An important part of the work of the .aero team is to help the industry explore and understand some of the innovative thinking that is a continuing feature of the Internet community.

For example, in October last year, .aero chaired a session at the US-based Air Transport Association's e-business forum to discuss DNSSec, the technology that adds significant security benefits to the domain name system (DNS). DNSSec is expected to become a vital Internet security infrastructure component, a cryptographic key management mechanism for a variety of security solutions, for instance, to reduce e-mail spam, and to deploy dynamic virtual private networks. At .aero's invitation, the meeting was addressed by Steve Crocker, chair of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee.

Community RFID

In December, the .aero team - jointly with innovation department from SITA - organized a workshop on RFID at the Airports Council International World Conference. It is becoming increasingly understood that RFID technology can bring substantial benefits to the air transport community - not only in the form of cost reductions, improvements in productivity, customer services and safety - but also as a means of generating new revenues.

The community challenge is how to forge a common approach that resolves the potential conflicts caused by complex technological environments, a multitude of competing (and sometimes redundant) solutions, an accelerating rate of technology change, and concerns of security and compliance.