Minutes | Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Board (BTC) | 12 December 2024

BTC Attendees: Christian Kaufmann (Chair), Alan Barrett, Chris Buckridge, James Galvin, David Lawrence, and Patricio Poblete

BTC Member Apologies: Nico Caballero and Wes Hardaker

ICANN Organization Attendees: Adiel Akplogan (VP, Technical Engagement), Franco Carrasco (Board Operations Manager), John Crain (SVP & Chief Technology Officer), Kim Davies (VP, IANA Services & President, PTI), Matt Larson (Vice President, Research, and Managing Director - Washington D.C), and Sarah Zagha (Counsel)

The following is a summary of discussions, actions taken, and actions identified:

1. Approval of Pending Meeting's Reports – There were no pending reports from previous Committee meetings to approve.
2. Action Item Review – The Chair established the agenda for the meeting. One pending action was identified.
   • It was noted that the action item of ICANN org (OCTO) to research the development of ICP-3 and determine whether ICP-3 should be updated (and if so, how it should be updated in light of alternate namespaces) would be further discussed during this 12 December 2024 Committee meeting.
3. ICP-2 Discussion – The Committee briefly discussed that Internet Coordination Policy-2 (ICP-2) is being reviewed and updated by the community. The Chair requested the Committee's feedback regarding the Chair's request for OCTO to create a briefing for the Committee, as well as the full Board, on the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the set of technical functions the RIRs carry out (e.g. trust anchor for Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI)), and how these functions affect the stability of the Internet. The Committee agreed such a briefing would be useful, and also requested that ICANN org (OCTO) create a separate briefing (for the Committee and the full Board) on Strategic Objective 4.1.3 of ICANN's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2026 - 2030 ("Increase ICANN's coordination and collaboration with the numbers community for secure, stable, and resilient numbering and routing systems"), as it relates to the RIRs. The BTC requested that the briefing on the RIRs be given during the Committee's February 2025 meeting, with the second briefing regarding Strategic Objective 4.1.3 of ICANN's Fiscal Years 2026 - 2030 be given at a later date.
   • Action Item #1: OCTO to create a briefing on the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), the technical functions the RIRs are responsible for, and how these functions affect the stability of the Internet. ICANN org to provide this briefing to the Committee during its February 2025 Committee meeting.
   • Action Item #2: OCTO to create a briefing on Strategic Objective 4.1.3 of ICANN's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2026 - 2030 as it relates to the RIRs. ICANN org to provide this briefing to the Committee sometime after its February 2025 Committee meeting.
4. ICP-3 Discussion – OCTO was previously tasked by the Committee to research the development of ICP-3 and determine whether ICP-3 should be updated (and if so, how it should be updated in light of alternate namespaces). OCTO noted that it is ICANN org's position that ICP-3 does not need to be updated in light of alternate namespaces because ICP-3 accounts for alternate namespaces in current form and that ICP-3's conclusions are still valid. The Committee thanked ICANN org for its research, and closed the action item associated with this request. The Committee discussed the value of requesting from SSAC an analysis on the technical complications that alternate root servers and systems might cause. The Committee noted that, via its mailing list, it would create a set of questions related to alternate namespaces and their technical implications that the Committee would like the SSAC to analyze.
   • Action Item: The Committee to create a set of questions, via its mailing list, related to alternate namespaces and their technical implications that the Committee would like the SSAC to analyze.
5. Update from Technical Liaisons –
   • SSAC (Jim Galvin): It was reported that the SSAC leadership team recently had a self-funded workshop, which focused on discussions around the various goals the leadership team has set out to achieve, including community outreach. It was noted that the SSAC has been actively reaching out and engaging with members of the community. Furthermore, the Committee was provided with an overview of two ongoing SSAC work parties and their work achieved: (i) Open Source work party and (ii) DNS Blocking work party. It was reported that both of these parties began in 2024, have final documents near completion, and are coming to closure soon. It was also reported that a new SSAC work party is currently underway - the DNSSEC Awareness and Evaluation work party.
   • RSSAC: An update was not provided as the corresponding BTC member was not present with apologies.
   • IETF (David Lawrence): It was reported that IETF 121 took place in Dublin, Ireland in November 2024, and that this meeting was productive in the DNS community. The Committee was provided with an overview, and work of, the DNS Delegation (DELEG) working group, which met during IETF 121. It was noted that the DELEG working group was successful in creating and adopting a document that lists the requirements for a new signaling mechanism to develop a protocol that allows name servers for parent zones to return additional information when communicating about delegated child zones. It was also noted that within the DNS Operations working group, there is a document on the denial of existence in Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) that is currently in the last call stage at the IETF and will likely become a Request for Comment (RFC).
6. AOB – Kim Davies (i) reported that at IETF 121, he presented an Internet Draft on .internal, and (ii) provided the Committee with an overview of the community's feedback at IETF 121 as to whether or not the .internal top-level domain (TLD) should be delegated by the root zone.