.ZA Comes of Age

1. .ZA Comes of Age A Presentation at iWeek 2003 Mike Lawrie .ZA Administrator

2. Overview • Pre-ZA days • Permission to Administer ZA • Era of the pre-Commercial Internet • Efforts to get others involved • Re-delegation of co.za to Uniforum • Working through ISOC-ZA • An early proposal by the DoC • The ECT Bill(s) • The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee process • Implementing Chapter X of the ECT Act • Closing Comments

3. Pre-ZA Days (1986-1989) • Initially dialup and later a Uninet backbone interconnected a number of universities • not much of an addressing problem • In 1989 Uninet used Fidonet as a gateway • Rhodes’s Cyber acted as a national email hub, and exchanged international email with a PC that dialed into the Fidonet system in the USA • Addressing was of the form • <ccml> from on-site • <ccml.rures> from within South Africa • <ccml.rures@f4.n494.z5.fidonet.org> from international sources • This was not going to be at all satisfactory in the future

4. Permission to Administer ZA (1990) • Request to Vint Cerf on 9 Nov 1989 • Favourable response on 24 Nov 1989 • HUGE problem convincing locals that this was 100% genuine • Domain administration and Internet connectivity are two completely different issues • No Internet connection at the time • Local “root servers” were established for use by computers in SA • Parallel ZA information installed on the Internet itself • The late Vic Shaw, as Uninet Manager, was agreed as administrator

5. Era of the pre-Commercial Internet (1991-1993) • First IP packets to the Internet from SA flowed on 12 Nov 1991 • ac.za set up immediately for use by Uninet sites • alt.za agreed to in March 1991 • The co.za domain was already in existence by September 1991, but responsibility was not delegated • Nameserver software was horribly unreliable • Domain storms frequently flooded the link to the USA

6. Efforts to get others involved (1994-1995) • In 1994 I took over from Vic Shaw as Uninet Manager, and “inherited” the mantle of ZA administrator. • Introduced the policy of not having organisation names at the second level • The rapid expansion of the co.za domain led to serious problems in the Uninet Office • Efforts to get the ISPs to take over the administration led nowhere • Uninet staff were spending more time on co.za registrations than on doing the work for which they were being paid • Very few people wanted to listen

7. Re-delegation of co.za to Uniforum • Eventually a meeting of various interested parties took place in August 1995 • Uniforum to administer co.za • Mike Lawrie to continue to administer .za • It is not a simple problem coping with the volumes of registration • Many a request for a com.za domain was refused

8. Working through ISOC-ZA (1998) • Policies relating to domain administration need wider input than that of one individual • what domains should be allowed • who should administer them • what to do when something goes wrong • what legal grounds for dealing with problems • revoking a domain or authority to administer a domain • ISOC-ZA was the obvious body to steer a process of setting up a new administration • Although helping to define the process, I deliberately did not get involved in the process • The Drafting Committee represented the cream of the the country’s domain name expertise • The outcome of the Drafting Committee was accepted by ISOC-ZA

9. An Early Proposal by the DoC (1999) • In October 1999, the DoC published proposal to establish a Domain Name Authority • Clearly authored by someone who knew little about domain administration • Proposed to employ 14 full-time staff at R4.4M/yr • Cost of R24.5M over three years including HP hardware, software, consultant’s fees • There had been no general consultation relating to this proposal • The DoC was well-aware of the ISOC-ZA process • Totally out of line with what was needed to administer ZA

10. The ECT Bill(s) • There were at least two of these Bills • They had been prepared in unnecessary secrecy • Both displayed poor knowledge of what domain administration was about • confused email addresses with domain names • confused Internet connectivity with domain names • confused domain administration with user support • Failed to draw on existing experience and expertise

11. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee Process • A number of organisations presented their concerns about Chapter X of the ECT Bill • It was more important to the chair of the committee to watch Senegal play soccer than to listen to the representations • At one stage there were no more than six committee members present at the hearings (out of a 30+ committee) • It became quite obvious that the powers of the committee were very limited indeed • Most committee members had a very limited grasp on Internet matters, eg • confused viruses with spam • were serving a political agenda and not the interests of the Internet • did not seem overly interested in facts • The political mudslinging was a wonder to behold

12. Implementing Chapter X of the ECT Act • We now have a very imperfect Act on the statue books • Powers over a technical matter are vested in a minister of state • The nomination process for the Board of the ZA DNA hiccuped quite embarrassingly • The Selection Panel worked very well together • Good candidates had to be left off the Board • The handover of administration of ZA to the ZA DNA is not far away

13. Closing Comments • Whatever the defects in the ECT Act, the administration of ZA will now be more representative • There will now be a legal basis for dealing with many important domain name issues • ZA is now almost 14 years old - that’s a key “coming of age” in some societies • Let us hope that this will not be the era of the terrible teenager • The ZA domain has yet to hiccup, never mind crash - the ZA DNA needs to maintain this standard • I wish the ZA DNA well in its job, and call on the Internet community to be constructive when dealing with it

14. finis