Hello everyone, Last night I made a presentation on ICANN issues to the Toronto Linux User Group. A brief time was spent with introductions of ICANN and the domain name system, then I addressed some of the interesting stories and issues -- especially gTLDs. There were no slides to go with the show -- I was working with a blackboard :-) -- but I posted some follow-up links. And you can pretty-well tell the flow of my talk based on the links and their order. As a result of the talk we may actually get another ALS application or two. Given that ICANN has starved At-Large of outreach resources for more than a year, going out and talking about ICANN within your local circles appears to be the only way -- at least for now -- that we're going to get any more North American ALSs involved. I hope the collection of links below is helpful, at least as a guide to the things you may want to talk about in an "ICANN 101" talk of your own -- Evan (1) ICANN basics: http://icann.org/ http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/ http://www.icannwatch.org/ (2) ICANN At-Large http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/ http://www.atlarge.icann.org/summit-en.htm http://www.atlarge.icann.org/announcements/announcement-05mar09-en.htm (my speech that closed the Summit) (3) Not everyone thinks that ICANN At-Large is useful http://weblog.johnlevine.com/ICANN/offalac.html (I can't say that I totally disagree but I remain optimistic) (4) NARALO (the north american region of at-large) https://st.icann.org/naralo/index.cgi (5) On becoming an ALS: http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-23may05.htm http://www.atlarge.icann.org/en/framework.htm http://www.atlarge.icann.org/files/atlarge/als-application-form-en.doc (6) Examples of the testing of domain names using Unicode (Internationalized domain names) http://例子.測試/ http://مثال.إختبار/ http://בײַשפּיל.טעסט/ http://παράδειγμα.δοκιμή/ If you can't see or use them try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_level_domains (7) IPV6 info: http://www.icann.org/announcements/factsheet-ipv6-26oct07.pdf http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/02/icann-flips-switch-on-ipv6-dns-ro... http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/05/one-small-step-google-officially-... http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/26/1753259&from=rss http://ipv6.google.com/ (8) DNSSEC info: http://mex.icann.org/files/meetings/mexico2009/atlarge-summit-dnssec-infrast... http://mex.icann.org/files/meetings/mexico2009/tuma-dnssec-implementation-04... http://www.dnssec-deployment.org/ (9) Some lesser-known current TLDs: http://about.museum/ http://www.travel.travel/ http://www.information.aero/gateway/index_html http://www.nic.name/ http://www.dotasia.org/ (10) The sad story of .xxx http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-03-30-icann-xxx_N.htm?csp=... (11) The only place the Soviet Union still lives -- ICANN: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-04-18-196687842_x.htm http://www.nic.ru/dns/service/en/su.html (12) Some examples of preliminary efforts to build support for city and culturally based top-level domains: http://www.pointquebec.org/ http://www.dotcym.org/home/ http://www.dotsco.org/ http://www.dotberlin.de/ http://connectingnyc.org/ http://www.dotker.org-a.googlepages.com/home (13) New gTLD process http://icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-program.htm http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-rfp-redline-18feb09-en.pdf https://st.icann.org/working-groups/index.cgi?at_large_gtld_working_group_st...