December 4, 2014 archive

Will you be attending ICANN 52 in Singapore in February 2015?  If so, and if you work with DNSSEC or DANE , we are seeking speakers for the ICANN 52 DNSSEC Workshop to be held on Wednesday, February 11, 2015.

The full Call for Participation is included below, but the key point is – we are looking for proposals from people who want to talk about interesting, innovative and new ways they are using DNSSEC or DANE … new tools… new services… new research … new case studies… demos of new tools/services…  basically any new information that can help people understand better the value of DNSSEC and DANE and also the ways in which it can be more easily implemented and used.

Speaking at an ICANN DNSSEC Workshop is a great way to get your ideas and information out to members of the DNSSEC technical community – and the sessions are also archived and viewed by people long after the event is over.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by Wednesday, 10 December 2014.  (Updated deadline – originally it was December 3.)

Call for Participation — ICANN DNSSEC Workshop at ICANN 52 in Singapore

The DNSSEC Deployment Initiative and the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme, in cooperation with the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), are planning a DNSSEC Workshop at the ICANN 52 meeting on 11 February 2015 in Singapore. The DNSSEC Workshop has been a part of ICANN meetings for several years and has provided a forum for both experienced and new people to meet, present and discuss current and future DNSSEC deployments. For reference, the most recent session was held at the ICANN meeting in Los Angeles on 15 October 2014. The presentations and transcripts are available at: http://la51.icann.org/en/schedule/wed-dnssec.

We are seeking presentations on the following topics:

1. DNSSEC activities in Asia

For this panel we are seeking participation from those who have been involved in DNSSEC deployment in Asia and also from those who have not deployed DNSSEC but who have a keen interest in the challenges and benefits of deployment. In particular, we will consider the following questions: What can DNSSEC do for you? What doesn’t it do? What are the internal tradeoffs to implementing DNSSEC? What did you learn in your deployment of DNSSEC? We are interested in presentations from both people involved with the signing of domains and people involved with the deployment of DNSSEC-validating DNS resolvers.

2. Potential impacts of Root Key Rollover

Given many concerns about the need to do a Root Key Rollover, we would like to bring together a panel of people who can talk about what the potential impacts may be to ISPs, equipment providers and end users, and also what can be done to potentially mitigate those issues. In particular, we are seeking participation from vendors, ISPs, and the community that will be affected by distribution of new root keys. We would like to be able to offer suggestions out of this panel to the wider technical community. If you have a specific concern about the Root Key Rollover, or believe you have a method or solution to help address impacts, we would like to hear from you.

3. New gTLD registries and administrators implementing DNSSEC

With the launch of the new gTLDs, we are interested in hearing from registries and operators of new gTLDs about what systems and processes they have implemented to support DNSSEC. As more gTLDs are launched, is there DNSSEC-related information that can be shared to help those launches go easier?

4. Guidance for Registrars in supporting DNSSEC

The 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for registrars and resellers requires them to support DNSSEC from January 1, 2014. We are seeking presentations discussing:
* What are the specific technical requirements of the RAA and how can registrars meet those requirements?
* What tools and systems are available for registrars that include DNSSEC support?
* What information do registrars need to provide to resellers and ultimately customers?

We are particularly interested in hearing from registrars who have signed the 2013 RAA and have either already implemented DNSSEC support or have a plan for doing so.

5. APIs between the Registrars and DNS hosting operators

One specific area that has been identified as needing focus is the communication between registrars and DNS hosting operators, specifically when these functions are provided by different entities. Currently, the communication, such as the transfer of a DS record, often occurs by way of the domain name holder copying and pasting information from one web interface to another. How can this be automated? We would welcome presentations by either registrars or DNS hosting operators who have implemented APIs for the communication of DNSSEC information, or from people with ideas around how such APIs could be constructed.

6. Implementing DNSSEC validation at Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) play a critical role by enabling DNSSEC validation for the caching DNS resolvers used by their customers. We have now seen massive rollouts of DNSSEC validation within large North American ISPs and at ISPs around the world. We are interested in presentations on topics such as:
* What does an ISP need to do to prepare its network for implementing DNSSEC validation?
* How does an ISP need to prepare its support staff and technical staff for the rollout of DNSSEC validation?
* What measurements are available about the degree of DNSSEC validation currently deployed?
* What tools are available to help an ISP deploy DNSSEC validation?
* What are the practical server-sizing impacts of enabling DNSSEC validation on ISP DNS Resolvers (ex. cost, memory, CPU, bandwidth, technical support, etc.)?

7. The operational realities of running DNSSEC

Now that DNSSEC has become an operational norm for many registries, registrars, and ISPs, what have we learned about how we manage DNSSEC? What is the best practice around key rollovers? How often do you review your disaster recovery procedures? Is there operational familiarity within your customer support teams? What operational statistics have we gathered about DNSSEC? Are there experiences being documented in the form of best practices, or something similar, for transfer of signed zones?

8. DNSSEC automation

For DNSSEC to reach massive deployment levels it is clear that a higher level of automation is required than is currently available. Topics for which we would like to see presentations include:
* What tools, systems and services are available to help automate DNSSEC key management?
* Can you provide an analysis of current tools/services and identify gaps?
* Where are the best opportunities for automation within DNSSEC signing and validation processes?
* What are the costs and benefits of different approaches to automation?

9. When unexpected DNSSEC events occur

What have we learned from some of the operational outages that we have seen over the past 18 months? Are there lessons that we can pass on to those just about to implement DNSSEC? How do you manage dissemination of information about the outage? What have you learned about communications planning? Do you have a route to ISPs and registrars? How do you liaise with your CERT community?

10. DANE and DNSSEC applications

There is strong interest for DANE usage within web transactions as well as for securing email and Voice-over-IP (VoIP). We are seeking presentations on topics such as:
* What are some of the new and innovative uses of DANE and other DNSSEC applications in new areas or industries?
* What tools and services are now available that can support DANE usage?
* How soon could DANE and other DNSSEC applications become a deployable reality?
* How can the industry use DANE and other DNSSEC applications as a mechanism for creating a more secure Internet?

We would be particularly interested in any live demonstrations of DNSSEC / DANE applications and services. For example, a demonstration of the actual process of setting up a site with a certificate stored in a TLSA record that correctly validates would be welcome. Demonstrations of new tools that make the setup of DNSSEC or DANE more automated would also be welcome.

11. DANE / DNSSEC as a way to secure email

The DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) protocol is an exciting development where DNSSEC can be used to provide a strong additional trust layer for traditional SSL/TLS certificates. We are both pleased and intrigued by the growing usage of DANE and DNSSEC as a means of providing added security for email. Multiple email servers have added support for DANE records to secure TLS/SSL connections. Some email providers are marketing DNSSEC/DANE support. We would like to have a panel at ICANN 51 focusing on this particular usage of DANE. Are you a developer of an email server or client supporting DANE? Do you provide DANE / DNSSEC support in your email service? Can you provide a brief case study of what you have done to implement DANE / DNSSEC? Can you talk about any lessons you learned in the process?

12. DNSSEC and DANE in the enterprise

Enterprises can play a critical role in both providing DNSSEC validation to their internal networks and also through signing of the domains owned by the enterprise. We are seeking presentations from enterprises that have implemented DNSSEC on validation and/or signing processes and can address questions such as:
* What are the benefits to enterprises of rolling out DNSSEC validation? And how do they do so?
* What are the challenges to deployment for these organizations and how could DANE and other DNSSEC applications address those challenges?
* How should an enterprise best prepare its IT staff and network to implement DNSSEC?
* What tools and systems are available to assist enterprises in the deployment of DNSSEC?
* How can the DANE protocol be used within an enterprise to bring a higher level of security to transactions using SSL/TLS certificates?

13. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) use cases and innovation

We are interested in demonstrations of HSMs, presentations of HSM-related innovations and real world use cases of HSMs and key management.

In addition, we welcome suggestions for additional topics.

If you are interested in participating, please send a brief (1-2 sentence) description of your proposed presentation to dnssec-singapore@isoc.org by Wednesday, 03 December 2014

We hope that you can join us.

Thank you,

Julie Hedlund

On behalf of the DNSSEC Workshop Program Committee:
Mark Elkins, DNS/ZACR
Cath Goulding, Nominet UK
Jean Robert Hountomey, AfricaCERT
Jacques Latour, .CA
Xiaodong Lee, CNNIC
Luciano Minuchin, NIC.AR
Russ Mundy, Parsons
Ondřej Surý, CZ.NIC
Yoshiro Yoneya, JPRS
Dan York, Internet Society