After years of insisting they have it their way, and then not wanting to do it, and then wanting to do it but making it extremely difficult on themselves, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea has finally managed to impress upon ICANN and IANA that they are the government of record for the ISO-3166 code of "KP", and therefore, the only legitimate authority to speak as to the initial delegation of their TLD - dare we say, Intellectual Property?

And it has only taken them 37 months...

The Permanent Mission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the United Nations (There is no ambassadorial mission from North Korea to the United States) sent a letter signed by North Korea's UN Ambassador stating that the, “DPRK Computer Center is assigned as the national network center and authorised to manage “KP” state domain by the government of the DPRK.”

Okay, but is that it? ICANN received no further documentation or supporting documents as per their procedural standards, and basically round filed the letter into their archives.

There was nothing more on the matter until Jan Holtermann of the Korea Computer Center Europe (KCCE) in Berlin wrote a letter explaining that North Korea would like their delegation, and that his agency (KCCE) was going to act as the official representative for North Korea on this issue, “due to the difficult communication situation between North Korea and other countries.”

Okay so tell us something we don't already know ;)

I August of that same year, a request for delegation was received through the IANA ticketing system requesting the delegation, and IANA staff explained all of the details of each hoop, which ones would be lit with fire, and how the North Korean tigers would need to jump through them in order to achieve this delegation.

They received the template (anyone who has ever dealt with nic.sri.com, nic.ddn.mil, or the old Internet.net knows what this ASCII template looks like) that IANA had sent back to them, but never got the North Koreans to jump through any of the other circus hoops. Okay, so we're still having that, “...difficult communication situation between North Korea and other countries.”

Apparently the North Korean Government figured out that although ICANN is supposedly a California, Not for Profit 501(c)3 corporation, this facade that they aren't the US Government is irrelevant, and in December of 2006 IANA round filed their application request for delegation too.

So again, North Korea had to start all over, and this time they went back to ICANN, even sending a delegation of representatives from their KCC in North Korea (The parent organization to which KCCE in Germany is affiliated) to Marina Del Rey for a sit down with ICANN staff.

Once again the whole process was explained to them and they provided most of the requirements, although When IANA was tasked w/inspecting North Korea's Internet infrastructure... well, let's just say that even Elvis Presley would have a hard time securing a VISA to North Korea.

That's one for the Government of record for the ISO-3166 ccTLD, and 3 for ICANN - not bad considering that ICANN is used to getting it their way all of the time.

And now it's time for some ICANN double-babble-techy-talk:

IANA cites: "That the Internet’s naming system is “a public resource … administered in the public or common interest.” Okay that's fine so far. So they continue, by stating, "ICANN’s GAC recognizes that each government has the ultimate responsibility within its territory for its national public policy objectives," We're Still cool, right?

Wrong! Did you see that comma after 'objectives'? the rest of the sentance reads, "...however in the case of a redelegation, this may be tempered by ICANN’s responsibility to ensure the Internet DNS continues to provide an effective and interoperable global naming system.

um... What exactly is that supposed to mean? Well for one thing, ICANN is levying a veiled threat under the guise of stability, saying they require fealty BEFORE the delegation takes place, and not only that, but their citing "re-delegation" - .KP has NEVER BEEN DELEGATED!

Look, we know that they're worried about Constructive Abandonment, and ICANN acknowledges in their evaluation from afar that they got the North Koreans to submit to FCFS with regards to any SLD registrations too, but this isn't a redelegation - it's an initial delegation! There is no WHOIS database, no Registry, and no Zone Info for the .KP TLD, because it still doesn't exist at this point. 

Now ICANN puts its IANA hat on again and issues the following findings with regard to community sentiment:

"Due to the current lack of development of the Internet in the country, it is difficult to give a clear assessment of the community. In its investigations, IANA staff has determined that Internet development in the country is limited and IANA staff has been unable to conduct an independent review of the local Internet community support.

However, the KCC, as an arm of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and as a government agency, can reasonably be assumed to reliably represent the government’s interest in performing the delegation as requested.

Furthermore, the applicant has asserted it is appropriate that the Government is in the best position to distil the public interest given the limited deployment of Internet to date."

Finally, ICANN just gives up the battle and the .KP delegation report by IANA states:

"According to RFC 1591 and ICP-1, ICANN needs to respect the ability for a local Internet community, as well as local law and local government to make decisions concerning the operation of their country-code top-level domain.

Based upon our investigation, IANA staff believes that the applicant has met the basic criteria to support a delegation request. We find no reason not to recommend the introduction of the .KP domain into the DNS root zone.

IANA staff therefore concludes that the .KP domain should be delegated to the Korea Computer Center in accordance with their request."

DUH! Hello ICANN! ICANN needs to respect the ability for a local Internet community, as well as local law and local government to make decisions concerning the operation of their...??? What? -- 'nuff said on that one. That's 2 for North Korea and 3 for ICANN. It's still not a total victory for the public, but it's closer to a tie than anything we've seen before from ICANN.

You know, the North Koreans, by being so stubborn, may actually be more of a friend to the Internet Community than anyone could have imagined!

Well that brings us to the end of our little story, and the official and significant part of this saga is that North Korea said, "Hey we're the government for this ccTLD so give it now! And they won their bid for the ccTLD.

The official regsitry site for the .KP TLD is:  http://www.kcce.kp and the official WHOIS service is located at: whois.kcce.kp

The registry link forwards to a 'coming soon' page, and a visit to http://kcc-europe.de, where presumably the only Internet infrastructure for North Korea exists, and Tech Contact Jan Holtermann's Berlin office is located, seems to issue that standard pep rally cry we keep hearing about from North Korea - Mind you, this is pretty broken up from the tranlator service, but this particular news item on the site reads:

"World Wide Web for the regime
Berliner Zeitung, 22 November 2004. It only takes a few clicks - then slam the fanfare by the bright office on the fourth floor. Schmissig you would probably call this march, because if he would be Prussian. But he is Asian. "This is the Kim Il-Sung-march," says Jan Holtermann. "To play it because on every corner." Just one more click, then silence again in the PC."

Eh... Okay I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, exactly, but at least the North Koreans insisted on signing the contracts with ICANN at Burger King so they could have it their way.

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