Danish registry launches successful clone of Internet.nl

Denmark's new portal is based on the open-source code for Internet.nl. However, while Internet.nl appeals mainly to the technical community, the Danes have designed their front-end for a wider audience. As well as providing help texts with all items, the site offers solutions and provides information and contact links. Having a Danish-language portal was additionally seen as an important statement of national identity.

DK Hostmaster has also linked up with partner organisations to promote the new portal with a big campaign. As a result, the portal has been used to carry out more than 100,000 tests in the three months from November to January. That compares with 660,000 tests performed on Internet.nl last year.

Open-source software

Although Internet.nl has been operating since 2015, it was several years before its source code was made freely available. As Gerben Klein Baltink, Chair of the Platform for Internet Standards explains, "With a view to maximising our audience, we had an English-language version of the portal from the start. NLnet Labs, who developed the software, were keen to open-source it. But we were hesitant, because we were concerned that the software might be used for DDoS attacks or that malicious actors might identify and exploit vulnerabilities in our portal." Ultimately, the deciding factor was that the individual tests available on Internet.nl are not unique; each is available separately elsewhere. In addition, expressions of interest in reusing the code were received from Portugal, the UK, Germany and other countries. That led to multiple daughter projects based on Internet.nl's source code. "First, a Polish-language trial version was created in 2017," recalls Klein Baltink. "It was built in collaboration with Polish researchers, and for a year it worked well. However, the site's footfall was modest and we ended up taking on responsibility for maintenance of the Polish-language content. Teams in Luxemburg and Portugal were also inspired by Internet.nl and reused parts of the code to create similar portals, such as webcheck.pt. Then the African internet community sought help replicating Internet.nl for a local audience. Discussions about an African version are currently ongoing with the relevant Dutch government ministries."

Few outside contributions

According to Klein Baltink, providing help to groups looking to clone Internet.nl isn't a problem. On the other hand, his organisation simply doesn't have the budget to operate and maintain clones on an ongoing basis. The biggest cost items for the platform are the website, software maintenance and extension, and the help desk. Although the software is available in open-source form, Klein Baltink says that very few substantive contributions to the code have been made by outsiders. "We did receive a privacy feature extension, but otherwise all we've had is suggestions." The Internet Society (ISOC) features Internet.nl in its presentations. And ISOC's Online Content Director Dan York uses it in his training courses. The resulting questions are similar enough to the Dutch questions for them to be added to the knowledgebase for the benefit of the wider user community. "By 2019, Internet.nl had become too big for NLnet Labs to continue hosting it," says Klein Baltink. "So the server was relocated to Prolocation in Delft. The Danish team have their portal hosted there too. And, since the start of this year, John Sinteur of Radically Open Security has been employed as a programmer to continue developing the software."

New developments

In the last year, Internet.nl has introduced a dashboard where you can generate reports tracking developments over time, plus a Hall of Fame for hosting service providers, which now has twenty-five members. One of the new features currently under development is an extension to the mail test, which involves two-way messaging to enable more extensive testing. Consideration is also being given to adding RPKI, a cryptographic security standard for the BGP routing protocol, to the list of internet standards that are tested for. Finally, Internet.nl is working with SIDN and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on a system for measuring the adoption of various standards in different sectors of the economy. The aim being to collect data that could be used to design targeted campaigns.

Attention, discussion and adoption

"Within the Platform community, we were looking for a low-threshold way of focusing attention on the adoption of modern internet standards and promoting discussion. We wanted to reach executives, technical people and vendors. Internet.nl has proved to be an outstanding vehicle for realising those goals," says Marco Davids, Research Engineer at SIDN Labs, who has been involved with Internet.nl from the very start. "Achieving a 100 per cent score in the test is by no means easy. You really have to earn it. The straightforward test set-up has prompted a lot of discussion from the word 'go'. We welcome that, because it means Internet.nl is demonstrably contributing to adoption of the tested standards." "It's been very rewarding to see the approach we developed become established and start bearing fruit. And, of course, it's great to see the initiative being replicated in other countries."