Evan, Thank you for initiating this conversation and identifying a specific ICANN document on DNS abuse which directly affects End Users. I acknowledge and support your assertion that educating the public, and the broader ICANN community, about important End User policy content found in specific ICANN artifacts is directly relevant to ICANN's mission and At-Large's role within it. Going beyond Evan's initial email contribution, I wish to thank Mohibul for identifying a need to capture this educational content, and Justine for finding an At-Large document home which captures Evan's initial email contribution about important ICANN Policy content that affects End Users. This email thread shows the value of team collaboration in policy development that I see in the At-Large community. If I explore the specific dimension of "education" a bit further when considering future policy discussions, I'd be curious to see how "education" of End Users and the broader ICANN community might align with Avri's recent presentation on the ICANN's responsibility to the Global Public Interest <https://icann-community.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/prjxplrpublicint/overview?...>. I have not yet done this work, but I hope that Evan's assertion that some ICANN & At-Large policy work involves an educational component would under the umbrella of Avri's work to define an ICANN Global Public Interest domain of thought. Taking one step higher, I'd like to note that Article 26 of the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights <https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights>contains the phrase "Everyone has the right to education". I believe, although ICANN's bylaws (Article 1, Section 1.2, b Core Values, viii ...respecting international human rights... <https://www.icann.org/ar/governance/bylaws#article1> )may limit ICANN's responsibility, it would be good for the At-Large community to consider the Human Right to Education when performing important ICANN policy work. Indeed, if you dig into the weeds of ICANN's bylaws again, specifically looking at the part that describes the role of the At-Large Advisory Committee (Article 12, Section 12.2, d, X, E <https://www.icann.org/ar/governance/bylaws#article12>), you will find the following statement on activities that the ALAC and RALO are responsible for ... "*Developing and maintaining on-going information and education programs, regarding ICANN and its work;*" As Bill Jouris noted in another thread, much caution is warranted when we consider how to use ICANN's and At-Large's limited resources to be directed towards the domain of policy education. Hopefully, we can agree that "education" is within the scope of our responsibilities, and direct attention to how this can be done, rather than does "education" belong as part of our collective work. Great email thread! I look forward to more cogent conversations on End User DNS policy from this group in the future. :-) Cheers! David On Fri, May 1, 2026 at 7:28 AM Justine Chew via NA-Discuss < na-discuss@icann.org> wrote:
Hi Evan,
Thanks for bringing up SAC127. I've added it to our fresh collection of DNS Abuse mitigation general resources <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1smchQvYap04IMu7BCiAj6TWEhhxFE7wqayI8CyYd...> .
Incidentally, there is an upcoming webinar on 13 May, regarding implementing DNS blocking and SAC127, that may interest you. Assuming you hadn't been aware of it, of course.
ICANN OCTO ISPCP/SSAC: Implementing DNS Blocking Responsibly
Blocking domains that are maliciously used can protect users, but it
raises questions about accuracy, due process, and unintended collateral effects. On 13 May at 16:00 UTC, don't miss our session on implementing #DNS <https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/dns?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZY9lp6xqQ3PO_AH00l-Gq83TBt43t8CcnGuqVBpjt1IFxhXUDZ0PMdhSiaAfCcKMkHlnfXnnLfZeswTn2EbgoSzcuZZtV_QzcYENqDDamT0jSD_Xh75QSFUX5Bn0EwAk8h57x-w_pmteekUV1XjvntXDuI0YvvbRUzSDLC8RzVO1n_e9m0e9MM8uwNhwp363eA&__tn__=*NK-R> blocking responsibly, featuring insights from SSAC’s latest document on this topic (SAC127). Register here >> https://bit.ly/4carPQk
Kind regards, Justine
On Fri, 1 May 2026 at 06:38, Evan Leibovitch via ALAC <alac@icann.org> wrote:
Hi all,
Anyone who is following the issue of DNS Abuse, which we have been discussing here, would be well advised to have a look at SSAC 127 <https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/security-and-stability-advisory-committee...> issued last year, on the top of "DNS Blocking Revisited".
This one one of the few ICANN documents of which I am aware that deals with personal-level blocking as a way to mitigate abuse as well as state- and infrastructure-level blocking.
It spends a useful amount of effort on how end users can implement their own personal "blocking" through VPNs and "Public Resolvers":
* Users are aware of the benefits of public DNS resolvers and have been
reconfiguring their systems to leverage these services. This shift has been fueled by a growing understanding of the potential privacy and performance advantages that public resolvers offer over default DNS configurations, and in response to cases of state censorship and the abuse of DNS services offered by ISPs.*
This, to me, offers a rationale on how educating the public - and indeed the broader ICANN community -- about such facilities is directly relevant to ICANN's mission and At-Large's role within it.
I note with curiosity the complete lack of mention of one of the main reasons end-users are implementing such services: the blocking of advertising and tracking sites. To many people, myself included, the use of digital fingerprinting and tracking of personal details across different websites is as abusive as phishing and almost as abusive as malware sites. While mention is made of Cloudflare and Canadian Shield, the report completely ignores services such as Control D, Adguard DNS and NextDNS which block ads and trackers as well as more-malicious sites. For some blocking ads is a significant way to speed web-page rendering. And while some may debate the ethics of ad blocking, I am not aware of any jurisdiction in which doing so is illegal.
While it speaks of the use of the DNS to block pornography and gambling sites, as well as in-browser checks against malicious sites, oddly SSAC 127 ignores one of the main reasons people search for alternative DNS servers. But except for that notable error of omission, and is a worthwhile read for anyone who cares about what end-users (the ALAC constituency) can do to mitigate DNS abuse ... that is, considering that what constitutes "abuse" is not rigid and many approaches are available. -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 _______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list -- alac@icann.org To unsubscribe send an email to alac-leave@icann.org
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