We’ve successfully launched the inaugural Asia Pacific (APAC) Domain Name System (DNS) Forum from 30 March to 1 April 2022.
As mentioned in my previous blog, the goals for this Forum were to bring stakeholders from the region together to exchange information, share views, and collaborate to address the upcoming challenges and opportunities for the DNS. I’m happy to report that we’ve met all of these goals. I would also like to share the way forward for the APAC DNS Forum.
More than 1,000 individuals from 84 economies registered for the event. The keynote session, “Future of the DNS,” engaged more than 400 participants via Zoom and YouTube. If you missed the action, or would like to review any of the sessions, they remain available and can be accessed via apacdnsforum.my. Highlight videos are also available on YouTube (search for “MYNIC” and “APAC DNS Forum“).
Reflecting on the many sessions and discussions at the Forum, I am heartened that we have a vibrant and diverse community with a common purpose: to keep the Internet working. The DNS is central to this. Or as Ram Mohan, Chief Strategy Officer of Donuts Inc, put it during our keynote session, “The DNS is perhaps the most potent connector the world has invented… continuing to allow the dissemination of information in a data agnostic and apolitical way.”
Another common thread that ran through the Forum is our community’s clear desire for the DNS to be, in the words of Asia Pacific Network Information Centre’s Chief Scientist Geoff Huston, “bigger, faster, and better.” In his presentation at the APAC DNS Forum, Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission Chairman Dr. Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek, pointed out that with the rollout of 5G, DNS services will need to be faster and better to keep pace with the expected high speeds.
But its sheer size and scale as well as its decentralized nature makes future proofing the DNS challenging. For example, efforts to ‘upgrade’ the DNS with the adoption of DNS Security Extensions are progressing slowly. This could impact the trust people have in the DNS. There are various discussions and efforts to innovate within the DNS space, as was discussed in the “Exploring Emerging Technologies” session, but their potential impact remains uncertain.
And this is exactly where the APAC DNS Forum has a key role to play – to bring the many efforts of our community together and explore how we can collaborate to scale them. On the topic of DNS abuse for example, DotAsia and TWNIC registries are partnering to establish a Trusted Notifier mechanism to combat DNS abuse. Members of the community can either join this partnership mechanism or establish their own. In another session on “Globalizing Efforts to Mitigate DNS Abuse,” we not only learned about the efforts to tackle DNS abuse in China, India, and Japan, but also discovered common threads that point us to potential areas of collaboration on this critical issue.
Going forward, we plan to establish the APAC DNS Forum not just as an annual event, but turn it into a “platform” that fosters community dialogue. For example, the Forum could host regular webinars to discuss current issues. Through sustained dialogue, we can do our part to contribute to the DNS’ evolution. I’d like to thank our partner MYNIC for sharing my vision in establishing the Forum, and look forward to more partners joining us to make it a sustainable platform for the community.