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Root Server System Advisory Committee

The Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) advises the ICANN Board and community on matters relating to the operation, administration, security, and integrity of the Root Server System, as outlined in the ICANN Bylaws.

The RSSAC consists of representatives from the organizations responsible for operating global root service.

Root Server Operator Representative Alternate Term Expires
Cogent Paul Vixie Brad Belanger 31 December 2023
Defense Information Systems Agency John Augenstein N/A 31 December 2025
ICANN Matt Larson Terry Manderson 31 December 2024
Internet Systems Consortium Jeff Osborn (Chair) Robert Carolina 31 December 2024
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – Ames Research Center Barbara Schleckser Tom Miglin 31 December 2025
Netnod Lars-Johan Liman Patrik Fältström 31 December 2024
Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) Network Coordination Centre Hans Petter Holen Paul de Weerd 31 December 2023
University of Maryland Karl Reuss Gerry Sneeringer 31 December 2025
University of Southern California – Information Sciences Institute Wes Hardaker Suzanne Woolf 31 December 2023
US Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory Howard Kash Kenneth Renard (Vice Chair) 31 December 2025
Verisign, Inc. Brad Verd N/A 31 December 2024
Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) Project Jun Murai Hiro Hotta 31 December 2023

On 18 July 2013, the ICANN Board approved the initial membership and leadership of the RSSAC, with new representatives also appointed on 26 June 2014.

Past Leaders

  • Jun Murai, Chair | January 1999-December 2014
  • Matt Larson, Vice Chair | August 2006-July 2013
  • Lars-Johan Liman, Co-Chair | July 2013-December 2015
  • Tripti Sinha, Co-Chair | January 2015-October 2018

  • Brad Verd, Co-Chair | January 2016-October 2019

    Vice Chair | October 2019-December 2021

  • Fred Baker, Co-Chair | October 2018-October 2019

    Chair | October 2019-December 2022

Liaisons

The RSSAC also consists of representatives from the organizations responsible for the management of the Root Zone and other partners in the Internet community.

Liaison from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) James Mitchell
Liaison Root Zone Maintainer (Verisign, Inc.) Duane Wessels
Liaison from the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) Daniel Migault
Liaison from the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) Russ Mundy

The RSSAC appoints liaisons to other groups to report on matters that need to be coordinated or communicated between them per the RSSAC Operational Procedures.

Liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors Wes Hardaker
Liaison to the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) Ken Renard
Liaison to the Root Zone Evolution Review Committee (RZERC) Daniel Migault
Liaison to ICANN Nominating Committee Hiro Hotta

Other Appointments

Upon request, the RSSAC also appoints representatives to specific review teams and other ICANN community groups or efforts.

Representative to the ICANN Fellowship Selection Committee Amir Qayyum
Representative to the ICANN Fellowship Mentoring Committee Afifa Abbas
Representative to the NextGen@ICANN Selection Committee Abdulkarim Oloyede
Representative to the NextGen@ICANN Mentoring Committee Ali Hussain
Representative to the Work Stream 2 – Community Coordination Group Robert Carolina

Meetings

The RSSAC holds periodic teleconferences and meets at ICANN and IETF meetings. Minutes from meetings and teleconferences (where available) can be viewed here. To observe an RSSAC teleconference or a work session, please contact rssac-staff@icann.org for remote participation information.

Caucus

The RSSAC Caucus is comprised of DNS experts who have an interest in the Root Server System, broadening the base of diverse, technical expertise available for RSSAC work. The primary role of the RSSAC Caucus is to perform research and produce publications on topics relevant to the mission of the RSSAC. More information about the Caucus can be viewed here.

Publications

The RSSAC may publish advisories, correspondence, reports, and statements within its mandate as well as documents related to its own administration and work. More information about RSSAC publications can be viewed here.

Frequently Asked Questions

The RSSAC maintains a list of Frequently Asked Questions that can be found in English here.

中文 [PDF] Français [PDF] Español [PDF] Русский [PDF] العربية [PDF]

Workplan

The RSSAC maintains an annual workplan that can be found here.

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Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."