History of the .int Top Level
Domain
ITU-T Workshop to Develop a Recommendation to
Clarify the Management of ".int“
(.int Document 005)
Geneva, Switzerland 9-11 September 2003
Robert Shaw
<robert.shaw@itu.int>
ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor
International
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Napoleon: “History is the version
of past events that people have
decided to agree upon.”
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The story of .int starts with .nato
• According to Paul V. Mockapetris (PVM), inventor of
the Internet Domain Name System (DNS)
• In early days (date?), the Network Information Center
(NIC) received a request from Mark Pullen of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) to create the .nato Top Level Domain
• As the NIC was either partially or fully funded by
DARPA at that time, this was promptly done…
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Early days of .int
• PVM joins ARPA and suggests to NATO
representatives that nato.int is better choice
and they agree
• .int is created and nato.int is created…
• PVM as proposer of .int ends up managing it
• March 1994: RFC 1591 - Domain Name
System Structure and Delegation refers to
“PVM” as managing “.int”
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Early days of .int
• Mockapetris continues to manage the domain after
leaving ARPA and returning to USC Information
Sciences Institute (ISI), home of ‘IANA’ (aka Jon
Postel)
• In 1995: Mockapetris during visit to Geneva for global
standards conferences approaches ITU to take over
management of the .int domain
• PVM: “I tried to get the ITU to take it over, my logic
being that they should become a stakeholder in the
DNS”
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November 1996
• “Currently, registration in .int is done by IANA,
and the plan is for ITU to take over
management when a mutually acceptable
policy is worked out.”
• Jon Postel
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.int Registrations
• Intended for intergovernmental treaty
organizations
• At some point, .int starts getting used also for
“Internet infrastructure uses” by IANA (e.g.
tpc.int, e164.int)
– This later complicates things greatly…
• Some very unusual delegations made (e.g.,
ymca.int, nd palestine.int)
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Draft .int policy
• Discussions with Jon Postel, Brian Carpenter
and Scott Bradner and draft policy document I
prepare is agreed to by Internet Archiecture
Board (IAB) in early 1996
• Policy document refers Internet infrastructure
uses to IAB review
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Transfer About to Happen…
• May 1998: ITU and IANA work out procedure
for transfer of the .int TLD to ITU
• IANA - May 1998: “This procedure seems fine
to us. One note is that the .INT domain has
no working Whois service. I am currently
constructing the database, but the former
records are horrid. This should be finished
within the next 2 weeks. Other than that, it
looks fine to us. Thanks. Josh and –jon”
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Transfer About to Happen…
• Fall 1998: ICANN created and Jon Postel
(IANA) dies…
• April 1999: www.nic.int set up by ITU and
IANA
• June 22, 1999: ITU Council endorses
management of .int by ITU
• September 1999: ITU presents policy
documents to United Nations Information
System Coordination Committee in NYC and
gets endorsement
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Post ICANN history
• .int gets tied up in messy politics of ICANN &
US Department of Commerce & ISI transfer
of IANA function to ICANN
• ISI staff and IAB Chair attempt to arrange
transfer of .int to ITU…
• Endless emails involving NTIA, ISI, IAB and
ICANN and finally seem to get green lights
but….
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Post ICANN history
December 1999 email to Louis Touton, General Counsel, ICANN
“Dear Louis,
Speaking with Karen Rose at NTIA she said that I should speak
with you on how we make the contractual arrangements
between ICANN and ITU for management of .int. I don't know
whether you're familar with the policy docs for .int or the history
but we need to discuss how to best move forward on this as it's
been dragged out for a long time…”
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Post ICANN history
January 2000 email to Mike Roberts, CEO, ICANN
and Karen Rose, NTIA
“Mike, Karen,
I've left messages with Louis Touton and sent him
email on moving forward on discussions on making
the .int transfer to ITU happen but have not got any
response.”
Many emails later….
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Post ICANN history
• Mike Roberts, CEO of ICANN
– Transfer to ITU is on our “to-do” list
– Transfer to ITU is “queued”
– ICANN Staff Member: “Internet Community not ready” ???
• 2001 and later:
– ICANN removes ITU as secondary for .int and replaces it
with ICANN
– ITU writes to ICANN, requests that ITU related DNS
resource records be not changed without discussion with
ITU
– ICANN removes nic.int delegation from ITU…
– ICANN removes references to planned transfer to ITU on .int
registration pages
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ITU Plenipot Resolution
• Fall 2002: ITU Plentipotentiary Conference
Resolution 102 adopted by ITU Member
States in instruction to Director of the the
Telecommunication Standardization Bureau
calls for development of Recommendation to
clarify the management of .int
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Conclusion: The Way Forward
• Let’s forget the historical record and use
this workshop as a step to demonstrate
positive cooperative measures…
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Thank you
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Helping the world communicate
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