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 – from on-site – from within South Africa – 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

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