The view looking up from the lobby at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis

OARC 40 Workshop Report

Thursday, February 16th & Friday, February 17th 2023

Attendees checked in: 143 (38 First Time attendees)

DNS-OARC held a two-day hybrid workshop this February in Atlanta following NANOG 87 . It featured presentations and networking opportunities to discuss the latest trends, issues and challenges in DNS operations and analysis. It provided a valuable platform for participants to exchange ideas, share best practices, and collaborate on ways to improve the security, stability, and resiliency of DNS.

We were happy to see an increase in our attendance with both virtual and remote attendees around the world during our last two workshops. We had a total of 143 attendees at OARC 40 and 108 at OARC 39, putting us much closer to pre-COVID attendance numbers but also showing that we are getting approximately 50% remote attendance rather than in-person.

Distribution of registrations by attendance type for OARC 40

Distribution of registrations by continent for the last two workshops

OARC 40 was supported by our Annual Workshop Patron, Verisign.

DAY 1

Images courtesy of Shumon Huque

Day 1 was a jam-packed day which was opened by OARC President, Keith Mitchell.

The OARC 40 mascot, Katniss Owldeen and her companion Oli Phaunt, the Mastodns mascot

The mascot for OARC 40, named, Katniss Owldeen, sat diligently at the podium and observed the proceedings over the course of the day. Oli Phaunt, her companion, was busy at the registration desk.

The first public session then started with a presentation on Learnings from Deploying Cache Poisoning Protection, followed by Research Agenda for a Post-Quantum DNSSEC, before we all took a short coffee break.

The morning session continued with Operational Experience with DNSSEC signed zones and DNSCrypt Protocol: Current State and Planned Extensions, followed by lunch.

Image courtesy of Shumon Huque

The sessions continued after lunch, with talks and audience participation on DareShark: Detecting and Measuring Security Risks of Hosting-Based Dangling Domains, How Orb Powers NS1’s DNS Insights … and Can Power Your Analytics Too, How Ready is the global DNS for IPv6?, and EduDig — Making DNS Education a little bit easier.

Over the course of both days — during the coffee breaks and lunch, DNS-OARC Membership Coordinator, Steve Sullivan demonstrated the OARC Portal to those who were interested in learning how to better utilize the tool.

The day ended with the OARC 40 Social Event at the Metro Diner and Bar Atlanta . This was a fantastic evening that was enjoyed by delegates and OARC staff, with drinks, snacks and and a DJ with karaoke entertainment over a period of 2.5 hours.

In a series of unfortunate events, the staff entertained all with karaoke. Photos courtesy of Mauricio Vergara Ereche and Pallavi Aras

DAY 2

Oli Phaunt, the Mastodns Mascot

The morning of Day 2 kicked off the remote presentations including: Guaranteeing the integrity of DNS records using PKIX Certificates, Aggressive cache (RFC8198) effectiveness, the NSEC3 case, Expectation vs Reality — The Impact of DNSSEC Validation on Recursive Resolver Operations, Measuring TTL Violation of DNS Resolvers at scale, Public Annotations of DNS RFCs, and Drink, an experimental dynamic authoritative server.

Photos courtesy of Shumon Huque

The post lunch sessions were a mix of presentations and Lightning Talks and closing statements. The longer presentations were: Realtime DNS Exfiltration Detection in Recursive Resolvers and Detecting latency spikes in DNS server implementation(s).

There were 4 Lighting Talks — RSSAC028 Implementation study, Reducing default DS TTLs, DNSCrypt, and A Quick Look at DNS Centrality.

Lightning Talk Sessions. Photos courtesy of Shumon Huque

The day ended with the announcement of the raffle winner, David Lawrence, from the list of those who participated in the Portal Crash Course.

David Lawrence receives Katniss Owldeen after winning the raffle giveaway

Keith Mitchell announced that OARC is now running a Mastodon instance to provide federated social media for the DNS Community. The instance is now open for OARC Members and will be open to the wider community in the very near future.

Overall, the OARC 40 workshop was a great success, bringing together a diverse range of DNS professionals and experts to discuss the latest developments and challenges in the field. With DNS playing an increasingly critical role in our digital lives, events like OARC 40 are essential to ensuring the Internet's continued growth and success. We look forward to seeing everyone at OARC 41 this fall.

FUTURE WORKSHOPS

• DNS-OARC, Netnod and RIPE NCC DNS Themed Hackathon: Rotterdam, 20–21 May 2023
• OARC 41 co-located with ICANN DNS Symposium: Vietnam (TBC), First week of September 2023
• OARC 42: Charlotte, NC, USA ; Early Feb 2024

Various Photos from OARC 40

Women of OARC Luncheon. Photos Courtesy of Pallavi Aras

The OARC Board and Team enjoying dinner, Wednesday evening, to get into the OARC 40 spirit. Photo courtesy of Shumon Huque

The OARC Programme Committee and some staff enjoying dinner after the OARC 40 Social Event

Behind the scenes of OARC 40 production. Photos courtesy of Shumon Huque