<h1 class="title">African TLD registries yet to deploy DNSSEC</h1>
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<a href="http://www.computerworld.co.ke/articles/2011/02/02/african-tld-registries-yet-deploy-dnssec">http://www.computerworld.co.ke/articles/2011/02/02/african-tld-registries-yet-deploy-dnssec</a><br>By Rebecca Wanjiku, Computerworld Kenya<br>
2 Feb, 2011 </div>
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<div class="aggregation_item"><div class="aggregation_item_body"><p>Lack
of political willingness and weak management of country code top-level
domains has led to slow implementation of DNS Security Extensions in
Africa.</p>
<p>Africa was expected to extensively implement DNSSEC because it had no
legacy registry systems, the few operational registries were manual and
it was expected that DNSSEC would be implemented after the automation
process.</p>
<p>DNSSEC provides a set of new extensions to the DNS, protecting the
Internet from distributed denial of service attacks, DNS cache poisoning
and sabotage. DNSSEC uses digital signatures allowing the users to
determine whether the information has been altered in anyway.</p>
<p>DNSSEC implementation formally began in July last year, at a ceremony
known as "signing of the root zone." Root signing signaled the
beginning of IPv6, DNSSEC implementation and use of internationalized
domain names.</p>
<p>"Of the 67 TLD zones that are signed today, only two African
countries are listed (.NA and .SC); this is bad, but if we look at the
state of our DNS (ccTLD) landscape in the region the situation is not
that surprising -- there is still a lot to do to reinforce our ccTLD
infrastructure with a proper management," said Adiel Akplogan, CEO of
AfriNIC, the organization tasked with managing IP resources in the
region.</p>
<p>For DNSSEC to be implemented, countries argue that there must be
demand, which is created by a vibrant e-commerce industry and online
banking. This online vibrancy is missing in many African countries.</p>
<p>"For DNSSEC deployment to be successful, demand must be created. The
push for its implementation by end-users can only come if users are
aware of what DNSSEC has to offer as far as security and resilience of
internet is concerned," said Joe Kiragu, administrative manager at
KENIC, the .Ke registry.</p>
<p>The role of government in managing Internet resources has been
subject to debate with some countries questioning the role of the U.S.
government in Internet governance. So, many TLDs in the region have had
to consult with governments before implementing any changes to the ccTLD
registry.</p>
<p>"We have to appreciate potential political ramifications; we will
raise the matter with our government because the .ZA namespace is a
national resource over which our government bears some custodianship,"
added Vika.</p>
<p>The issue of training and raising awareness has been discussed
before, with some arguing that political will is needed more than the
training while others hold that the problem with the continent is lack
of skills and that is why policy making and appreciation of e-commerce
is yet to take root.</p></div></div> </div>
<div class="taxonomy"> in <ul class="links inline"><li class="first taxonomy_term_46"><a href="http://www.computerworld.co.ke/category/africa/middle-east" rel="tag" title="" class="taxonomy_term_46">Africa/Middle East</a></li>
<li class="last taxonomy_term_14"><a href="http://www.computerworld.co.ke/category/internet" rel="tag" title="Internet" class="taxonomy_term_14">Internet</a></li></ul></div>
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