The Frogans technology makes the publication of data on the Internet secure by Julie Laurent-Ledoux

What is the Frogans technology?

The Frogans technology, secure and simple, enables the publishing of Frogans sites. A Frogans site is a set of Frogans pages, hyperlinked to each other, available online on the Internet or in an intranet, at a Frogans address [1].

The Frogans technology is a new comprehensive and global publishing system that includes: Frogans addresses, their registration and resolution; Frogans sites, their format and hosting; as well as the browsing of Frogans sites thanks to the Frogans Player software.

The Frogans technology is developed by a non-profit organization

In 2012 the OP3FT (Organization for the Promotion, Protection and Progress of Frogans Technology) was founded in order to guarantee that the development of the Frogans Technology will always be conducted in a neutral, open and transparent manner and so that access to this technology will be available to all users of the Internet.

The OP3FT is a non-profit organization acting in the public interest. The OP3FT’s purpose is to hold, promote, protect and ensure the progress of the Frogans technology, in the form of an open standard for the Internet, available to all, free of charge [2].

Legally, the OP3FT is a French fonds de dotation (an endowment fund) and the entire Frogans technology is included in the OP3FT’s endowment. As the OP3FT’s endowment is non-expendable, Frogans technology can never be assigned or transferred to an economic actor.

Financially, the OP3FT is independent of all major economic players. Indeed, the revenue of the OP3FT’s endowment comes exclusively from royalties paid by the Operator responsible for the operation of Frogans addresses on the Internet by delegation from the OP3FT [3].

The four permanent objectives of the Frogans project

In an ever-evolving Internet, the OP3FT has set the course of the development of the Frogans project through the following four permanent objectives:

Balancing relations between Frogans site publishers and end users: The Frogans project aims to provide new ideas and solutions that respect end-user interests, including their privacy, while regularly presenting new additional and creative functionalities to Frogans site publishers

Assuring that the Frogans technology remains both secure and simple: The Frogans project aims to continuously innovate, while assuring that no decision, at any level, will undermine the essential characteristics of the Frogans technology: its security and its simplicity.

Elaborating specifications, implementations and policies as a coherent whole: The Frogans Project aims to ensure the stability of the Frogans technology for all its users throughout the world, by elaborating in a coherent manner its technical specifications, its reference implementations and its policies.

Fostering employment, innovation and economic development: The Frogans project aims that an ecosystem flourish on top of the Frogans technology, by providing all stakeholders, including entrepreneurs, with an open, stable and durable environment for developing and successfully managing their activities.

A clear legal framework for all stakeholders

In order to guarantee a clear and comprehensive legal framework for all stakeholders in the Frogans project, a series of policies is published by the OP3FT. These policies cover all stakeholders, including users of the technology as well as contributors to the development of the technology.

For example, the “Frogans Technology User Policy” [4] sets all the conditions of use of the Frogans technology. To facilitate the understanding of this policy, users are classified by category: end users, Frogans site publishers, graphic designers, developers, hosting service providers, etc.

For the management of contributions, the “Frogans Technology Development Contributor Policy” [5] has been published. By this policy, contributors grant to the OP3FT, free of charge and irrevocably, all and any rights relative to their contribution in order to preserve the conditions of use of the Frogans technology.

Other policies are elaborated by the OP3FT to complete the legal framework: “Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy for Frogans Addresses (UDRP-F)” (administered today by two arbitration centers, FORUM in the United-states and ADNDRC in Asia) [6]; the “OP3FT Trademark Usage Policy” [7]; and the “OP3FT Privacy Policy” [8].

These policies are published in the two official languages of the OP3FT (English and French).

A secure technical environment available to all

From the outset of the Frogans project, security concerns have been central to all technical decisions at all levels of the development of the Frogans technology. Unlike the Web, security concerns are dealt with upstream, so that solutions are built into the Frogans technology from its foundations.

For example, in terms of the overall technical operation, the security, stability and reliability of the Frogans layer is ensured at the root of the Internet by the use of the “.frogans” top-level domain (TLD) [9]. This TLD, which has been delegated to the OP3FT by ICANN [10], is operated with the technical assistance of Afnic [11].

In terms of method, the OP3FT elaborates the technical specifications of the Frogans technology and, in parallel, implements them in a complete manner, on various representative and independent computer systems. This avoids risks caused by interoperability problems frequently encountered on the Internet.

Many security measures are dealt with at the level of technical specifications. For example, in the FSDL (Frogans Slide Description Language) [12] which is used to create Frogans sites, it is not possible to embed malicious or intrusive scripts that would be executed on the user’s device.

Likewise, in the FNSL (Frogans Network System Language) [13] which is used to resolve Frogans addresses on the Internet, technical data is systematically digitally signed to ensure that it cannot be intercepted and modified. The signature mechanism is described in the UDSM (Uniform Digital Signature Mechanism) technical specification, elaborated by the OP3FT. Dealing with security problems at the level of Internet data transport protocols is simplified by the UCSR (Uniform Content Server Request) technical specification, also elaborated by the OP3FT.

Other technical specifications cover the security of Frogans addresses. For example, in addition to the IFAP (International Frogans Address Pattern) specification [14] defining the pattern of a Frogans address, the FACR (Frogans Address Composition Rules) specification [15] defines composition rules ensuring the security of Frogans addresses for more than 170 languages. These rules are applied when registering a Frogans address. They reduce the prevalence of phishing and typosquatting.

Frogans Player [16] free-of-charge software released by the OP3FT used to browse Frogans sites, is built on several fundamental design choices to ensure its security. For example, Frogans Player does not include any add-on module system. It embeds the software libraries and fonts required for execution and does not depend on any other software. The Frogans Player software strictly interprets the technical specifications of the Frogans technology, and in particular, rejects all data not complying with these specifications.

The initialization and update of the Frogans Player software are secured thanks to another technical specification, FPUL (Frogans Player Update Language) [17]. This specification notably organizes the secure transmission of digital certificates (UDSM, X.509, etc.) including those of recognized certification authorities.

In order to ensure the security of end users, the OP3FT’s prior approval and validation shall be required to develop any software enabling browsing on Frogans sites. This offers the same browsing experience and identical rendering of Frogans sites on various devices, and prevents the fragmentation of the Frogans technology.

In order to protect the privacy of end users, downloading and using the Frogans Player software takes place without any personal data relative to the end user being collected. Likewise, no information concerning end users, such as, for example, the type of device they are using or their geolocation information, is communicated to Frogans site publishers, or any other party, without their knowledge.

Rendezvous at the FIC 2016

A presentation of the Frogans technology, including a demonstration of Frogans sites, will be given at the FIC 2016 as part of a master class on January 26th 2016 by Julie Laurent-Ledoux, legal manager of the OP3FT and by Alexis Tamas, co-inventor of the Frogans technology.

References

[1] https://www.frogans.org/en/main.html

[2] https://www.op3ft.org/en/main.html

[3] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/fcrda/access.html

[4] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/ftup/access.html

[5] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/ftdcp/access.html

[6] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/udrpf/access.html

[7] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/otup/access.html

[8] https://www.frogans.org/en/resources/opp/access.html

[9] https://nic.frogans/en/main.html

[10] https://www.icann.org/

[11] https://www.afnic.fr/