[kictanet] ICANN report on DNS in Egypt

[Alice Munyua]

Hi GG and all


Events in Egypt must have slowed down the discussions on our media 
council bill and I apologize for diverting you again.
  It is worrying that a government can  shut down the internet. There 
are permissible limitations/restrictions on expression and communication 
contained in International laws, however these are for narrow 
circumstances defined in, for example the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights, where National security and pubic order is 
included, but  it should not be used as an excuse.  Governments should 
ensure that the limitations of restrictions are provided for by clear 
and precise laws that demonstrate necessity to meet the specific purpose.

Anyway, Google has since introduced a speak to tweet service  for people 
in Egypt and see below a report by ICANN on DNS: 
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/twitter-by-phone-egypt/


  http://blog.icann.org/2011/01/status-report-on-the-dns-in-egypt/Status


  Report on the DNS in Egypt

Along with the entire global Internet community, ICANN is watching the 
events unfolding in Egypt with great concern for the safety of the 
people of Egypt and for their ability to use the Internet. On January 
27, most Internet connectivity to Egypt was shut down, apparently on the 
instruction of the national government. This has led to the 
inaccessibility of the main domain name system (DNS) server of the 
Egyptian ccTLD (.eg).

Egypt's top-level domain .eg is operated by the Egyptian Universities 
Network (EUN) (http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/eg.html). The Arabic 
script top-level domain .masr (???, 
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/xn--wgbh1c.html) is operated by the 
National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Egypt (NTRA) 
(http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/xn--wgbh1c.html).

The primary servers they operate have been inaccessible to those outside 
of Egypt since January 27. Secondary DNS servers for .eg, located in 
Austria and the United States, have continued to function with data 
provided before the shutdown.

The .??? DNS servers are exclusively in Egypt and there do not appear to 
be any secondary DNS servers outside the country. This means that 
service to sites served by this top-level domain are unreachable by the 
rest of the world.

Secondary servers copy their data from the primary server at regular 
intervals. Data in the secondary DNS servers, serving anyone in the 
world wishing to receive .eg DNS services, have an expiration date. 
Secondary servers require regular updating from the primary server at 
specified intervals -- called "time to live" (TTL) -- and that time is 
set to expire in 140 days.

Normally when primary servers fail -- for example, following the 
earthquake in Haiti -- the operator wants secondary servers to continue 
operating with the last zone file they had provided. This allows users 
around the world to connect to functioning servers in their zone.

ICANN's Manager for Regional Relations for the Middle East has been 
communicating with both TLD operators, EUN and NTRA. The operators of 
.eg have communicated with ICANN and through ICANN are communicating 
with the secondary operators outside the country. They have requested 
that the secondary operators continue using the existing zone files past 
their time to live timeframes, if necessary.

This experience offers a number of lessons, among them that a policy to 
encourage the establishment of secondary servers to promote continuity 
of service as well as DNS stability could be useful and in the global 
public interest. ICANN will ask the ccNSO to consider proposing a policy 
to address this type of situation.

ICANN helps to ensure a secure and stable global Internet through its 
coordination of the domain name system, and is the global policy 
development body for the DNS and related matters. More than 100 ccTLD 
operators are voluntary members of the Country Code Names Supporting 
Organization (ccNSO), a formal ICANN policy and coordination body.


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