Category: Africa

Nov 01

In September, Singapore and Senegal Signed Their .SN and .SG with DNSSEC

singapore-and-senegal-sign-with-dnssec

Congratulations to the teams in both Singapore and Senegal for signing their country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) with DNSSEC back in September. According to Rick Lamb’s list of DNSSEC-signed TLDs, Singapore’s signature for the .SG domain was added to the root of DNS on September 22, and Senegal’s signature for .SN was added on September 30. [1]

This means that as of those dates, second-level domains under .SG and .SN could start receiving the added layer of security and trust possible with DNSSEC.  In Singapore SGNIC started actively encouraging people to sign their domains. In Africa, ICANN’s Yaovi Atohoun wrote about how Senegal is the third African ccTLD to sign with DNSSEC this year.

I also added both countries to our weekly DNSSEC Deployment Maps so people can see them there. (And here’s a test of your geography: where are Senegal and Singapore?)

This is all great news as the world continues to add a layer of trust to answers from DNS by using DNSSEC. Congrats again to the teams in both countries!

If you would like to get started with DNSSEC, please visit our Start Here page to begin.

[1] To be precise, what happened is that the “Delegation Signer” or “DS” records for each TLD were added to the root of DNS. The DS record is a fingerprint of the DNSKEY used to sign the domain.  It is included in the parent zone to create a “global chain of trust” from the root of DNS on down.

Mar 11

DNSSEC Training In Rwanda For The .RW ccTLD

I was very pleased to learn via a series of tweets this morning of a two-day DNSSEC training seminar that happened in Kacyiru, Rwanda, sponsored by the Rwanda Information and Communication Technology Association (RICTA) in partnership with ICANN. The seminar took place over the last two days and the agenda looks quite good.

rwanda-dnssec-training

It seems they got some good news coverage on two local sites, complete with other photos of the event: IGIHE and UMUSEKE. Unfortunately, as I cannot read Kinyarwanda, and neither, it seems, can Google Translate, I don’t have any idea what the articles are saying beyond the technical acronyms.

The attendance is great to see as Africa is one region where it would be great to see more ccTLDs signed with DNSSEC.  At this moment Rwanda’s .RW is not appearing on either our DNSSEC deployment maps nor on ICANN’s DNSSEC Status Report as signed with DNSSEC… but hopefully with a workshop like this that status will be changing soon!

P.S. To that end, I note that the seminar invitation reads “Adoption event for the .RW country code top-level domain name”. If anyone reads this from RICTA and could email us info about when they are planning to sign the .RW ccTLD, we’d love to add that information to our DNSSEC deployment maps.

Photo credit: RICTAInfo on Twitter

Jul 12

Africa DNS Forum Happening Today And Tomorrow – Live stream / webcast available

AfTLD logoInterested in learning about the state of the Domain Name System (DNS) in Africa?  As I mentioned previously, I’m in Durban, South Africa, for the next week for the Africa DNS Forum today and tomorrow and then ICANN 47 next week.  The first Africa DNS Forum is happening right now and you can watch live now:

http://icann.adobeconnect.com/dur47-hall1b

The Africa DNS Forum agenda is posted on the AfTLD website and includes these topics:

  • Trends, opportunities and challenges of the DNS industry
  • Registries Business: Registry Strategies for domain name growth
  • Registrar business: Registrar strategies in a competitive environment
  • Legal Issues: Cross-border domain registrations
  • Registrar Accreditation and accreditation in a borderless environment
  • Governments and ccTLD: Supporting the domain name growth

The sessions are happening today, July 12, 2013, from 8:30 – 17:30 and tomorrow, July 13, from 9:00 – 14:00.  South Africa Standard Time is UTC+2 which is currently the same time as Central European Summer Time and 6 hours ahead of US Eastern time.

Related to our work here at Deploy360, there will be a section of the first panel on Registries Business that will be focused on DNSSEC and how usage can be accelerated for ccTLDs in Africa. I’m looking forward to hearing the presentations and discussions happening over these next two days – many great and exciting things are happening for the Internet in Africa right now!

Jul 04

First Africa DNS Forum To Be Held July 12-13 In Durban, South Africa

AfTLD logoWhat can African registries and registrars do to grow the domain name business in Africa? What role can the African governments play to empower registries and registrars? What can be learnt from successful registries and registrars operating outside Africa and adapted to strengthen their African counterparts? How can cross-border collaborations be setup to strengthen the African DNS Industry? What policies can be implemented to ensure a robust domain name industry? What are the processes that should be implemented to support a structured ccTLD framework? What are the provisions that should exist in order to ensue trust amongst registrants?

These are some of the many questions that are planned for discussion at the first Africa DNS Forum to be held July 12-13, 2013, in Durban, South Africa, just prior to the ICANN 47 event the following week. The DNS Forum is organized by AfTLD and sponsored by the Internet Society and ICANN and is looking to be quite a good event with a program agenda very focused on how to grow business usage of the Internet within Africa.

I (Dan York) will be there attending the event and am looking forward to speaking with people from the region.  I’ll be moderating one of the panels and will also be looking to talk to people informally about DNSSEC and how we can get more African ccTLDs using DNSSEC. I’ll also be encouraging people to attend the DNSSEC workshops that will be part of the ICANN 47 event the following week.

If you are already planning to be in Durban for ICANN 47 I’d encourage you to come a few days early and attend this DNS Forum.  Registration is open to all interested.