Securing DNS From The Roots Up

jeffy124 writes: "This article at ComputerWorld tells the story of how ICANN would like to replace the root DNS systems with secured servers. Lars-Johan Liman, one of the root operators, spoke about the concept at ICANN's annual meeting today. He discussed how the world's current redundant DNS system is vulnerable to DDOS attacks and yet-to-be-discovered root holes in bind that can ultimately undermine the entire Internet by taking away the name-IP mappings that are relied upon by just about everyone."

Comments

DNS in inherently flawed...

[Jeremy Lee]

Don't get me wrong. It's a great system, it's worked for a very long time, it does it's basic job admirably. My single main issues with it are it's centralization, and increasing politicization.

I've given this a little thought over the years. There's a few fundamental issues with the centralized DNS system.

I've tried kicking around a few replacements ideas, like a peer-to-peer exchange system carrying certificates that act a little like resource search records.

The FreeNet project actually gives a good model for how to distribute and search for these 'domain certificates'.

I'd like to see a system that you essentially 'anonymously' submit namespace entries to. Conflicts are resolved based on context. If a dozen people want "money.domain", fine. If you try to browse to it without any context, you have to choose which one you want based on other information in the certificates (full name, location, nickname etc) and once you've chosen, that context sticks. URL's would need to be extended to also carry this context, which probably need to be a cryptographic signature to prevent abuse.

It constantly amazes me that people are willing to pay $50 to 'own' a record in a database. The domain land grab was just stupid... in virtual space, you can always just make more land. As .info proves.

DNS will obviously persist for decades, (simply because of the financial and general mindspace investment in 'dots') but hopefully as only one of a plethora of address resolution systems. Name resolution needs to be a pool, not a tree.

"For as long as the DNS system exists, the Internet will never be free" - Morpheus, while very Drunk

DJBDNS doesn't obey many RFC's, not OSS either

[dido]

You can't do zone transfers using djbdns for one thing. DJB thinks that zone transfers are evil, and has his own method for doing the task (rsync over ssh I believe), but whether they're evil or not is beside the point. Like it or not, zone transfers are a part of the core DNS protocols and any proper successor to BIND must implement them all. Starting a standards war with the IETF is not something I want to have along with a name server I deploy. Let Bernstein write an RFC for publication describing his idiosyncratic methods and get the IETF to ratify it as a core standard if he wants, if he truly thinks his way is the better way. The way he operates reminds me more of the way Microsoft handles standards than anything else.

Besides, djbdns is also deficient in a far more important way (for me and to a lot of people here on Slashdot anyhow, I hope): it's actually proprietary software with a limited license for gratis use. It's not Free Software or even Open Source, not by any reasonable definition of the term. There is no license along with his programs, and absent a license you have NO RIGHT to share, study, or change Bernstein's code!