PKNIC .PK root server (and office) finally moves to Lahore
This is a 20 year old picture of Ashar Nisar. About the only one on the Internet you can actually find. Talk about being reclusive...
PKNIC controls domain registrations for all .pk domains. You would expect it to be owned by the Government, or at least by a Pakistani company based in Pakistan. Not so. It’s actually managed and owned by a US-based company run by Ashar Nisar, a Pakistani- American. Up until very recently, there were no .PK root servers inside Pakistan, much to the angst of the PTA, local ISPs and the Ministries of S&T, and IT. The potential problems that could result from this dependence on a non-local root server were not just limited to the inconvenience and slow registration, which anyone who has registered a .pk domain can attest to. More seriously, in the event of an authority or ISP outside Pakistan deciding that they wanted to cause mayhem, all .pk sites could potentially cease to resolve bringing .pk hosts – and a big part of the internet in Pakistan - to a grinding halt.
DAWN now reports that the Government, working through the PTA, has somehow managed to convince the reclusive owner of PKNIC to open an office in Lahore and deploy a mirrored root server (m-2.pknic.net.pk) in what once used to be his hometown. DAWN’s source confirms:
The root server mirroring for .pk domain was fully operational in Pakistan, the sources said, adding that the server was successfully implemented and had been tested with all global root servers.
The PTA also claims to have had a long association with the transition project and says it had been working for successful transition of .pk domain to Pakistan.
By the way, for those who remember the early, early days of the internet in Pakistan, you may be familiar with ImranNET. This was a UUCP based email service started by two brothers, Imran and Usman Anwar, back in the early 90s. The third partner in the project who is usually less remembered, was Ashar Nisar – the owner of PKNIC. Apparently, not everything worked out between the three and they parted ways, but Ashar kept his exclusive ownership of the .PK TLD through PKNIC and continues to do so, two decades later. Something to be said for being a the right place at the right time!
You can read the original DAWN article here.
Tech
Given the amount of money involved, this became a political struggle between Ashar and a number of members of the local technology community. At stake was not a concern about the integrity or continuity of root servers in Pakistan but how big a slice of the root server pie could one get based on the amount of noise one makes and their political connections.
I have met Ashar a number of times in Lahore. I am not a friend or a colleague or peer. We both knew some one in common who introduced us about two years ago. Then we met as part of a team that was trying to understand the PKNIC issue with a group of technology entrepreneurs early last year.
Ashar just has less hair now and for the last few years had been primarily based in Lahore. I have heard both sides of the story and I am not sure if it is as clear cut or clean as Dawn and other media partners would have us believe. So far coverage has been typically one sided (technically speaking the two pieces have covered both side, since each piece seems to be paid by for the other side and carries a singular point of view).
Just my two cents.
Desi,
1) Ashar is a ‘good guy’ – no arguments there
2) Obviously, the pressure on him to mirror was economically motivated, but it probably isn’t the wrong thing to do
3) Once again, the ’security’ aspect of what DAWN says may be part of a convenient cover story, but it is technically valid.
In a nutshell, it’s probably a good thing that the mirroring happened. Having said that, Ashar and PKNIC have enjoyed the ‘first mover advantage’ for about 20 years. Not a bad run by any means!
Huh, very interesting! Thanks for the information!
Everything is fare, but PK Nik or Mr. Ashar Nisar not caring proper on reseller system, or payment transferring option, He is an USA based Pakistani, during in USA stay, he has to work sharp about these issues, this is G-3 period, but in Pakistan, Ashar Nisar treating the old customs.
He has to think that in this online electronic system, the whole banks has been online, he should give us( Pakistani’s) complete the easiest way for whole process, but it seems that this is away yet.