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Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO)

Mission

The mission of the OCTO is to use its collective expertise to help improve knowledge about the identifiers ICANN helps coordinate; to disseminate this information to the Internet community; to improve the technical operation of the Internet's system of unique identifiers; and to improve ICANN's technological stature. To achieve that goal, the OCTO teams work with other departments at ICANN, particularly Global Stakeholder Engagement (GSE) and Government Engagement (GE).

Approach

  • Researching issues related to the Internet's system of unique identifiers (domain names, Internet Protocol addresses/Autonomous System numbers, protocol parameters, etc.)
  • Supporting the improvement of the Security, Stability, and Resiliency of those identifiers
  • Providing Internet technology resources to both ICANN and the Internet community
  • Capacity development, data, research, information, etc.

OCTO Documents

OCTO Publications

Commissioned Work

Collaborative Works

OCTO Technical Engagement

This technical team conducts and facilitates technical engagement and outreach globally. The goals are to coordinate, develop, and sustain ICANN's engagement with the technical community in line with ICANN's mission and its Strategic Plan. The team also works to ensure ICANN constituencies are continuously informed of relevant activities happening within the extended technical community. Much of the team's work is focused on optimizing the multiple ways ICANN contributes technical content to activities and events organized by external organizations and stakeholder groups that form the broader Domain Name System (DNS) environment. The team also leads and delivers capacity building and outreach activities that help and support secure, stable, and resilient DNS operations including Domain Name System Security Extensions adoption.

Visit the Technical Engagement Page to Learn More

OCTO Research and Analytics

The overall goal of Research and Analytics is to provide trusted and verifiable information to the Internet community regarding the Internet's system of unique identifiers. The OCTO research and analytics projects can be more fully explored at the OCTO-Research resource page.

  • Engage actively with DNS technology communities to identify issues that fall within ICANN's remit and will benefit from the focused attention our researchers can bring to bear on the issue
  • Facilitate or participate with these same communities in preparedness activities to protect against or mitigate threats to the DNS environment.
  • Perform studies or analyze data to better understand the health and well-being of the DNS environment.

OCTO Security, Stability, and Resiliency Research (OCTO-SSR)

In the realm of Internet infrastructure, ensuring SSR is essential. ICANN's SSR Team is dedicated to enhancing the security, stability, and resiliency of the global Internet's system of unique identifiers. Our mission is propelled by strategic initiatives, collaborative security enhancements, and pioneering research, aiming to benefit users across the globe. Through applied technical research and operational security measures, we focus on a broad spectrum of activities that embodies ICANN's commitment to safeguarding the Internet's foundational infrastructure and remains a reliable space for communication, commerce, and community.

Visit the Security, Stability, and Resiliency Research Page to Learn More

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."