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causes others to follow Russia and run their own set of servers.

Others already do. There's the ORSN (Open Root Server Network) effort, which copies the root zone information from ICANN, but in case of suspected problems (read: manipulation), will run their own unadulterated copies. Quite a few ISPs in Europe use the ORSN root server list instead of the IANA/ICANN/IETF one, both for reliability and locality.

If you run your own nameserver, all you need to do is replace the hint file with one from http://www.orsn.org/roothint/r...
If you don't, you can point your DNS server entry to one or more of the ones in the Wikipeda list referenced above.

Caveat: It is not known how good or fast ORSN is at detecting unwanted changes, so it may still provide hijacked results, or do so for some time before switching into independent mode.

Guess you never heard about:

http://www.orsn.org/

All root servers are located in Europe.

And my guess is you never heard about this one either:

http://www.opennicproject.org/

Oh yeah - I forgot. For Germany's Angela Merkel this is all "Neuland" - Undiscovered Country.

That's what the Open Server Root Network is for, to prevent those "above us" from being able to apply politics to the DNS infrastructure, primarily the fear of ICANN being under the control of the US Government.

You bridge a private network to the public network similar to a NAT intranet.

You use IPv6 for your private, and use number space outside the IPv4 range.

So you can still get routable IP's, but outside the core US IPv4 number range.

For DNS you use http://www.orsn.org/ or you setup your own if you like.

You can run two sets of DNS, the non-US monopolized one, and the US one.

I am sure some technical difficulties would still be incurred, but this
would knock out some of the bigger ones other than getting a lot of ppl
to run open mesh worldwide and bridging those big dark gaps where no one lives.

The physical transmission to all ppl worldwide will require something like this
sponsored in a manner similar to a coop I am thinking :

http://www.21stcenturyairships.com/

High altitude ballons that act as comm platforms, and if they had solar cells
they could be powered by the sun during daylight, and super caps or batteries
while it is dark.

Satellites have latency issues at geosync orbit, at only 14 miles up, the
high altitiude comm ballons have low latency and act as super tall transmission towers.

They can be setup and taken down by one man with a small truck.

They cost a great deal less than a tower or a satellite.

They fly above the weather and the wind.

It is dead still up there, and cold as hell so you could consider super conductors as well.

But as I said before, it doesnt solve all the problems, and it isnt free to
deploy all this, but if many ppl around the world funded this idea as
a group coop we could supplant the billion dollar money machine telecos
with a vast array of wireless ballons transmitting in many different frequencies.

I think they would do a great deal to stop it though.

Peace,

Ex-MislTech

The European root server network is already in place. Usually it's synchronized with the ICANN one, but it can go independent (and does so). I used the ORSN servers for a while but have switched back to my ISP's servers, as they respong faster (gee, whyever could that be).

[We] created the internet

Really? Did you lay down the phoneline that comes up to my house? Didn't think so. Did you pay for the ADSL hardware at my local exchange? Didn't think you did that, either. How about the D-Root Server that guarantees the performance and stability of Internet services in the UK and western Europe? Hmm, then I'd say that statement is bullshit.

Create your own root and use it instead.

Ignoring the fact that only five of the public root servers are in the States to begin with (there are eight or so others scattered around the globe), we already have. And that is completely ignoring the fact that anybody can set up a DNS server at any time, for any reason, and with any purpose. (And many of the fine folk here at slashdot, have.

All of this whining by socialist Europeans that would rather see the internet turn into some type of global hippie commune where no commerce is transacted and those of us in the first world have to pay for internet connections for some tribal village in Africa...

Ok, what?

Some countries are, or I should say, were backing this whole fucked up scheme because they are (understandably) pissed off with the incompetance of the ICANN. The EU is backing this scheme because they are pissed off with the US for a whole lotta reasons, and the Usual Suspects (China, etc.) are backing this for the Usual Reasons.

Look, I dont want control to go to the WGIG any more than you do, but fucked up posts like yours do not help the issue.

Actually I was referring to the European Open Root Server Network, a complete alternative set of DNS root servers that is, depending on the state of world politics, either synchronized with ICANN or in independent mode, which means that the root zone is manually updated to reflect the changes in ICANN's.

This was more an exercise of some countries wanting to exercise content control rather than just technical control. Many people point to the .xxx domain as an example of US interference. I would like to point out that it was a good idea that the .xxx domain got nixed since the very idea promotes censorship. If governments can partition content that it finds objectionable into subdomains, that action aids censorship.

Do we have to vote a radical party into office to avoid being duped by the USA over and over again? I mean, who could blame us? We would only be following the example that the USA gives us, right? Do what our governments don't have the balls for: Use the European Root Server Network.

Why poison DNS servers? We'll just use our own. I can very much imagine the DNS network being replaced by multiple regional, separate DNSes. This won't be good for the Internet, but it's not like there's anything to keep it from happening.

Do you really think if the EU splits the internet, no EU citizens will have access to US webpages?

No, I think the EU root servers will still query the US root servers so that all American sites will be accessible to Europeans. It would be the Americans who cannot reach many European sites, instead.

Note that this idea is not exactly new, there are several alternative DNS root servers already (e.g. ORSN) which are effectively splits of the Internet as discussed here. Users of these systems can reach the regular Internet domains as well as the alternative ones.

Why has nobody mentioned ORSN? It seems that the Europeans already have a functioning alternate root server network.

Unless the other side decides to implement guerilla warfare.

Besides, how exactly are you going to defend the internet? All you actually could defend are most of the root servers (as they are in your country), but doingg so is kind of pointless, as the cables connecting the contients are much harder to defend - and if someone wants to take down the 'net they just need to cut enough of these cables.
The only way the internet can really become robust is if thee are root servers all over the world. That way someone could separate the North America from the rest of the internet and everyone else would not have major outages because there only are three root servers left, two of which are sitting in Europe.


Also note that what the EU are raising is a question of accountability: If someting bad happens, who is the authority in charge? Currently it's the USA, which leaves the network vulnerable to politically oriented manipulation - everyone knows that you guys love your world politics and that you tend to take a "whatever it takes" approach even if it means violating your own laws. If a multinational authority would be in charge of the internet, things would be much safer because of the beaurocracy.
What do you think is the biggest benefit of democracy? It's not the fact that Joe Sixpack can cast his grossly misinformed vote. It's safety. It's hard to turn a decently made democracy into something else. Any form of govrenment with only one or a few people entitled to rule the country are vulnerable to assassinations or careful manipulation of the ruler. Democracies are mch harder to twist because a) you have to manipulate/kill much more people in order to get your result and b) there are rules everywhere and the effort needed to get drastic changes past the beaurocracy ensure that no one can quickly take over the country without using significant military force. The ineffectiveness andd slowness of the system are it's biggest selling points!

Now think about the internet. Imagine you were the EU: Would you rather let some inflexible, slow, easy to monitor body have the ultimate control over the world's most important medium - or a country known for it's tendency to do whatever the heck it pleases and to be proud of not being held accountable to anyone?


The alternative, of course, would be to pump money into projects like the European Open Root Server Network in order to become completely independent from ICANN (which, of course, would cost both the EU and ICANN time and money because they have to manage synchronization of their records). I'd imagine the Chinese to follow the example (if they haven't set up their own root server network already) and pretty soon the internet would be split up into a half-dozen smaller networks. Well, at least it would improve robustness, if enough of the networks are interconnected.

"The government not letting the press into the place they keep the bodies isn't the same as censorship. The press is allowed to print what they like. In fact, they did once get ahold of a picture, taken by a soldier, of bodybags and printed it. It caused an uproar in the military as they moved to punish the soldier who took the picture. But nobody stopped the press from printing any photos nor punished them for doing so."

You do realize that you've just proven my point right? The soldier was punished (or at least they tried to). You have to account for the whole chain, not just the government. You even have to include self-censorship by media, or that soldiers are afraid to take pictures because they are afraid of punishment. It's a good thing that pictures are taken, otherwise the torture of prisoners in Abu-Graib(sp?) for instance would have gotten any justice.

I ask again. How can so many embedded reporters see so little actual killing?

"Now that's different. There are rules about basic content for such things as considered obscenity and language...but within those very general guidelines people can do whatever they want. I do think that the fine for accidental nipplage on a live event was a little stupid though. It's not censorship though, fines are applied after the fact. There are no official government censors approving what is seen. If something happens, and people complain, a fine is likely...but also likely challenged. That's very different from censorship."

Of course it's different, duh. But it's very much so censorship, and it's fueled by the fanatical Christian right, a very vocal minority.

In free countries, like in Sweden, people don't get upset if they hear fuck on TV or radio, and in fact a radioshow in sweden was swamped when they accidentally played a BLEEPed "radio-friendly" version of a song instead of the real version. People were very upset by the censorship, not the word fuck.

"So you honestly believe that most of the people of the world hate the American people? Careful now....I'm not saying government, I'm saying people."

No, that's not at all what I said.

A majority of the rest of the world dislike you as a whole country, government, people, soldiers abroad, christian nuts and especially the likes of RIAA and MPAA.

"In fact, the issue of voting on the war with Iraq was a major political issue during the last Presidential election, as John Kerry, the opponent to George Bush, had voted for going to war with Iraq....and yet strongly opposed the War in his campaign."

And this goes against the constitution! It gives the president power to invade if he wants to. Read the actual pages yourself. I'll say it again, it gives power to the president to start a war and that's not a power he should have, congress should have that power according to the constitution. Thanks for finding links that proves my point.

And in hindsight, we know he didn't attack Iraq because of 9/11, that he has admitted, we know he didn't invade because of WMD, cause there weren't any. He invaded Iraq to occupy the country and show how's boss.

"But it does. We built it, with our tax dollars, for our military....and then decided to open it to the public. That it gained popularity worldwide was a bonus. But it is our property. We made it, we paid for it."

And as with all research made public, you don't own it anymore. I belongs to the world. In fact there are 13 root DNS servers in Europe on standby if you ever decide to use that "We own the internet" argument for real.

http://www.orsn.org/

Can? DO. Check out ORSN, a predominantly EU organisation of entities that have expressed issue with ICANN. They mirror the entire DNS hierarchy, have several large European ISPs using them as root servers, and DO literally have the ability to switch from a synced-to-ICANN to fully independent operation.

If all you want is a "." zone file not blessed by the US DoC, then you can have it today. Best of luck to you.

It is time for the world community to fork and start going on our own:

http://european.nl.orsn.net/

ORSN is an abbreviation for Open Root Server Network and stands for a network of DNS servers in member countries of the European Union and/or neighbouring countries.

The ORSN serves as a alternative for the existing root-server network since February 2002, which is coordinated by the ICANN. In contrast to the root servers of the ICANN, the ORSN servers should predominantly be placed in Europe. The maximum number of ORSN root-servers will be 13.

Until now, the administration is done by the USA and/or the ICANN. Therefor, a large number of root-servers is located in America. A loss or the modification of the root-server information could result in serious consequences for all other countries concerning their internet use. It is for example possible to stop a whole country from using the internet. In practice, this scenario didn't happen so far but it can't be excluded either.

The ORSN is based on a private initiative. The project isn't profit-oriented and won't be it in the future. The current root-server operators of the ORSN support the network by supplying resources such as server hardware and, if necessary, the administration of the appropriate server. The joined ISPs and operators administer and use the ORSN by conviction and in the interest of the autarcy of the network in Europe.

Visit our forum at http://forum.orsn.org/ to ask for more information.

That sounds like a nice idea. It'd be really swell if someone did that.

Besides, if they decide to screw with the official root servers, Europeans still can switch to the ORSN servers, which usually are synchronized with the ICANN servers but stop synchronizing when the current state of world politics makes it possible that the ICANN servers might be subject to manipulation or downtime.

lets see on http://www.orsn.org/ how to switch your winXP machine:"

Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003 - Step by Step
Under Construction.

Go back

"

http://www.orsn.org/

Oh, you mean something like VeriSlime?

Europeans are already setting up ORSN, because of those monopolistic tendencies.

OpenNIC is still around, and has been for two years. It was proposed on K5 1 Jun 2000, and was operational soon thereafter. A month later, it was serving 4 alternate TLDs. Today, it serves 6 with a specific new one pending, and talks of serving out several language-related TLDs (like the ccTLDs, but for languages). Others have been around since before us, and they're still reasonably active. There's also AlterNIC, PacRoot, ORSC, ORSN, and others.

Most, if not all, alternative roots peer the majority of legacy TLDs (i.e., those of ICANN), including the new ones. We (OpenNIC) have peering agreements with AlterNIC and PacRoot, and we're working on others as well.

So, what exactly are you talking about? Geeks haven't abandoned alternative roots. We are quite active.