TLDCON 2018 offers networking platform for registrars and registries

Day two of the TLDCON 2018 conference opened with the New Technologies in DNS session, where experts spoke about opportunities for using the blockchain technology in DNS, the application of DNS to the work of the Internet of Things for digital object authentication, and security in the service’s work. Everyone agreed that the situation around DNS today is unique: its importance for the internet cannot be overestimated, yet many technological concepts of the service belong to the open internet era and require modernization.

"The DNS system has been standardized for over 30 years, and with preserved architectural solutions overall, it has changed functionally and found a use in new technologies. The data flow is a sort of a treasure trove, and many see its openness as a threat to security," the session moderator, Yelena Voronina of MSK-IX, noted. John Crain of ICANN echoed her, saying that the world is constantly changing along with DNS, which is being used in new technologies, such as the Internet of Things. He also drew the forum participants' particular attention to the danger DNS faces from botnets made up of IoT devices. "Today, we call the Internet of Things the Internet of Threats. DDoS attacks can reach over one terabit per second, and this is scary. Who has servers with such capacity? If it's a war, we are going to lose it," he said.

Pavel Khramtsov of MSK-IX spoke about how new technologies find their way into DNS and how it can affect the entire domain industry. "A domain name registry is first in line to implement blockchain as this technology will allow for its distribution. But if the blockchain technology is introduced, the registrar business will perish," he said.

Konstantin Chumachenko of Ngenix and Alexey Rogdev of the Technical Center of Internet discussed the use of DNS in the CDN and ENUM services. The session concluded with a presentation by Sergei Baukin of .ART, who spoke on the creation of a database based on the Object ID standard. "The information about an art object added to DNS allows for creating a digital footprint for subsequent verification," he said.

The TLDCON 2018 conference concluded with a meeting of the Registrars Club. At the session titled “Who is welcomed to the Registrars club?” presentations were made by representatives of registrars and registries from Russia, the Czech Republic and Armenia, as well as ICANN representatives. The speakers included Anna Karakhanyan (ISOC Armenia), Alexandra Kulikova (ICANN), Andrei Savelyev (Domains.РФ), Albina Terikmurzayeva (Gransy) and Alexander Shcherbakov (Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ). The session moderator, Georgy Georgiyevsky of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, proposed that the participants talk about what is going on in their organizations and which trend they consider the most important. The discussion got a lively response from the audience as representatives of many registrars, both Russian and foreign, attended this year's TLDCON. The conference has turned into a networking platform between registrars and registries, which has become noticeable in recent years. For instance, registrars from Latvia who have taken part in TLDCON for the first time expressed their desire to attend the conference next year as well.

At that, TLDCON 2018 concluded its work.