Here are notes on a number of topics from the ICANN meetings held in Brussels on June 20-25, 2010:

• .XXX Domain Application Moves Forward - Following ICANN's 2007 rejection of ICM Registry's application for the .xxx TLD, and after an Independent Review Panel issued a finding against ICANN, the ICANN Board resolved to accept the panel's findings. This does not yet mean that the .xxx application is approved, because several steps still have to be carried out including the possibility of consultation with ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). It was clear that there was some discomfort, as indicated by these remarks from Director Harald Alvestrand:
  
  "To [say] that I am uncomfortable with this situation is an understatement. I believe that our process has been followed, our reconsideration process has been followed. We have received competent legal advice on what is the reasonable path forward for what the organization should do, and that effectively this forces me to say that it is in the best interest of the organization and the interest of the furtherance of the organization's goals to act as if something is true that I believe is not, in fact, so. This is a very uncomfortable situation, but I can see no better way to move forward."
  
  Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush thanked Alvestrand "for a very concise explanation of the position that I think many board members find themselves in". No one voted against the resolution, but two people, including CEO Rod Beckstrom, abstained.
• Five Chinese IDN ccTLDs Approved - The delegation of five new Chinese IDN ccTLDs was approved: two for China (中国 and 中國), one for Hong Kong (香港), and two for Taiwan (台灣 and 台湾). The audience greeted the approvals with a standing ovation.
• .ORG DNSSEC Deployed - ICANN and the Public Interest Registry (PIR) held a press conference to announce that .org is the first gTLD to offer full deployment of DNSSEC, the DNS Security Extensions. Also, during the DNSSEC workshop it was announced that the Internet Society's domain isoc.org was the first signed domain in .org. ISOC's Leslie Daigle reported that due to a transcription error there was an issue with validating the newly signed domain.
• IGF Workshop - A workshop on the Internet Governance Forum was held; a summary of the session has been posted on the ICANN blog. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote later this year on the continuation of the IGF.
• Panel on DNS Vulnerabilities and Risk Management - An expert panel was convened to discuss the Domain Name System and security. Moderated by ICANN's Rod Beckstrom (second from left in the photo), the panelists were: Whitfield Diffie, one of the fathers of public key encryption; Paul Mockapetris, father of the Domain Name System; Steve Crocker, Internet pioneer and chair of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee; and Dan Kaminsky, who two years ago famously unveiled an exploit of the DNS.

Timeline

• Thu, Jul 15: production signed root zone to be available
• Tue, Aug 3 - Mon, Aug 16: call for Member Nominees for CIRA Board election
• Thu, Aug 26 - Thu, Sep 9: shows of support for Member Nominees for CIRA election
• Tue, Sep 14 - Tue, Sep 21: online forum for CIRA Board of Directors election
• Tue, Sep 21: CIRA Annual General Meeting
• Wed, Sep 22 - Wed, Sep 29: CIRA Board of Directors election
• Sun, Dec 5 - Fri, Dec 10: ICANN meetings in Cartagena, Columbia