Time for some R&R!

After a buzzy spring touring the world as a part of my new adventure its finally time for some R&R. For those of you who know me, you know what that means. Yeap! Im going to the greek isles again.

Just as last year we are starting from Pireus, going to Naxos for a few days and after that no one knows what happens. There have been some discussions about Ios for some mixed relaxation and partying but we wont be sure until we get there.

To recap the last few weeks I have spent a good deal of time in Stockholm, which is beautiful this time of year. I managed to sneak into WPBar to present myself to a few of the guys and girls that will be joining up for Swedish Social Media Camp in August.

The last week has been all about ICANN. This time its in Brussels and I must say that it has been a good week. We managed to get a lot of good meetings done and I finally finished the last things needed before I can sneak of to Greece.

Regards,

LG

The End of an Era and the Start of a New

As you may have gathered from my last few posts there are big things in the works. Today I finally get to shed some light on to what those things are. For the last three months I have been wrapping up six years of work with a new goal in mind. On tuesday the twenty third of February I left my employment at Loopia. It has been a great place to work and I have gotten to know some of the best people in the business as my friends.

However, to further challenge myself and and see more then one side of the coin I wanted to do something new. I wanted my new job to be a mix of a great many things but the most important parts where social interaction, responsibility, marketing, product and brand development and Internet related services and technology. As my main expertise lies with domain names it would not be a wild guess that I would have something to do with that even after my change of employer.

Just a few moments ago I published the first of many press releases that I will be doing. It handles the subject of me being recruited as Director of Marketing for .NU Domain ltd. As most of you know or understands by the name we are talking about the registry for the .NU top level domain.

The Swedish version of the press release is available at myNewsdesk, a quick and dirty english version is available here.

Regards,

LG

Deliberately Invalidatable Root Zone

A few days ago we saw something that has not happened before. One of the root-servers of the Internet was DNSSEC-enabled, signed, secured.. or was it? No, it was not really secured was it? Nope! BUT! The DNSSEC-enabled part of it is true, or at least a little bit of it.

One of the root-server instances, the L-root , had it’s copy of the root-zone signed. However, for now, the public key distributed is obviously broken and unusable (thanks Patrik!).

I for one think the DNSKEY record is cute!

IN  DNSKEY  257  3  8 (
AwEAAa8Zp+++++THIS/IS/IN/AN/INVALID/
KEY/AND/CANNOT/BE/USED/FOR/VALIDATIO
N/PLEASE/CONTACT/ROOTSIGN/AT/ICANN/D
OT/ORG/FOR/MORE/INFORMATION+++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++8=
);

The “system” is called DURZ (Deliberately Invalidatable Root Zone) and the plan is to put it to use in all of the the root-server instances before moving on in the implementation of DNSSEC for the root-zone.

Why? Well, first and foremost DURZ is for testing purposes. While the signed root-zone is still not considered as “in production” it will prohibit the use of the root-zone as a trust anchor for validation. During this period of time testing will f.ex. give measures of how the signed root-zone (larger response size etc) affects whoever uses it.

The implementation of DURZ will span all of the root-server instances and is planned to be done in May this year. A schedule has been posted on the Root DNSSEC site. Do I think they will stick to it? Why of course not.. How fun would that be?

M: 2010-03-03 0400-0600
I: 2010-03-03 1500-1800
D: 2010-03-24 1400-1500
K: 2010-03-24 1500-1700
E: 2010-03-24 1800-2000
H: 2010-04-14 1400-1500
C: 2010-04-14 1500-1700
G: 2010-04-14 1700-1900
B: 2010-04-14 1900-2100
F: 2010-04-14 2100-0000
J: 2010-05-05 1700-1900

All times are in UTC.

When all the root-servers are serving the DURZ I expect that a period of statistics and measurements will commence, the goal being to pinpoint any side effects from the fact that the root-zone is signed, bloated and well, lets just call it pregnant with what may be the savior of DNS.

This sounds like a great start for a fantasy novel but all that is just the means to an end..

The implementation of DNSSEC for the root-zone has been a hot potato for the last two or ten years. It has been predicted to be the deliverance of DNSSEC, the single event that puts all the pieces in place. Will it be? Well, I say we just wait and see.

If you want to know more about the implementation of DNSSEC in the root-zone, head over to Root DNSSEC!

Regards,

LG

Zürich

A few weeks ago I got an invitation to visit Switch, the Swiss registry (.ch and .li), to have a talk at their seminar regarding the marketing aspects of DNSSEC. As this is one of my favourite subjects I gladly accepted the offer. The seminar was scheduled for the seventh of October and as it started quite early in the morning I left on the eve of the sixth.

At the airport I met up with Anne-Marie Löwinder (AMEL), the quality and security manager of .SE (the internet infrastructure foundation). She had been asked to have her own talk about the registry aspects of DNSSEC at the same seminar. When we arrived in Zürich Marco and Samuel from Switch was there to greet us with a nice dinner at one of the many resturants serving Swiss specialities.

The seminar went great and I got a lot of positive feedback from the audience along with a box of Swiss truffles for my troubles. Its always nice with some appreciation. Later on that evening Switch had arranged a dinner for all of the participants from the seminar. It gave me a nice opportunity to talk with the crowd and the evening was very nice overall.

The morning after was just a bit less exiting including getting up a lot earlier the usual and going to the airport to catch a fight home to Sweden. All and all, the trip was really nice and while being mostly about work it gave me a nice breather from the office air.

I would like to recommend all of you to take the time to visit Zürich once in you life, preferably during the warm season. It has some wonderful canals to walk along and the lake is beautiful with the surrounding mountains.

Regards,

LG

Appreciation

At this late hour on a Friday night I really should not be in front of the computer, but still here I am. I think it has something to do with that I feel like I am able to accomplish something more then when I’m not. Of course this feeling is close to ridicule but it still lingers around, keeping me here.

Earlier this week I got a real morale boost for the coming autumn and winter of seminars, conferences and meeting. Someone that I hardly know and only met a few times, actually remembered a talk I gave over a year ago.

The talk was nothing special (according to me), just the usual tech/marketing stuff about DNSSEC that I have been preaching about for a couple of years now. But still, someone heard it, learned something from it and could take advantage of knowledge that I gave.

That, my friends, is appreciation that hits the spot according to yours truly. My thought may be a tiny bit off but then again, its only I that can decide what keeps my wheels turning.

I have known for quite some time that I enjoy meeting people, having discussions, giving lectures and networking. What I have failed to understand is how much it gives back when you actually succeed in passing on something useful to your audience.

So, I think that its time for this lad to focus (even) a bit more on these parts of my professional life. Heck, I think I need a new pet project to feed this monster I just found.

Regards,

LG