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Maybe they were attacking root servers but those server failing couldn't cause all the DNS records to get lost. Some people might have had temporary problems, some might have not.

If you really want to, build your own root server

Then, ICANN can tell the root servers to stop accepting updates from them.

And do you think ICANN would be so stupid to do that? I hope they do so we can finally get rid of ICANN once and for all.

All country code TLDs should be under the control of the specific country identified. That seems to be the case with many, and maybe most. I think that the government of South Africa has the right to designate who (be it a government department, a corporation, or even an individual) runs the zone, and even specify the policies under which it operates. The fact that some governments already do have that control just makes the case all that much stronger.

I run a DNS server and I can do anything I want with it. I can add domain names to it that someone else owns, nothing is stopping me. However, only people that use that DNS server will see my mapping. Everyone else will see the correct mapping.

What makes you say that any one name space is the correct one? How do you define correct? Is it correct if it's what you think is right? Is it correct just because ICANN runs it?

If I wanted, I could even setup a root with my own TLDs.

Been there, done that.

My real point is, however, that if it comes down to two different sources of .za TLD zone data, people will demand to use the officially government sanctioned source, as opposed to the one that the current operator runs. If ICANN fails to use the government one, I predict it will be the final stake through the heart of an organization that should have been terminated years ago.

And yes, I will put the South African government sanctioned .za zone delegation in my root zone as soon as they set one up.

How would they be able to not allow it? All you have to do is set up your own DNS server (if you don't already have one), change the data starting at the "dot zone", and make it use whatever data you want. You can make .com point to Internic or change it to point somewhere else. You will have that level of control with every top level domain when you run your own "dot zone". And it's your server.

A couple years ago I made this tool to help build a "dot zone". I could bring it back and keep it updated, or someone else can just take the code and do it for themselves (free source code). All that's needed is the willingness to just do it.

You can also do this with DNS servers (for instance an ISP can do it for their customers, and even have mutiple choices of DNS servers set up differently) and choose what info you get per top level domain. A couple years ago I set up a tool to help those making their own "dot zone" to fill it in with their own choices. You can see that tool here.

You can also just run your own DNS server with whatever TLDs you want, and point them to whichever zone authority you want. Point .COM at the Internic servers to keep it the same, or point it somewhere else to make it be different. You can make the decision different for each TLD, leave some out, or add more (maybe lots more). You don't have to set up world-wide DNS to do this as it can be done in whatever DNS server(s) you now use for resolving names now. The load doesn't increase by doing this; in fact it decreases slightly because one level of lookup is bypassed.

Click on http://grs.ipal.net/ to see what I set up a couple years ago to build zone files for this kind of thing.

I put together a concept a few years ago where those whoe run (or want to run) their own DNS would simply set it up as a root server by being authoritative for the "." zone. Within that zone, they put in the TLDs they want, and reference the name servers where they want that TLD data to come from.

The idea came to me as a result of TLD wars between different people who wanted to be the authority over the same TLD and had even already accepted registrations in those TLDs. I thought about who really should decide who is the authority for a given TLD (a number of different groups were trying to emerge at the time to do that). My thought was that it should be the open market, the people, the grass roots.

Roots?

So I coined "Grass Roots Servers" to designate the idea that each individual operator of a DNS server can choose for themselves what TLDs and who supplies the data. If you wanted to let NSI be authority for .com then you can (and I did). But you wouldn't have to if you didn't want to. If you wanted to leave .xxx out for a religious oriented ISP, great. If you wanted to hook into an underground source for the .mp3 TLD zone (now what what could that possibly be for? :-) you could.

The big stumbling block I saw was the difficulty in building a complete "." zone and keeping it up to date (servers do change) without destroying your selections in the process. So I gathered up as much data as I could get at that time (it is now out of date a bit) and built a web page CGI that would let you choose from known sources and it would build a "." zone file for you. It would also provide a means to save a page with hidden input fields that would come back with your original selections so you could regenerate the zone file again from your selections and new data.

It's open sourced (you can download source and the old database at the bottom of the page) because I wanted there to be many sources of info about TLD sources, just to make sure no one entity could grab control.

It is still online at http://grs.ipal.net/ . I have not updated it. If there is interest, I can resume it, or you can grab the code and data and go for it yourself.

I put together a concept a few years ago where those whoe run (or want to run) their own DNS would simply set it up as a root server by being authoritative for the "." zone. Within that zone, they put in the TLDs they want, and reference the name servers where they want that TLD data to come from.

The idea came to me as a result of TLD wars between different people who wanted to be the authority over the same TLD and had even already accepted registrations in those TLDs. I thought about who really should decide who is the authority for a given TLD (a number of different groups were trying to emerge at the time to do that). My thought was that it should be the open market, the people, the grass roots.

Roots?

So I coined "Grass Roots Servers" to designate the idea that each individual operator of a DNS server can choose for themselves what TLDs and who supplies the data. If you wanted to let NSI be authority for .com then you can (and I did). But you wouldn't have to if you didn't want to. If you wanted to leave .xxx out for a religious oriented ISP, great. If you wanted to hook into an underground source for the .mp3 TLD zone (now what what could that possibly be for? :-) you could.

The big stumbling block I saw was the difficulty in building a complete "." zone and keeping it up to date (servers do change) without destroying your selections in the process. So I gathered up as much data as I could get at that time (it is now out of date a bit) and built a web page CGI that would let you choose from known sources and it would build a "." zone file for you. It would also provide a means to save a page with hidden input fields that would come back with your original selections so you could regenerate the zone file again from your selections and new data.

It's open sourced (you can download source and the old database at the bottom of the page) because I wanted there to be many sources of info about TLD sources, just to make sure no one entity could grab control.

It is still online at http://grs.ipal.net/ . I have not updated it. If there is interest, I can resume it, or you can grab the code and data and go for it yourself.

Who needs those ICANN controlled root servers, anyway?

You can actually run your own root server. Then you have total control over what TLDs will be present and which registry supplies the zone data. All that is needed is for you know how the name servers to point to for the traditional and national TLDs, if you even want to carry them.

A couple years ago I created a concept I called Grass Roots Servers . The idea was that the root servers would really be run as described above. I came up with this idea because of the issue of deciding who would be the one to supply zone data for a new TLD. Since I didn't want political cronies or mega corporations making the decision for everyone, and I didn't want to be making that decision, either (as if I could), I figured the best place to decide was as close to each user as possible. One interesting thing about this is the fact that nothing has to be done by any sort of political or corporate power to enable it.

The difficulty in such a thing is that most people don't want to deal with the complexity of dealing with finding all the TLD name servers, and building the appropriate zone data file. That's where I came up with the web site Grass Roots Servers which would be a way to select the TLDs you want to have, or don't want to have, and have a zone file built for you. If the idea caught on, surely more tools would be created that just my first attempt, of which source can be downloaded if you want. Keep in mind I did this a couple years ago and have not updated it. The data is kind of old, but some of it may work.

So, do you want them to control your view of the domain name system, or do you want to control it yourself?

Who needs those ICANN controlled root servers, anyway?

You can actually run your own root server. Then you have total control over what TLDs will be present and which registry supplies the zone data. All that is needed is for you know how the name servers to point to for the traditional and national TLDs, if you even want to carry them.

A couple years ago I created a concept I called Grass Roots Servers . The idea was that the root servers would really be run as described above. I came up with this idea because of the issue of deciding who would be the one to supply zone data for a new TLD. Since I didn't want political cronies or mega corporations making the decision for everyone, and I didn't want to be making that decision, either (as if I could), I figured the best place to decide was as close to each user as possible. One interesting thing about this is the fact that nothing has to be done by any sort of political or corporate power to enable it.

The difficulty in such a thing is that most people don't want to deal with the complexity of dealing with finding all the TLD name servers, and building the appropriate zone data file. That's where I came up with the web site Grass Roots Servers which would be a way to select the TLDs you want to have, or don't want to have, and have a zone file built for you. If the idea caught on, surely more tools would be created that just my first attempt, of which source can be downloaded if you want. Keep in mind I did this a couple years ago and have not updated it. The data is kind of old, but some of it may work.

So, do you want them to control your view of the domain name system, or do you want to control it yourself?