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Nordic Domain
Days 2026 Closing Day, Tuesday, May 26,
2026
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Nordic Domain Days 2026 continued
with its second full business day on Tuesday (May 26) with the closing day
devoted to Policy & Tech matters. NDD Founder LG Forsberg noted,
"the Policy and Tech segments were the deepest we have gone with
Verisign's Keith Drazek and Bertrand de la Chapelle f(rom
I&JPN) on the Internet Infrastructure Forum (IIF), Thomas Rickert on where DNS abuse policy is
heading and a full Tech afternoon hosted by Ulrich Wisser with seven sessions running from DNSSEC automation to dangling DNS threats."
Above: Closing day began at 9am with
an Intenet Infrastructure Forum Update from Keith and Bertrand (Bertrand
at right). The IIF is a cross-sector initiative bringing together DNS providers, hosting companies, ISPs and other infrastructure operators to improve coordination in
combating online abuse and strengthening trust in online services.
Above & below: Next at
930am, Henry Chan introduced the Trusted Notifier Network (TNN),
a neutral nonprofit that professionalizes the relationship between abuse reporters and internet intermediaries across DNS, hosting, and platform layers. This session
introduced TNN's VINA framework, its trust model, and current ecosystem engagement.
Above: At 10am Tuesday, Rowena Schoo
(NetBeacon Institute) surveyed The DNS Abuse Landscape: Attribution, patterns, and policy.
You may wonder who gets credit when a phishing domain disappears? Rowena
noted, "Measuring mitigation is harder than it looks: attribution is complex and the data is often incomplete."
This session presents the latest from NetBeacon's Measurement and Analytics Platform
(MAP), including new self-service tools for registrars and TLD operators. MAP data shows that malicious phishing and bulk registration campaigns are highly concentrated across the namespace, a finding with direct implications for ICANN's ongoing policy development processes.
At 10:30 it was time for the
morning Swedish Fika (above) with fresh coffee and dessert. Those breaks
also provided great opportunities for private discussions and making new
relationships.
Above: At 11am, Prudence Malinki
(MarkMonitor) took the stage to talk about DNS Abuse Mitigation: From A Corporate Registrar Perspective. Prudence
shared MarkMonitor's view of the reporting workflow, the registry and mitigation initiatives that have moved the needle (and those that haven't), and how ICANN's ongoing work and new legislation are reshaping what registrars are expected to do.
Above: Next up at 11:30, in one
of the sessions LG highlighted - Policy, Practice, and Progress: What's New in DNS Abuse and Cybersecurity Compliance
- presented by Thomas Rickert (eco). Thomas provided a
practical update on the latest policy and industry developments shaping
the DNS ecosystem. That included the launch of ICANN's DNS Abuse Mitigation PDP 1,
where the community has now moved from discussion into a formal policy
process on associated domain checks. He also takes stock of the still
uneven NIS2 implementation across the
European Union, against the backdrop of the original transposition
deadline in October 2024 and the Commission's January 2026 proposal for
targeted amendments to improve legal clarity.
After Thomas's session it was
off to a hearty noon lunch sponsored by Tucows (below).
Above & below: After the lunch
break attendees reassembled in the main hall to get a Hackathon Results
Recap from Kristian Ørmen (Internetstiftelsen). A DNS Hackathon
was held the previous weekend (May 23-24) at Internetstiftelsen's offices in
Stockholm. The event provided two free, in-person days for DNS enthusiasts, developers, and researchers to build tools, prototypes, and visualisations across DNS performance, privacy, security, and analytics. Kristian
walked the audience through what got built.
Above: At 1:30pm Tuesday, Peter
Thomassen (deSEC) outlined New Guidelines on DNSSEC Automation. A
new IETF Best Current Practice document provides operational guidance
for automating DNSSEC configuration at the registry/registrar level, in
particular DS provisioning, a critical step toward eliminating manual
intervention that has historically led to errors and service disruptions.
Above: NDD had some nice photo
backdrops where attendees could capture shots with friends and teammates.
This particular group deserved special highlighting - they are members of the
Nordic Domain Days Crew that made everyone feel so welcome and
everything run like clockwork at NDD from start to finish.
Above: Back in the main hall at
2pm, Barbara Jantzen (deSEC) explained how stories and emotions
shape the adoption of technical standards. Drawing from deSEC's two-year
project on DNSSEC maturity, Barbara addressed how narratives and emotions
have shaped DNSSEC deployment and provides new impulses for a
realistic perception of DNSSEC as it is today, with practical suggestions
for tackling narrative issues.
Above: At 2:30, Christian
Schöpp (nic.at) was in the spotlight with Insights into operating
an Anycast DNS service. The Domain Name System has to be extremely
robust and fail-safe. Christian explained the challenges his company faces
day by day operating an authoritative DNS service for themselves and
others.
Above: It's 3pm Tuesday - and that
means Swedish FIKA time again, a half hour break for more coffee casual
meetings. Some of the most important deals made at domain conferences happen
during these breaks, so there is often a lot more going on than meets the
eye!
Above & below: Back on stage
at 3:30pm DMarc Advisors Ivan Hadzhiev and Mohammed Zaman
(seen here) talked about Dead Links, Live Threats: The Hidden Risks of
Dangling DNS. What happens when a cloud resource dies, but its DNS
record lives on? This session dove into real-life examples of "Dangling
DNS" takeovers, showing how attackers move in when your customers move
out, with actionable cleanup strategies and automated solutions.
Above: From Certificate Chaos to
Crypto-Agility was the topic of this 4pm session presented by Richard
Hall (DigiCert) and Philip Batic (Excedo Networks, at right).
They addressed fragmented certificate management in a world of shrinking
lifecycles and approaching post-quantum cryptography and also covered
gaining full visibility over your certificate landscape, why manual
processes will not scale, and how to prepare your PKI for what comes next.d
solutions.
Above: In the final business
session of Nordic Domain Days 2026 at 430pm Tuesday (May 26), Billy
McDiarmid (Red Sift) warned about The Risk of the Messy Closet:
DNS Hygiene in the Age of Convergence. Every organization has a
messy closet. Mature or regulated, they all have one place where the mess
goes to die. For many of them, it is their DNS. The difference now? Auditors,
regulators, and attackers are opening the door, and not all of them have
your best interests in mind. For registrars and registries, this
convergence creates both an obligation and an opportunity: NIS2 Article
28 brings domain registration service providers in scope, and
enterprise customers will increasingly expect their domain partners to
help them meet these standards, not just sell them zone files. In this
session, Billy explored what the converging frameworks like NIS2, NIST,
and ENISA actually require, where today's domain management tooling falls
short, and what a DNS health service layer looks like in practice.
While Nordic Domain Days
ran on a single track, on Tuesday attendees could also participate in any or all
of four workshops that were held that day, including the one below,
an AI Tool Kit Master Class presented by GoDaddy's Alan Shiflett.
There was also a Crypto Agility Master Class presented by Richard
Hall (Digicert) and Philip Batic (Excedo Networks), as well as a pair of
Abuse Workshops,
Above & below: While the
business sessions were done, the final day was far from over. The Living
Room Bar promptly filled up starting at 5pm and the lively conversations
continued up the 7pm dinner (and resumed afterward)!
Above: One last meal together at NDD's
Farewell Dinner Tuesday evening (May 26) before guests started packing
up for the trip back to their far flung homes. Many traveled thousands of
miles to get there and will gladly do the same in 2027.
After it was all said and done, we
re-connected with NDD Founder Lars "LG" Forsberg (above)
for his thoughts about how the 2026 edition played out and what
he is already thinking about for 2027. Earlier in this article LG commented
about some of the outstanding programming but he was also just as
excited about what happened in the environment created around the business
sessions - including the tattoo parlor that so many have been talking
about.
"The tattoos!," LG
exclaimed. "35 of them were done this year, plus 20 piercings! Then
there was the Grand Social with live music on the main stage on Monday
night, the Swedish meatballs that you always eat too many of, the
karaoke, the conversations in the Living Room Bar that go until way-too-late
AM and somehow lead to the most important deals of the week. I have
always believed that the format is the product. Everyone under one
roof, eating together, socializing together, staying together. That is what
makes NDD different and it is the thing I will never change," LG
declared.
Regarding next year, he added,
"For 2027, we already have the dates locked: June 6 to 8,
back at the Clarion Stockholm. We are deep into planning and the question we
are asking ourselves is: how do we take this energy and keep building on
it? We want to expand the interactive formats that worked well this
year, the Domain Investment AI Master Class, the workshops, the segments
where the audience is part of the conversation rather than just watching
from the seats."
"We want to bring more
industry profiles in. This year we had more new faces than ever, and
the feedback from them was consistent: they felt welcome from the moment
they walked in. That matters enormously to me, because the domain
industry can sometimes feel like a closed club, and NDD should be the
antidote to that. If someone is reading this and has never been to NDD, here
is what I would tell them. Come once. That is all I ask. Come to Stockholm,
meet this community, experience what a domain event feels like when it is
built around people rather than around booths and sales pitches. I
have never had someone attend NDD and tell me they regretted it. And I have
had hundreds tell me it changed how they think about something that is
important to them. We are already looking forward to June 2027!
Editor's
Note: A "North Star"
is something (or someone) that is regarded as "a steadfast
guide, source of inspiration, or primary focal point
." After Nordic Domain Days 2026, that term seems like a perfect fit
for this event.
*****
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