 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
The ’o’ case would be a REAL challenge
08:24:42 From ISOC Chapter-Support to Everyone:
+1 on the difficulty for end-users who cannot do side-by-side comparison.
08:26:55 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Holly There had also been about 15 million e-mails from scraped WHOIS records. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/epik-data-breach-impacts-15-million-users-including-non-customers/
08:27:03 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Is there a way to survey non experts instead?
08:27:07 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
Can we say that the situation gets worse when people are using phones rather than computers, where the size of the characters is generally smaller and the differences less visible?
08:28:08 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
I thought cross script domains were against the rules?
08:28:18 From Satish Babu to Everyone:
@Roberto, certainly that is the case.
08:29:35 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Why the difference?
08:31:14 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Latin is very special for Computing. The QWERTY Keyboard that makes everything happen [i.e based on]. This is so well known that I find that there are many ways to generate Latin characters with accents independently of the layout in use. The challenge in my mind was for other language scripts. Are the constraints on Latin Script really stemming due to the "PUNY CODE GENERATOR" bottleneck? - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, India
08:33:58 From Satish Babu to Everyone:
End-users should be involved in testing these assumptions...
08:34:24 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
+1 Satish - maybe At-Large can help
08:34:29 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
The ccTLDs would be the ideal TLDs for these variations. It does seem to be an attempt to implement a Tower Of Babel for the gTLDs.
08:34:38 From Dave.Kissoondoyal to Everyone:
+1 Satish
08:34:52 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
reps of end users is not the same as "end users"
08:34:56 From Satish Babu to Everyone:
Yes, At-Large can certainly help...
08:36:27 From Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond to Everyone:
End user representatives have often been included. Over the years I can recall many re: cyrillic scripts, arabic scripts, korean scripts etc.
08:36:39 From Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond to Everyone:
unsung heroes from At-Large :-)
08:37:14 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Very thought provoking presentation - and yes, end users should have been consulted.
08:40:06 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Thanks
08:40:41 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Have endusers mentioned that there is a problem?
08:41:09 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
@john yes, this is used by fraudsters
08:41:45 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Lutz That is a problem and a possible argument against accents/variants.
08:43:15 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
For records: Tamilnet 99 was an International Conference held between 7th and 8th 1999. An international consensus was arrived at for (a) Standardisation of the Tamil keyboard & (b) Standardisation of character coding in Tamil script. C-DAC in India did extensive research on many Scripts in India. UNICODE factors many concerns of all stakeholders but there are bottlenecks. - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chenani
08:45:25 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
For records: Tamilnet 99 @ https://tamilnation.org/digital/tic_99/index.htm - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai
08:45:35 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
I have to say that when I first started pushing for IDNs my examples were Arabic, Chinese, and the alike - I was even considering Cyrillic as a relatively “easy” case. To acknowledge the complexity of the Latin script is a sort of a paradigm shift for me, and the acknowledgement that the problem is even bigger than I thought - we are opening the Pandora’s box and must be up to the consequences. Anyway, to remain with ASCII saying that “eventually people will learn English” is *NOT* an option.
08:47:44 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
At the moment, usage of IDN domain names is quite low compared to non-IDN.
08:49:27 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
@JMcC - is low use the reason or the consequence of abysmal support?
08:50:45 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto Globalisation and use. End users aren't generally aware of IDNs outside their ccTLDs and some IDN doms redirect to their non-IDN version.
08:51:34 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto It is like there's an attempt to answer a question (in gTLDs) that hasn't been asked.
08:52:56 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Can there be a regret window as well ? - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai
08:53:04 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Thank you Bill
08:53:15 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Thank you
08:53:16 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
Thank you, Bill!
08:53:18 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
this was really informative
08:53:18 From Dave.Kissoondoyal to Everyone:
Thanks Bill
08:53:21 From Satish Babu to Everyone:
Thanks Bill!
08:53:33 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
For emails later: b_jouris@yahoo.com
08:53:34 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Thanks Bill. It is a very complex situation.
08:53:35 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
I think this is a candidate for both comment and Advice
08:53:55 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
Noted @Jonathan
08:54:18 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
@CW - I would like to discuss this more - one of the “minority” languages in Italy is Catalan - as most of you have learned just because of the Puigdemont case - and I am sure that the written language is different in Sardinia and in mainland Catalunya - there is a session at IGF Italy about “minority” languages coming up
08:54:20 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Thank you again Dr. Bill Jouris. - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai
08:55:06 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@CW The uptake of IDNs in the .CAT gTLD might be an interesting study on this.
08:56:22 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
@Jpnathan There may be a way that non-experts COULD be surveyed. But, to my knowledge, such a thing has not been contemplated
08:56:55 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Bill It would need to be real endusers rather than one of those useless opinion polls.
08:57:39 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Yes, @JM. Agree. Although I suspect even a poll during an ICANN meeting, with 300 participants, or whatever, would create a more conservative outcome
08:57:42 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
@Jonathan, the rules prevent a single TLD using letters from multiple scripts. But there is no bar to having a SLD which uses a different script from the TLD. Witness the existing domain names which use Chinese SLDs .com
08:58:00 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Bill It might be useful to look at mobile phone apps as mobile use is often higher than desktop use in some of the areas using IDNs.
08:58:06 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
True
08:58:30 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
@JMcC - I believe that we have a vicious circle about IDN support and usage - the very question is if (and how) we can break this circle and start a “virtuous” circle where users push on providers to “provide” what they need, and users moving to UA-compliant providers
08:59:11 From Raymond Mamattah to Everyone:
Nothing to add. Well presented
08:59:29 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
Nothing from my side. I was unable to attend yesterday
08:59:31 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto It is. The downside is that implementing IDNs is a Field of Dreams fallacy where even if they are built, people may not come.
09:00:12 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
@John McCormac, well *I* certainly mentioned in our meetings that I saw a problem. But, as noted, I was in a minority. (And, technically, not explicitly a representative of At Large)
09:00:44 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
See At-Large Workspace: Initial Report from the EPDP on Specific Curative Rights Protections for IGOs: https://community.icann.org/x/KAGHCg
09:00:45 From christopher wilkinson to Everyone:
@Roberto: I know that Catalan is used in parts of Sardinia. (Deriving from ancient<trade and fishing routes.) I shall check whether <l·l> is used in Valenciano.
09:00:51 From Greg Shatan to Everyone:
But we are talking about countries and peoples, not about cornfields, @John.
09:00:59 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
See Google Doc (comment-only): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nfsORXJAsDHDtMIrAuc6Klit4OgFsSXRRjuletNy1RI/edit?usp=sharing
09:01:19 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Greg We are talking about endusers and they generally are natural people and legal people. :)
09:01:43 From Greg Shatan to Everyone:
Yes, still not cornfields.
09:01:49 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Nothing to report
09:02:21 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Greg That's why the mobile phone app angle is important. It would show how IDNs and characters are being used in their main regions and countries.
09:02:48 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Greg It would be far better than relying on useless opinion polls that guesstimate usage.
09:02:57 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
@JMcC - people do have dreams - sometimes though they are realised - I agree that, as of today, with a pure cost-benefit analysis, the odds are not for IDNs and UA - but…
09:03:28 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Many thanks. I understand. - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai
09:04:02 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto The way it may evolve is that the gTLDs will decline while ccTLDs will begin to take most of the IDN registrations.
09:04:39 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
relying on algorithms seems a reasonable way forward
09:06:08 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
For anyone interested in which cases were deemed "Close, but distinguishable" by the Latin GP, please see Appendix E of the Report
09:06:22 From Holly Raiche to Everyone:
Thanks Bill
09:06:28 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Thanks Bill
09:08:11 From Gopal Tadepalli to Everyone:
Observation: Human being have a living instinct and that slants many aspects to safety first. Algorithmically, prima facie it may appear sub-optimal...but.. - Dr. T V Gopal, Anna University, Chennai
09:10:11 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
@JMcC - that will be a first step, but not the final solution, at least for my viewpoint. When on the ICANN Board, I strongly supported the “fast track” for allowing implementation of IDNs at least in ccTLDs. I thought that it would have been a driver for change and IDN implemented in gTLD few years down the road. On one hand, it has been a deception, some 15 years have passed since then, but OTOH without that jump start of ccTLDs nothing at all would have moved forward. So yes, let’s go to phase 2 with ccTLDs. And in any case, At-Large has strong ties with ccTLDs.
09:11:34 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
I can try to do that.
09:11:42 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
Wow Jonathan is connecting from the plane
09:12:15 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto The future seems tilted towards ccTLDs. Growth in gTLDs have almost stalled or plateaued in most EU countries compared to local ccTLDs. Some of the new registration volume is around 2:1 in favour of the ccTLDs.
09:14:08 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
FB hat nuked themself. So Nothing to see here
09:14:27 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Roberto If it wasn't for ICANN screwing up on dealing with Domain Tasting in the mid 2000s, the ccTLDs would not have the market share that they have at present.
09:14:39 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
+1 Lutz
09:15:24 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
The problem we have to deal with, is that centralization is against the principles of the Internet
09:16:00 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Facebook screwed up. ICANN does not have any responsibility for Facebook disconnecting itself from the Internet.
09:16:47 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
So, why we use zoom, instead of i.e. BBB on ICANN premise?
09:17:01 From Justine Chew to Everyone:
@Christopher, did you say there was ALAC consensus on the list wrt this topic? AFAIK there is NO consensus for ALAC action.
09:17:37 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@CW Facebook nuked all their routes. This isn't an ICANN problem. It is a Facebook problem.
09:17:49 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
Facebook has acknowledged that THEY were the source of the problem. I.e., not ICANN
09:18:00 From Justine Chew to Everyone:
Sorry, who are we tell Facebook anything about their tech archtecture?
09:18:09 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
Yes but we should be educating the public in what happened and why similar to what cloud flare put out. Octo could put out a similar statement explaining it and why it was not a dns issue. It is all about education and awareness
09:18:15 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Bill Yep. They posted an update on one of their blogs.
09:18:19 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Agreed, @Justine. We can do a poll here but I suspect, the decision to pressure ICANN into a statement rests with the ALAC, not the CPWG
09:18:38 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
+1 Justine
09:18:50 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
@JM, it even made the newspapers.
09:19:02 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
ICANN should push out a strong message on diversity of Services. I.e. allow multiple roots in the DNS!
09:19:07 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
Yes but Facebook blog was too technical and cloud flare much easier for people to understand
09:19:15 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Bill :) It even made the ALAC list.
09:19:38 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
this feels WAY out of our remit
09:20:38 From Greg Shatan to Everyone:
FYI, "Tucows" is pronounced "Two Cows"....
09:21:07 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
We should also encorage the education community to teach more About the real DNS protocols and stuctures. That was it's in the lectures today will bring up new People, which are able to blow up the next big Company at scale, too
09:21:13 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@CW Some of those new gTLDs are not commercially viable except as part of a portfolio operator.
09:21:44 From Hanan Khatib to Everyone:
i have to leave. sorry i will listen to recording
09:22:37 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Lutz It is not just the general public that needs education on Internet architecture. This isn't an ICANN issue.
09:23:01 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
It's all relative Roberto!
09:23:34 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Internet != Facebook/WhatApp/Instagram
09:23:37 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Perhaps, it's not an ICANN statement but some kind of infographic or video that explains what happened in a way that folks can understand?
09:24:17 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
+1 Jonathan
09:24:40 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
if timely, it could even be used by others, such as news agencies
09:24:40 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@JZ Like this? https://twitter.com/user/status/1445164016184090628
09:25:11 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@JZ As Judith pointed out earlier, the CloudFlare blog post was the best explanation.
09:25:45 From Amrita Choudhury to Everyone:
I kind of agree with Roberto, that the Facebook going down is not an ICANN issue
09:26:14 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
@JM, hmmm. Something a little more straightforward than that, no?
09:26:20 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/
09:27:09 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@JZ That is is the best explanation so far. Very readable and has graphics to show the effects.
09:27:43 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
@JM. You think this is readable by a typical user? We're talking about a PR problem here, not a technical one.
09:27:54 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
Yes. Very clear and understandable to all. At large is about education and awareness
09:28:49 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@JZ The typical user may be a lot smarter than some expect. The only thing that ICANN could have done was to say that this was a Facebook problem and not an Internet problem.
09:29:18 From JUDITH' hellerstein to Everyone:
People sped conspiracy theories since it happened at the same time as the house interview with the whistle blower
09:30:07 From Bill Jouris to Everyone:
There's really no way to address the enthusiasm that some have for conspiracy theories
09:30:08 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@JZ @Judith The problem is that many endusers have no idea what ICANN is or ICANN does.
09:30:33 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Agree, @JM, which is part of the problem
09:31:03 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
@John They believe ICANN is govern the Internet, so they can create and shut down Services, Websites and ISPs.
09:32:01 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Lutz I thought that was the illuminati? :) Seriously though, by the time ICANN would have drafted a response, Facebook was back online.
09:32:09 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
I would note that CNN in the beginning reported that it is a DNS problem
09:32:35 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Hadia That's the problem of limited information and misunderstandings.
09:33:54 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
@John. we should ask for a EPDP with fast track in order to create a quick Response on this topic
09:34:24 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Olivier The Epik thing is still an issue (third leak of server images).
09:34:33 From Jonathan Zuck to Everyone:
Ha @Lutz!
09:34:53 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
@joanthan … Within 5 years?
09:35:00 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
@Lutz :) There will be a release from ICANN after the launch of the next new gTLD round.
09:35:04 From Chokri Ben Romdhane to Everyone:
thank you all
09:35:51 From Lutz Donnerhacke to Everyone:
ICANN could revoke the gTLD contracts from Facebook, because they proved, that they are unable to handle it
09:35:59 From Sébastien Bachollet to Everyone:
I will not be available sorry for next week
09:36:02 From Satish Babu to Everyone:
Thanks and bye!
09:36:05 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
Thank you all
09:36:09 From hadia Elminiawi to Everyone:
bye
09:36:10 From Evin Erdogdu - ICANN org to Everyone:
Thank you all
09:36:15 From John McCormac - HosterStats.com to Everyone:
Thanks all and Later.
09:36:22 From Herb Waye Ombuds to Everyone:
Stay safe and be kind
09:36:23 From Roberto Gaetano to Everyone:
bye
09:36:24 From Greg Shatan to Everyone:
Bye all