News
DNS transport: The race is on!
Not one, not two, but three new protocols are offering internet transport layer options for the Domain Name System (DNS). We must not lose sight of the dernier cri (last shout) though. Here is a quick look at the catalogue of options and opinions on DNS over TLS (DoT), DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and DNS over Quic (DoQ).
Diversity at any price? IETF looking for a new chair
The ongoing search for a new IETF Chair offers the community a possibility to look into diversity issues and choose a candidate sponsored by one of the newer participants in the standardisation process. It is unfortunate that the most plausible candidate from the standpoint of diversity, is sponsored by Chinese vendor Huawei, who is currently locked in a trade war with the US.
Transparent censors and other extensions of extended error codes
The DNS Working Group of the IETF is continuing to expand the DNS code base with both new features and enhancements to previous features. In the latest session, a proposal on private space in the DNS with two letter codes received mixed comments, while the policy-heavy work on the operational fall-out of DoH is still not welcome.
Standardising an end-to-end encrypted messaging protocol at the IETF
Last month, an Austrian media report kicked up a storm by suggesting that the Council of the European Union was drafting a resolution to prohibit the use of end-to-end encrypted communication. This was quickly corrected: the draft resolution, in fact, affirms the previous position of previous EU policy documents that recognise the importance of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in providing secure and private communication.
EU Policy Update – November 2020
In a nutshell: The European Commission published a New Consumer Agenda, an Intellectual Property Action Plan and a proposal for a Data Governance Act regulation. The Representative Action Directive is awaiting its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The European Data Protection Board issued its post-Schrems II recommendations for data transfers. The European Data Protection Supervisor issued an opinion on the temporary e-Privacy derogation proposal. The European Parliament’s LIBE Committee proposed amendments to the temporary e-Privacy derogation proposal.
Adapting to the reality of encrypted DNS deployment
What do computer scientists, behaviour economists and cognitive psychologists have in common? They all appreciate the power of the default effect, i.e. whatever people get without making an active choice is what is likely to be the most popular. In the world of network protocol development, the story of deployment of encrypted DNS protocols is arguably centred around what will become the default.
Some changes to RIPE, and more to come
By Monika Ermert, eLance Journalist - At the RIPE81 meeting which took place at the end of October, the new leadership duo, RIPE Chair Mirjam Kühne and Executive Director Hans Peter Holen, presented preliminary ideas of changes to come.
The CENTRstats Global TLD Report 2020/3 has been published
The CENTRstats Global TLD Report Q3/2020 has been published and shows that Q3 2020 has seen a continuation of high rates of new domain creations as well as a slight decrease in deletes. Furthermore, for several countries, the national ccTLD also gained market share based on ‘popular website’ ranks from Alexa. This report covers the status and trends in top-level domains with a focus on European ccTLDs (country code top-level domains).
EU Policy Update - October 2020
In a nutshell: The European Commission published its 2021 work programme and announced its plans for the Digital Markets Act. The European Parliament adopted all three of its own-initiative reports on the Digital Services Act. Europol published the Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment for 2020. The Council of the EU agreed on the negotiation mandate on the temporary e-Privacy derogation. The European Data Protection Supervisor issued advice for the EU institutions on complying with Schrems II and issued a decision on Europol’s “big data challenge”. The European Court of Justice held that mass retention of electronic communication metadata is against fundamental rights.
Would RIPE NCC be interested in managing the assignment of, for example, AS numbers for SCION, a (nearly) clean slate internet approach?
This is the first article in our RIPE81 series of blogposts by eJournalist, Monika Ermert.