Security, modern technical solutions and pricing – three pillars of national domains

The work program of TLDCON 2017 conference opened with a session called Domain Abuse where security in the domain space was discussed. The first speaker, Alain Durand (ICANN), presented an ICANN project, which in many ways is similar to the Russian project Netoscope, except the ICANN project deals with security issues in every registry. Just like the Russian Netoscope, this project scans top level domains to find domain names that are used for phishing, spamming, spreading malware or using botnets. The next speaker, Shadowserver’s Benedict Addis, expanded on the topic of combating malicious domains, explaining ways of identifying and neutralizing them. He also noted the considerable contribution made by the Netoscope project to removing malicious websites from the domain space.

The leading expert at the Technical Center of Internet Dmitry Belyavsky spoke about using TLS to ensure that websites communicate through encrypted HTTPS protocol: “An SSL certificate is no longer a guarantee of website’s reliability. Hackers embrace new technologies just as quickly as any other user. Organizations that value their reputation should switch to EV certificates. Registries that promote EV certificates and tell users about them will also be able to make money off this,” Belyavsky said.

The Domain Abuse session also featured presentations by Maxim Alzoba (FAITID) and Pavel Gusev (Nic.KZ).

The session Technical Solutions for Domain Registries was moderated by Pavel Khramtsov (MSK-IX), who also gave the first presentation of the session. He spoke about technical characteristics of building DNS systems in the .RU domain zone, common problems and solutions, including the prevention of attacks. He also stated that resolving contradictions between the major principles of deploying DNS servers, such as political geography, request density distribution and network topology, is a great challenge for DNS providers. Khramtsov also noted that expanding DNS networks in order to reduce the workload and improve the quality of services leads to complications and an increased number of operating errors.

Alexander Scherbakov (ccTLD .RU/.РФ) spoke about the ways to reduce the workload of registration systems during re-registration of domains. According to him, during the domain name verification.RU and .РФ domains process such a large amount of requests that it can be compared to a small-scale attack and special measures should be taken in response. An increased demand for the status of a registrar from the registry’s partners can be seen as an indicator that this registry should focus on this matter.

Igor Lidin (TCI) spoke about the complications of integrating IDN domains in e-mail services and using letters of national alphabets in e-mail addresses. Widespread use of domain names in e-mail addresses still causes a lot of problems, such as the need to replace not only the server software itself, but also all the systems that are using or storing e-mails. In Runet (the Russian internet) e-mail addresses written in Russian are fully supported by Google only. This year, however, the number of mail servers supporting the EAI standard increased from 0.4 percent to 1.25 percent, which means that this service is slowly getting more popular.

The session also featured presentations by Vahan Hovsepyan (RIPE NCC) and Alexandra Kulikova (ICANN), who spoke about their international companies’ experience in introducing new protocols and services.
The final session of the first day of the conference was called Domain Marketing and Pricing. Sergei Gorbunov (RU-CENTER) and Fyodor Smirnov (Realtime Register) spoke about pricing from the point of view of registrars, which focus on their end users and the b2b segment, and about the main principles that should guide registrars when forming lists of premium domain names.

Irina Danelia (ccTLD .RU/.РФ) shared the results of the study on elasticity of demand for domain names in the .RU and .РФ domain zones. The results of this study were taken into account at the end of 2016, when the decision on increasing domain registration prices was being made.

Denis Sukhachyov (Hoster.KZ) spoke about the experience of working on the Kazakhstan domain market and the practice of raising domain registration prices in the .KZ domain. The session ended with presentations on pricing on the domain market by representatives of accredited registrars Andrei Savelyev (Домены.РФ) and Ilya Poyarkov (Atex).

Tomorrow TLDCON 2017 will continue its work. Keep watching our stream and reading our publications online!