Subject: My statement to the press about DNSSEC

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:01:36 -0400

Last night by video link I participated in a press conference that was
arranged by ICANN.  I was part of a panel; the rest of the people were
in Las Vegas at the BlackHat conference.  Each panel member gave a 3
minute statement, and then the panel responded to questions from the
reporters.  I thought it appropriate to share my opening statement with
the whole IETF community.

Russ

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RUSS HOUSLEY COMMENTS
DNSSEC NEWS CONFERENCE
28 July 2010

Thanks, Rod.

I'm sorry I can't be with you in person today. I am not there because I
am in the Netherlands at the 78th meeting of the Internet Engineering
Task Force. I'm here with almost 1200 of the leading Internet engineers
and researchers from around the world.

As Rod mentioned, I'm Chair of the IETF, which is a global community
with the mission of making the Internet work better. For nearly 35
years, using an open and transparent process, we have gathered thousands
of individuals from around the world to develop a wide range of
Internet-related protocols. That is, the technical specifications that
allow the various devices that comprise the Internet to "talk" with each
other using a "common language" to provide the services that everyone
has come to expect and enjoy from the Internet.

The Domain Name System, or DNS, is one of those protocols - one with
special significance.  It is used by billions of Internet users as they
send email, browse the Web, and use many other applications every day.

DNS can be thought of in three different ways: first, a set of
protocols, second, a service, and a finally, as a global infrastructure.
For the past 27 years, the work of the IETF community has defined the
protocols that make up the Domain Name System. This includes the
extensions that make up the DNS Security, or DNSSEC. DNSSEC is the
result of an incredible amount of careful work by IETF participants.
Work began over 17 years ago, with over 200 individuals contributing
along the way.

While the whole DNSSEC solution is difficult to explain succinctly,
DNSSEC can be thought of as a tamper-proof package for domain name
information.

I am extremely pleased to help celebrate the protocol specifications,
implementations, and the deployment of this core Internet
infrastructure. I applaud the huge amount of work done by many other
organizations -- including several represented here on the panel. Their
cooperative efforts made the DNSSEC deployment happen. The fact that
this significant event passed without disruption and went unnoticed by
most Internet users is testament to the cooperation and care taken by
all involved.

I know that the whole Internet engineering community is excited about
this significant achievement. In fact, at the meeting here in Maastricht
earlier today we took a short pause in the technical discussions to
toast the signing of the DNS root zone. I assure you this is not a
common occurrence at a meeting of engineers; it clearly shows of the
significance of this event.

So, thanks again for using the Internet to include me on this panel. I
am very pleased to convey the enthusiasm of the Internet Engineering
Task Force for the progress so far in the deployment of DNSSEC. We are
meeting right now to work on other protocols that will enable the
Internet to continue to grow and evolve and become more secure.

Thank you.