ICANN, NASSCOM collaborate to develop technology, standards for IoT

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the global internet body and and Indian apex body for IT industry NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) announced collaboration for working in developing standards and identifier technology that will feed into the global consultation for managing Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and infrastructure using internet.

Key Highlights

Under the partnership, both ICANN & NASSCOM will 1st focus on updating Internet of Things (IoT) devices using domain name system (DNS) even in situation when manufacturer or supplier has closed down the business.

The collaboration will provide a structure for both bodies to jointly identify research projects, predominantly in new technologies related to internet’s system of unique identifiers. The research project undertaken will look at directing people who are looking to update their IoT to other manufacturers/vendor in case if original vendor has closed down his business.

First Project: 1st research project undertaken focuses on testing the use of DNS to update IoT firmware and studying how proposed technology could scale outside a lab environment.

Project Team: under collaboration includes ICANN technical experts, NASSCOM’s Centre of Excellence-IOT team, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad team and participants from Education and Research Network (ERNET) of India.

The teams have already begun research on DNS and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in context of Internet of Things (IoT) in 2018.

About ICANN

It is nonprofit global organization that is responsible for allocating IP addresses, managing domain name system (DNS) and also overlooks all internet plumbing on behalf of governments, universities and companies, as well as public.

It is often dubbed as phone book of internet as it matches domain names with appropriate IP address numbers.

Although this global multi-stakeholder organization was created by United States (US) government but since March 2016, ICANN is no longer overseen by US government and has roped in now into the hands of lesser known organisation that will have a number of countries on board.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2019