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NEWS RELEASE

"Next-Level Evolution: Homo Digitalis" – DENIC-Hosted 2018 Domain Pulse 
Conference Revolving around Digital Change between Freedom and Security

Slides and video footage of stimulating talks and debates of 2018 Domain 
Pulse in Munich soon online featuring, among others, futurologist Matthias
Horx, former Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar and ZITiS 
President Wilfried Karl

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Dear Sir or Madam, dear Member,

Can digitisation succeed if technical feasibility is the only yardstick it 
applies? What can the digital economy do to help minimising the risks that
go along with the next step in the evolution of the Internet – the Internet 
of Things? Does additional surveillance by the state actually bring about
additional security on the Internet as policy makers tend to promise?

The Domain Pulse conference, which was held in Munich on 22 and 23 February 
2018 under the heading of "Next-Level Evolution: Homo Digitalis", provided
interesting propositions, forecasts and answers to these and other highly 
topical issues. About 450 visitors followed the presentations and panel
discussions of international experts at the well-established industry 
gathering, which has become the most important annual event on topics,
evolutions and trends around Internet domain names in the German-speaking 
area. Organised annually in turns by the registries of the country code of
Austria (nic.at), of Switzerland and Liechtenstein (SWITCH) and of Germany 
(DENIC eG), this year's two-day conference was hosted by the .de manager,
DENIC.

Digitisation and Society: No Chance for Success without the Human Factor

In his keynote "Digital Enlightenment - Enlightened Digitisation: From 
Naivety to Humanity in the Digital World", the trend researcher and
futurologist Matthias Horx, who also founded the renowned think-tank 
institute zukunftsInstitut, dismantled the widespread digital dreams around
algorithms and artificial intelligence. Only those value-added models could 
be taken truly serious and considered viable for the future that were
based on the assumption that, in order to view and shape the future in a 
human context, digitisation must enter into a phase of civilisation or it had
to fail. "So far, the Internet has been a kind of Wild West. It's only now 
that a planetary civilization is emerging - and we're all the pioneers",
Horx concluded.

Is there a Means to Curb the Risks of the Internet of Things? Yes, the Domain 
Name System!

The special threats the so-called disruptive technologies of the Internet of 
Things (IoT) pose to the global society and the means the DNS industry as
the operator of the Internet's basic infrastructure may provide to help 
reducing these risks, were discussed with the audience by the independent
policy advisor, Maarten Botterman. He has been involved in IoT policy 
research for the European Commission for 15 years and chairs the Dynamic
Coalition of the Internet of Things within the framework of the United 
Nations' Internet Governance Forum (IGF). In a world where billions of new IoT
devices were going to be connected with the Internet each year, with 
estimates of 20 billion devices by 2020 being widely accepted, the DNS 
industry
should make it its aim to connect all these devices in a secure and 
intelligent way. They should consider solutions that would make the Internet 
more
reliable (and thus secure) a task of the entire society but also an 
opportunity for the DNS industry to grow.

Smart Driving: IoT Put to Morality Field Test

At the round table "Smart Mobility Put to the Test: Technology and Morality 
of Connected Driving", two experts explicated the possibilities and
technical benefits of the Internet of Things with regard to a future 
connected mobility, but also pointed out the related ethical challenges. Dr. 
Dirk
Wisselmann, Senior Engineer Automated Driving at BMW Group and Prof. Dr. Dr. 
Eric Hilgendorf, Member of the Ethics Committee on Automated and
Connected Driving of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital 
Infrastructure and Head of the Robotics Law Research Unit at the University of
Würzburg, Germany, jointly discussed man-machine interfaces with regard to 
the societal dimensions of responsibility. In Germany, so is the opinion of
Eric Hilgendorf, the measures required to keep these interfaces under control 
and to ensure transparency and data autonomy have already been
implemented: "The successful reform of the German Road Traffic Act in summer 
2017 and the work of the Ethics Commission have created a robust legal
framework for automated driving in Germany, which is also considered 
exemplary in other countries."

Added Surveillance – Added Security?

The debate on "Freedom versus Security – A Dilemma and no Way out?" saw two 
prominent representatives of the freedom and security antipoles. The
former Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, 
Peter Schaar, and Wilfried Karl, President of the higher federal agency
ZITiS (Central Office for Information Technology in the Security Sphere), 
discussed the topic from their controversial points of view. ZITIS was set
up in 2017 to support federal security authorities in digital forensics, 
telecommunications surveillance as well as in big data and cryptanalysis. The
discussion was preceded by an introduction of Peter Schaar. Based on the 
propositions of his latest book ("Deceptive Security. How the Fear of
Terrorism Drives us into a State of Emergency" (German only)), he 
demonstrated how the ongoing armament of the state designed to fight 
terrorism is
undermining democracy and the rule of law, without having a boosting effect 
on risk prevention. Karl said: "Unfortunately, modern digital technologies
are also abused to serve criminal aims. Thus, it is essential that security 
authorities stay connected with the latest technical developments.
Otherwise it will be difficult or in the future even become impossible for 
them to fulfill their protection mandate.This would definitely not be in
the interest of the German citizens." Schaar then retorted: "The assertion 
that surveillance leads to increased security is a bold lie. Sometimes,
just the opposite is true: back doors in the IT environment and the purchase 
of zero days endanger IT security and destroy the trust people have in
information technology."

id4me: A New Free, Open and Secure Universal Single Sign-On Solution

Single sign-on (SSO) solutions provide access to all online accounts of a 
user via a single defined set of credentials consisting of username and
password. However, existing solutions are often too complex for many 
applications or, as in the case of social media SSO solutions by Google or
Facebook, do not offer sustainable data autonomy. The new SSO solution id4me, 
which was developed in a cooperation of DENIC, 1 & 1 and Open-Xchange
and is going to be launched in the course of this year, aims to fill this 
gap: With domain names as identifiers, the open, free and secure approach to
user-specific authentication for Internet services builds on existing 
protocols and standards (OpenID Connect, DNS(SEC), DANE, ACME). By 
intelligently
combining them, it will allow the user to log in to a multitude of services 
with a single password and also to determine with whom they will share
which data and for how long. Next to explaining the roles involved in this 
federated solution (user, identity authority, i.e. DENIC, identity agent,
i.e. registrar and relying party, i.e. shop), DENIC's Head of R&D, Marcos 
Sanz Grossón, demonstrated the various steps of the authentication, data
provision and log-in processes in a live presentation at the id4me info booth.

The Challenge of Compliance: Setting the Course for the General Data 
Protection Regulation

The panel discussion that followed dealt with the impacts of the EU's digital 
roadmap 2020: The information security and data protection officers of
DENIC as well as the representatives of two international registrars reported 
on the challenges the domain industry has to face in relation with the
EU Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS), the 
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Regulation on ePrivacy. They
shared the experiences gained during the implementation process and gave tips 
to the congress attendants that might be helpful to achieve compliance
within their own companies.

Notice & Take Down: How to Deal with Illegal or Questionable Content on the 
Internet?

That the opinions in the different European countries sometimes vary widely 
when it comes to illegal content on the Internet became very clear in the
related controversial debate. The legal counsels of the operators of six 
national and regional Top Level Domains discussed to what extent domain
registries should take action in such cases, instead of leaving it 
exclusively to courts and regulatory authorities. DENIC's Legal Counsel, Peter
Horst, has a clear view of the German registry's position of the German 
registry in this respect: "DENIC is not the right point of contact to which to
turn when it comes to content. If DENIC were to evaluate content and delete, 
at its own discretion, domains through which websites with questionable
content can be accessed, this would be equivalent to censorship. In a 
democracy based on the separation of powers, no one can seriously support law
enforcement by the private sector. This philosophy of DENIC's is, by the way, 
also reflected by the unanimous opinion of the German courts."

Domain Pulse on the Internet

The full Domain Pulse program and all information about the protagonists 
involved can be found on https://www.domainpulse.de/en/programme. All slides
and video footage will be available for download in the course of next week.

The next Domain Pulse conference, organised by SWITCH, will be held on 18 and 
19 February 2018 in the Swiss capital Bern.


Kind regards

Stefanie Welters
Public Relations Officer
--
DENIC eG | Kaiserstraße 75 - 77 | 60329 Frankfurt am Main | GERMANY
E-Mail: presse AT denic.de | Fon: +49 69 27235-274 | Fax: -235
https://www.denic.de

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