ITWire

Chris Disspain, today told iTWire that if the proposed changes were introduced, and at this stage there is no guarantee of that happening, auDA itself would pay for the testing  to determine whether registrars’ security systems were up to scratch. However he acknowledged that those which were found wanting would be expected to foot the bill for improving their systems.

Mr Disspain said that responses to the auDA issues paper canvassing the upgrade to the security framework were now being reviewed, and recommendations from that review would be complete by the end of the year, ready to be discussed at a board meeting in February. If the proposal were accepted the new security framework would come into force in about a year’s time.

“We are not suggesting that registrars are necessarily insecure,” said Mr Disspain although he acknowledged auDA would like to beef up its security framework.

He said that auDA’s primary role was to run the .au servers, and to ensure that access was “secure, safe and 100 per cent available.” Its secondary role was to set policy regarding the allocation of .au domain names he said.

If auDA’s security proposals do come to fruition it will represent a world first he said, and the Australian initiative is garnering a lot of interest from other nations keen to see how such a regime might operate.

Security is going to be one of the focus areas for the first Australian Internet Governance Forum which is scheduled to run for two days in Canberra in October.  Modeled on the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) - a “gabfest” for internet aficionados according to Mr Disspain - the focus for the Australian event would be on issues including “access, diversity, security, privacy and critical internet resources.”

The first day will offer a range of plenary sessions, to be followed by workshops on the second day.