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DNS Root Servers Outside US Surpass Those Inside

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the world-a-big-place dept.

penciling_in writes "Paul Rendek, head of member services and communica of RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) has reported on CircleID that: 'For the first time in Internet history the number of instances of DNS root servers outside the United States has overtaken the number within. The balance was tipped by the recent launch in Frankfurt of an anycast instance of the RIPE NCC operated K-root server.' In the same report, Daniel Karrenberg, Chief Scientist of the RIPE NCC says: 'We monitor the quality of the root name service from more than 50 locations worldwide, and we publish the results for everyone to see.'"

12 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Er by millisa · · Score: 5, Funny

    So it was a K-raut K-root server that tipped the balance?

    *dodges the thrown fruit*

  2. This just in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The number of countries outside the U.S. outnumber the number of countries inside the U.S.

    1. Re:This just in by cujo_1111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not according to the average American who thinks there is nothing outside the US except terrorists...

      --
      If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
    2. Re:This just in by cujo_1111 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do the puppet governments that the US put in place count as other countries?

      --
      If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
    3. Re:This just in by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't forget Canadia

      How could we forget the Maple Leaf state.

    4. Re:This just in by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not according to the average American who thinks there is nothing outside the US except terrorists...

      You have just proven that at least one person in Australia is a moron, not a terrorist.

      Congratulations.

    5. Re:This just in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      If that's true then why do they call the internet America Online?

  3. Does it really matter though? by toddestan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, there may be more DNS root servers outside the US, but it would seem that Verisign still has exclusive rights to muck around with them. So what's the big deal?

  4. Globalization at its finest by qortra · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm an American, and I love the US, but the imbalance of the internet towards the US has always bothered me. To me, it always has seemed that it should be a completely global venture, and be supported fairly evenly throughout the globe.

    DNS servers are probably a good indicator of internet usage/participation and the fact that other countries are catching up is a good thing; however, just shy of half of the DNS servers are still in the US. That's pretty sad considering we represent less than 5% of the global population. Here's to hoping other countries continue to grow in their participation.

    Also, I hope Babelfish improves as globalizations continues.....

  5. Insensitive parent comment! by weeboo0104 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am part K-raut you insensitive K-lod!

    --
    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
  6. No. You don't care. Here's why. by rs79 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the bad old days you and you alone were in control of name resolution. For those of you without receding and/or grey hairlines who may not know or remember this, you had a file called hosts.txt that contained all the mappings of names to IPs. That, obviously, didn't scale and DNS was developed and was widely deployed by about 86 or so.

    The one big gotcha with DNS is it takes control out of your hands. That is, you may have your own DNS server locally, but you traditionally refer to other servers that serve up the root zone that tells your DNS server where all the TLD servers are. Somewhere along the line the decision was made to use other machines, not your own, for this.

    This is wrong for many reasons:

    1. It's slower than if you have your own local copy of the root zone
    2. it's a point of failure you can live without - a DDOS on the legacy roots shouldn't take you down
    3. it provides a political point of capture - he who controls the root controls all the DNS namespace, and it's currently under the aegis of the trademark lobby under the guise of an incompetant and gutless wonder we jokingly refer to as "ICANN".

    But there are ways around this. The easiest if is you static route the 13 root server IPs to your own nameserver. Then you can run an unmodified copt of the legacy root zone on your own nameserver and the US government root servers can be backhoed or DDOS'd and you wouldn't even notice. ISP's are starting to figure this out, especiallly ones with expensive longhaul connections.

    Or, you can modify your nameserver to declare youtself primary for the root zone (which you've dutifully downloaded) and edit out the declarations for "." in the legacy root zone.

    Or you can use the ORSC root zone. If it's good enough for two ICANN board members, it's good enough for you.

    Whatever you do, for God's sake dump bind and use DJBDNS. It really is so much better it's just not funny.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  7. How could you forget? I think I know how... by rs79 · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.cbc.ca/mondayreport/videos/ontario.html

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?