Cracking the Verisign Monopoly

ag writes: "Paul Garrin is on a crusade to break the U.S. stranglehold on the Web. Access to the "root zone," the master file listing the so-called top-level domains--.com, .org, .net, .gov, .edu, .mil--and some 244 country-code domains, is currently in the hands of the privileged few. Through Name.Space, his own root server, Garrin is hoping to 'reterritorialize the Net, bringing it back to its original ideal of virtual space without borders or hierarchies.'" The article brings out the conflicts between Name.Space and the Open Root Server Confederation.

Comments

Too many "alternative" root providers

[XNormal]

What makes them think that I would trade one centralized and corrupt organization managing the root zone for another centralized and corrupt organization? Even if one of those alternative roots somehow magically gets very widespread support and all ISPs add it to their root zone files it will undoubtedly become at least as bad than the current situation.

An observation by Douglas Adams:

"The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

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Possible Solution: The British Way of Doing Things

[The Dodger]

The .uk domain is administrated by Nominet, a not-for-profit organisation, whose membership is open to "any person or organisation with an interest in the Internet". Effectively, it's a kind of co-op and the most active (and, therefore, the most influential) members of this particular co-op are it's biggest customers - the ISPs who register *.uk domains.

Nominet is a monopoly, in that it has exclusive control over the .uk TLD, but few complain about this, because it is largely run by and for the benefit of it's customers.

Furthermore, the oversight inherent in an organisation with open membership and the competition between those ISPs in the marketplace ensure that Nominet's actions benefit all UK Internet users.

This is how all TLDs should be administrated - for the common good, instead of for the profit of the company who won the contract.

And, incidentally, this is how ICANN should be run, too.

D.

Right after Alternic

[alexhmit01]

Back when Internic was run by Network Solutions for the Commerce Department, there was opposition to their control. Alternic was proposed, with alternative TLDs if users (or ideally, ISPs) would switch their DNS over to support it.

This crashed and burned fabulously, but that may have been influenced by hack attempts on root servers, etc.

Still, this seems unlikely. People want .com. They don't want country codes, and they don't want the other minor ones.

When $100 was the registration fee and nobody was doing business online, people cared about cheap alternatives. Now that the costs of doing business on the Internet are huge, nobody is not going to shell out $70 (or $30/2 years with some of the cheaper services) while maintaining a presence.

Additionally, people want a good domain name or a generic one. As nobody is going to try to guess these random TLDs and assume that their ISP supports it, this names provide no value.

Give it up, "The Man" 0wns DNS and won't let go.

Alex

Might not be a bad idea

[HerrGlock]

If only for the one problem with the root zones. If those (six? ten?) root DNS servers are cracked, the whole 'net is in shambles as soon as the TTL expires for each site.

I'm not sure what the answer IS, but it cannot be to have the entirety of the internet dependant on a relative handful of base servers.

It's like the 'Jesus nut' on a helicopter. Single point of failure means catastrophic failure for the machine. The difference is that the 'net has the capability of double/triple redundancy.

The more spread out the base servers, and the more there are, the better off we are even with the increased work load of maintaining the new rash of servers required.

DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page

snake oil story

[deran9ed]

For the past five years, he and his company, Name.Space, have been seeking to overthrow the U.S.-sanctioned monopolies that govern the Web.

So are we to leave one for profit company, and jump to another? I could see if this was a non profit complaining and campaigning, but you have a domain registrar bringing this up, which begs questioning about the true intentions. So this company would stand to profit from a break up, which doesn't impress me, so his gripes are bascially he can't make any money with Verisign in the picture, hardly worth My Rights Online.

Why should an aspiring artist have to scrap to be www.sculptor.com when she could just as easily be www.erotic.sculptor or www.heavenly.form?

I noticed how this turd is obfuscating politicians knowledge about technology with some of his gripes such as the above. For one its not up to any "root" servers to determine these naming convetions its up to ICANN, so why doesn't he gripe to them. The article to me is sort of a bit of snake oil written to beg for sympathy, by an author trying to get a nice sized bite of what he calls the enemy (Verisign).

Should Verisign be the sole holder of root name servers, probably not, but at least aside from occassional issues of domain squatting, the net isn't out of control with fights from domain registrars attempting to introduce tons of new names daily, simply because they're registrars. Here's a solution, create a body to handle it, but make those in charge professors at the most prestigous universities around. This way there can be no commercial control of the domain naming system, nor root servers. Maybe things will be handled ethically instead of morons bringing out suit after suit claiming infringements, unfair play, etc.,.

Ghost in the Shell

Doubting Name.Space's intentions

[sleeper0]

The village voice article certainly paints Paul Garrin in a sympathetic light. There's a lot of talk of high ideals, a movement for the people, a nd powerful monopolies.

"We're reterritorializing the Net," Garrin boasted, "bringing it back to its original ideal of virtual space without borders or hierarchies."

When in reality Name.Space has by far the most to gain in this movement. What they've been doing for years is selling alternative tld's, with the idea that they would have to be grandfather'd in once the world was ready to use nearly unlimited tld's. All Name.Space is selling to it's customers is a risky bet that Name.Space will get the domains because ICANN feels that there is enough adoption that the conflicts will cause real problems. From the looks of things, ICANN doesn't buy it.

In my book, Paul Garrin is essentially participating in massive domain speculation, with the idea that he can hold ICANN and the roots hostage on the day they decide to open them up to the public. How is this different than domain name squatting?

Someone should tell him that the boom is over and everyone is moving on to new get rich quick schemes.