Sarmad Hussain Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Programs Director Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Before joining ICANN, Hussain was a professor of Computer Science. His research is focused on developing computing solutions for Pakistani languages, including research in linguistics, localization, language computing standards, speech processing and computational linguistics. He has led the PAN Localization program from 2004-2010, which saw the development of local language computing capacity across developing Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Hussain’s involvement with IDNs commenced in 2006 and has been actively involved in IDN country code top-level domain (ccTLD) work for Pakistan. He has been an active member of the ICANN community since 2008 and was a member of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) before joining ICANN as staff. Hussain obtained his doctoral degree in Speech Science from Northwestern University, USA in 1997, an M.Phil. In Computer Speech and Language Processing from Cambridge University, UK, in 1993, and a BS in Electrical Engineering (with specialization in Computer Engineering with honors) from University of Texas, Austin, USA, in 1992.

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) Program at ICANN Sarmad Hussain Director, IDN Programs pkSIG, Karachi 5 September 2018

Objectives of the IDN Program at ICANN Enable deployment of domain names in the local languages and scripts used by the communities globally in a secure and stable manner

Community Outreach and Involvement Overview IDNs at Top Level IDN TLD Program Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR) LGR Toolset IDN Variant TLD Implementation IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process IDNs at Second Level IDN Implementation Guidelines Reference Second Level LGRs Community Outreach and Involvement

IDN TLD Program Root Zone Label Generation Rules

ASCII and Internationalized Domain Names www.cafe-123.com ምሳሌ.ኢትዮጵያ IDN Second Level Domain IDN Top Level Domain (TLD) Second Level Domain Top Level Domain (TLD) Forming ASCII Labels Use only Letters Letters [a-z] Label length = 63 Syntax of IDN TLD U-Label, constrained by the “letter” principle What is a “letter” in a script? Are all “letters” unique in a script?

Process for Developing Root Zone Label Generation Rules Normally one Generation Panel per writing system (script) Generation Panel 1 RZ- LGR Etcetera Script 1 Script 2 Integration Panel Generation Panel 2 Generation Panel 3 Needs more work Etcetera

Status of Community Based Panels for RZ-LGR

IDN TLD Program IDN Variant TLD Implementation

Understanding IDN Variant TLDs – “Same” Labels .epic 0065 0070 0069 0063 Security Usability .еріс 0435 0440 0456 0441 .澳门 6FB3 95E8 .澳門 6FB3 9580 السعودية. السعودیۃ. 0627 0644 0633 0639 0648 062F 064A 0629 0627 0644 0633 0639 0648 062F 06CC 06C3

Status of IDN Variant TLDs Variant labels are hard - interpretation of “same” unclear On 25 September 2010, the ICANN Board resolved: “No variants of gTLDs will be delegated through the New gTLD Program until appropriate variant management solutions are developed.” Undertook studies on Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, and Latin scripts in 2011 to understand the phenomenon Issues collated in the Integrated Issues Report, IIR (2012) - identified following gaps: No definition of IDN variant TLDs No IDN variant TLD management mechanism

Defining IDN Variant TLDs Gap 1: No definition of IDN variant TLDs Solution: Define variant labels using Root Zone Language Generation Rules (RZ-LGR) Next steps: RZ-LGR-Study Group initiated to review technical implementation INVALID TLD LABEL Existing TLD: t1 VALID TLD LABEL ALL VARIANTS: t1v1 t1v2 t1v3 t1v4 BLOCKED ALLOCATABLE العربیة Arabic ไทย Thai Applied-for TLD: t1 ግዕዝ Ethiopic …28 scripts RZ-LGR SECURE AND STABLE RESULTS: { LGR Tool

Managing IDN Variant TLDs Gap 2: No IDN variant TLD management mechanism Solution: ICANN org has developed a set of recommendations – recently released for public comment Next steps: Proposed solution to be finalized in consultation with the community and then presented to the ICANN Board

IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process

IDN Country Code Top-Level Domains

Thank You For information on IDN Program projects, please visit: www.icann.org/idn For queries regarding the IDN Program, please email: IDNProgram@icann.org