BC Members, On our last conference call I spoke about domain name collision analysis work Verizon has been undertaking with Interisle Consulting. We have been analyzing our DNS query logs to get a clearer picture of the extent and impact of "leaking" queries to not-yet delegated or operational gTLDs. We have been considering a parallel effort to develop documentation, and possibly a webinar, to help prepare ourselves and our customers for telecommunications and systems problems that could arise once queries to some of the new gTLDs begin to resolve and receive responses other than NXDOMAIN (domain does not exist). While preparing the plan to develop those materials, we realized that most of what we were describing would be of value to other carriers, ISPs, general business enterprises, and more. As a result, we have decided to reach out to like-minded companies to jointly fund the development of these materials. The following is a high-level description of the work effort. With the support of a handful of companies, these materials could be rapidly produced and distributed at minimal cost to each of the participating organizations. If your organization might be interested to supporting and benefiting from this work, please contact me to discuss it in more detail. We are open to refinement or reasonable expansion of the deliverables, keeping in mind that we want to keep the development timeline as short as possible since the first new gTLDs will go live within the next month. Thanks for your consideration, and please feel free to share this message with other organizations outside of the BC who might be interested in participating. Jim Baskin Verizon Communications Proposal for the Preparation of Awareness, Educational/Training, and Technical Support Materials Related to DNS Name Collisions 1. Develop descriptions of specific query/response scenarios that could arise as a result of conflicts of private and public naming schemes in the DNS. Document how these situations might appear to a user or technical support person, and what can be done to deal with such situations before or after they arise. Integrate the material into a comprehensive awareness and training program. 2. Create documentation for awareness, training, and support for management, employees/users and support staff. Materials oriented for various audiences would include: * For management: awareness materials about the potential operational, technical, and security risks of DNS name collisions. * For employees/users: information about the changes in network and system behavior that could arise as a result of new TLDs being delegated, how to recognize when problems encountered could be a result of new TLD name conflicts, how they can resolve problems on their own, and when they will require technical support. * For customer-facing personnel (sales, marketing): how to communicate with customers to make them aware of the change in TLD resolution behavior and the potential impact, before and after delegation of TLDs. * For technical support personnel: step-by-step procedures for identification and avoidance or remediation of collision occurrences. 3. Create communication information packages for distribution by email, web, etc. as appropriate, for target audiences, possibly including one or more webinars. 5. If webinars are developed, conduct a single session of the webinar(s), which would be video-recorded for distribution.
