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THE DOMAIN ADMIN. CONTACT - A CRIMINAL OFFENDER?
10th July, 2003
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has produced a Report on the request of the Cayman Islands Government for the redelegation of the .ky country code top level domain. The upshot of the Report is that the administration of the name is to be transferred from a private individual to a new government-sponsored body in the Cayman Islands. Thereby hangs a tale.
In the earlier days of the Internet, the assignment of country code domain names was carried out by the late Dr John Postel, often described as the 'father of the Internet'. Postel created the IANA as the body which would handle administrative functions associated with management of the domain name system's 'root'.
Briefly, the root is the part of the system that makes the top level domains, including country codes (ccTLDs) work. For a ccTLD to exist, it must be listed in the root database. When putting a domain into the root, IANA 'delegates' control of it to an authoritative person or organisation. Transfer of control is therefore called 'redelegation'.
This brings us to the Cayman Islands. In May 1995, the IANA Report provides, Postel delegated the .ky domain name to a Mr Mole, who was then a Cayman Islands government employee. Some months passed, and Mr Mole left the employment of the government. At this time, according to the Report, 'the government was not aware that Mr Mole was serving as the administrative contact for the .ky ccTLD'.
The Report adds that in 1996, after becoming aware of the situation, an abortive attempt was made by the government to pass control of the domain to Cable & Wireless, who have an exclusive telecoms deal with the Cayman Islands. Later, in 1998, Mr Mole did a deal himself, with a group called the Domain Name Trust. This covered management of the registration of domain names under .ky.
As a result, Mr Mole was under contract to the Domain Name Trust when the Cayman Islands government came to him in February 1999 and asked for a transfer of the administrative role. When the government refused Mr Mole's offer to hand over the domain in a way which would honour his contract with the Domain Name Trust, the stage was set for a legislative show-down.
More details at: http://www.demys.net/news/2003/07/10_criminal.htm
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