[ISN] At long last, internet's root zone to be secured

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/04/dnssec_coming/

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
The Register
4th June 2009

The US government said Wednesday it plans to digitally sign the 
internet's root zone by the end of the year, a move that would end years 
of inaction securing the internet's most important asset.

The US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and 
Information Administration (NTIA) said it was turning to ICANN, or the 
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and VeriSign to 
implement the measure, which is known as DNSSEC. In October, the two 
organizations submitted separate proposals that offered sharply 
contrasting visions for putting the complicated framework in place.

"The parties are working on an interim approach to deployment, by year's 
end, of a security technology - Domain Name System Security Extensions 
(DNSSEC) - at the authoritative root zone (i.e., the address book) of 
the internet," a statement issued by the NTIA read. "There will be 
further consultations with the internet technical community as the 
testing and implementation plans are developed."

The statement left many unanswered questions about the roll-out, most 
notably the specific roles of the two organizations. It also omitted 
details about exactly how far the temporary solution would go and when a 
permanent fix can be expected.

[...]


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