[http://www.icann.org/images/gradlogo_bow.jpg]<http://www.icann.org/> News Alert http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-04feb14-en.htm ________________________________ Invitation to Join the GNSO-SSR | A GNSO Sponsored Security, Stability, Resiliency (SSR) Mailing List 4 February 2014 Charter GNSO-SSR – A GNSO Sponsored Security, Stability, Resiliency (SSR) Mailing List To join RSVP gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org<mailto:gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org> Premise This charter briefly describes an open group sponsored by the GNSO. This group will informally review SSAC reports to determine whether they contain recommendations that might deserve broader consideration in the GNSO. Problem Statement Recommendations made by the SSAC sometimes are relevant to GNSO policy making, yet the mechanism for the GNSO to find out or act on them is not well developed. The current process is for the SSAC to give advice to the Board, with the presumption that the Board will pass relevant issues along to the GNSO for consideration. This doesn't appear to be happening in all cases, with sometimes-unsatisfactory results. Here are two examples: * The SSAC produced an extensive report (SAC007<http://www.icann.org/announcements/hijacking-report-12jul05.pdf> [PDF, 400 KB]) in 2005 that addressed the issue of domain-name hijacking. In 2011, six years later, members of the GNSO IRTP-B working group stumbled across the following observation in that report and realized that it was a good idea: * "Collect emergency contact information from registrants, registrars and resellers for parties who are suited to assist in responding to an urgent restoration of domain name incident. Define escalation processes (emergency procedures) that all parties agree can be instituted in events where emergency contacts are not available." It took six years for that very common-sense idea to find its way into Consensus Policy and probably another year or two to implement. * The SSAC wrote a report (SAC045<http://www.icann.org/en/groups/ssac/documents/sac-045-en.pdf> [PDF, 507 KB]) in 2010 titled "Invalid Top Level Domain Queries at the Root Level of the DNS" which provided an early warning about the "name collisions" problem. Again, an opportunity to proactively research this issue was missed and ICANN finds itself scrambling to deal with an issue that is much complicated by the fact that a number of the highest-volume invalid strings are now applied-for strings and soon to be delegated into the root. A related problem is that the stakeholder-group structure of the GNSO does not have an SSR-focused forum for this kind of cross-GNSO conversation. How does not solving this problem get in the way of achieving ICANN's objectives? The implication is that the GNSO may sometimes fail to consider SSAC recommendations in a timely way, or at all. Specifically, not solving the problem raises the possibility of: * Negative impacts on SSR of the DNS – as a result of not considering or implementing SSAC recommendations, or building trust relationships in an SSR community of interest * Increased implementation costs – as a result of delay in considering SSAC proposals that may bear on GNSO consensus policy * Lower quality of implementation – as a result of not taking fullest advantage of the rigor of the multi-stakeholder analysis and PDP processes Value to be gained In addition to addressing the problems listed above, the GNSO will benefit from having this group by: * Broadening the pool of participants -- by identifying and engaging community members who have interest and skills in SSR of the DNS * Building trust relationships – by providing community members an opportunity to work together in a low-key setting Approach The primary work product of this group will be periodic informal suggestions of SSR-related topics to be considered by the GNSO. The form of that consideration may vary. Possibilities include: * An Issue Report * An alert to a currently-running working group or implementation review team * Notifications to constituencies and stakeholder groups The group: * Will do its work via an email list – no teleconferences are planned * Is open to all members of the ICANN community – all AC's and SO's, staff, Board, etc. * Will require that all participants submit or update their GNSO Statement of Interest<https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=14713457> before they are subscribed to the list * Will maintain open public email archives – and thus will not discuss private or confidential information * Will be convened by Mikey O'Connor until somebody gets tired of him and offers to take over * To join the mailing list please RSVP gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org<mailto:gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org>