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ICANN Won't Get DNS Root Servers
daria42 writes "The US Department of Commerce has reversed its original decision on the Internet's root DNS servers, which would have eventually seen them pass into the hands of ICANN. While the original decision would have seen ICANN take full responsibility after it met a number of conditions, the new declaration means Commerce would keep that control, regardless of whether and when those conditions are met. It is possible that some countries could withdraw support from ICANN, and this decision even opens up the gate for a separate DNS system to be established outside the US's control."
Lets start up our own DNS servers and let the US isolate themselves as they choose.
:D
Fine by me
Time for a change in technology me thinks and dump the concept of DNS altogether so no body has complete control to hold the others to ransom.
ICANN'T even .tel you how bad this news is for the internet community at large. ICANN and the root dns need to Server all ties with the bush administration.
(oh god... I am a horrible person).
with the idiotic patriotic dick waving really...why is the US so afraid to cooperate with international organizations?
What is the reasoning behind this step, apart from making more money for some corporations? Is it really a viable threat that ICANN is some Al-Quaeda offspring organization?
Mod me as you like, but please think at least for a second about what i said.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
From CNN -- "US keeps control over internet computers"
From the Brits -- "US appears to affirm its authority on the internet"
From the Canadians -- "US to control internet traffic"
India -- "US won't cede monopoly on the internet"
Seems like the same story has several different headlines, and to the uniformed eye some of them in conflict (yes. I know you can make the case they're not all that different. But monopoly on the internet it isn't). It would be nice if the people writing the stories understood what a root server was. Might make for a more informed public, you know?
Check out "SarBox And The World Of Tomorrow"
completely wrong. The Root DNS servers are the servers which have the authoritative DNS records. You probably use a ISPs DNS server, which will cache DNS queries. If it doesn't have a DNS lookup it will query DNS servers further up hierachy. The Buck stops with the Root DNS servers.
Don't interact w/ a summarized article. Read the actual statement from the US government. I wish these news sites would link to their sources when they're available.
I'm not really sure what to make of this. I definitely do not think that having the root domains under control by the US government is a good idea, and I also do not think that ICAAN is really up to the task either. I wonder if it might be better to have the root domain servers be distributed throughout the world (run as non-profit organizations, with only minimal fees required to maintain the servers, and executive salaries at these orgs capped).
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
We allow countries to have their domain, what else do you want? We (US) invented the internet (actually more specifically, Al Gord did), but the United States invented it, we want to control it.
.fr)...
okay.. now seriously...I think each country should have their its own root DNS server. (France should own
But what I think is funny, is how the mainstream media is portraying this. By not telling people that these are just the DNS servers, the world things that there are 13 computers in the United States that control the whole internet.
While that may be true about the naming conventions (DNS) it is certainly not true that 13 computers "control" the internet. Now we have Joe Homeuser thinking that his bank tranactions pass through one of these root 13, and that the government sniffs it all.
(on the other hand, who is to say that they don't...)
All your servers are belong to Uncle Sam
You don't need a lab to make mud.
The U.S. Department of * will never again relinquish control of anything to anyone else.
They must retain control of the root servers so that if there is a terrorist attack, they can shut down the internet.
I say keep them controlled all in one place and keep them locked down as much as possible because no one wants to see the magic 13 (I think its 13 or is it more now...) hacked or compromised.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
This is my thought, too. I am surprised that for something as critical as a root server, that there are not a well distributed (geographically) set of servers. I know that local caching goes a long way to resolve this, but at least spreading them around a bit may help out if any of the major intercontinental links fail, like the recent SME-3 failure which knocked Pakistan off the net.
The problem is that now that the Internet has grown to the size it has, it will take quite a long time for the changed IP addresses to filter through if the root servers get moved. There would be any number of smaller ISPs, specialised applications or even techie home users who poll the root servers occasionally, and who won't bother to update the IP address. Why they are polling the root servers in the first place, and not their local upstream copy, is probably due to a design failure which will require the maintenance of the current root servers to continue operating.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
Come on where's the D in DNS if we need central authority... Crypto has gone a long way since! Some authorities could sign pairs of DNS + IPs and have these distributed anywhere. For exemple I could chose to trust organization foo and bar to provide me safe a safe DNS. Requiring coincidence of two unrelated authorities would marginalize the risks of dns poisoning. The authority don't even need bandwith for that, they could be goolgle, yahoo, ibm, gnu, ms etc. As for who decides who gets a domain name, except for specific extensions (gov, countries etc) this should be open to anyone, and basically registering would simply consist in referring one's domain name to major authorities before someone else does.
\u262D = \u5350
And The Register: Bush administration annexes internet
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Look, when you see the words "stability and security ", that is a code from the Bush admin that basically says that we will do as we see fit. If you do not like, then we wave a flag over it, and if you do not accept it, then you are against us. The USA is keeping control over the root for a totally different reason. If you would like to see, from a US computer do a trace route to english.aljazeera.net and look at all the stops. do a dig -x on the The final couple within the US. Then you will understand.
You got it almost right, but it works like this:
...not the other way around. The whole thing starts with the dns servers, they are Archimedes' one (13) fixed points the whole dns revolves around.
The ISP nameserver has a huge cache with a timeout. If a record cannot be found (because it hasn't been cached before or it has been discarded because of the timeout) then it goes to resolve the domain. To resolve the domain, you actually go backwards (from a higher hierarchy to lower), thus:
root -> country level -> domain level
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
While I don't trust ICANN (a group that spends most of their money on law firms) the US has to get a clue. The US is WAY behind in IPv6 adoption (excluding the military). If the US continues to hoard its control of DNS on the IPv4 internet, and simultaneously refuses to adopt IPv6, it will get to watch while the rest of the world migrates to IPv6 and obseletes the US's authority.
Look at this in terms of China's bid to pwned Unocal. (CNOOC is *not* a company, it is a corporate-smelling arm of the Chinese government). Energy is a strategic asset. Now look at all of the credit card information stolen/lost/inappropriately xferred lately. Information is a strategic asset.
Xferring control of Root DNS servers does not necessarily lead to compromise/abuse any more than leaving your credit card lying in a bus station will necessarily lead to your account being, er, misused. Similarly, retaining control does not guarantee security, but why screw with it? Who should take up this burden--the Oil-for-food-United-Nations?
The fact is, the US created the internetworking protocols, and laid the early hardware. Much of the structure is US assets, which the whole rest of the world is free to use.
I, for one, welcome the same old overlords whom at least we [sorry y'all] can vote on. What will you do when CHINA wants to throw a "broadcast flag"-level wrench into things?
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Who modded that offtopic? Sure, it may be an unsubstantiated statement, but it's on topic. Mods asleep at the keyboard this morning?
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
Yep.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Everyone who thinks that beuorcrats, politics and technology go well together raise your hands... now please leave. I know the term "Bush Administration" is a trigger for blind hatred and rhetoric on par with "Microsoft", but this isn't a bad thing. The U.S. has managed these DNS servers for 25 years and has kept the process from being political. The U.S. currently has a significant ECONOMIC (forget "security") stake in ensuring that these domain servers are maintained and stable. ICANN or a world political body does not have the same motiviation. They're motivated by making a name for themselves, expanding their country's control over the Internet, retaliating against other governments for non-Internet policy decisions, etc. A solution to having a single government control such an important resource should be found in order to prevent abuse, but that solution must GUARANTEE that we are reducing the potential for abuse of the system, not increasing it.
mission accomplished.
Anyone ever point this out?
kulakovich
This isn't hard to decipher. Just consider the true implications of controling the TLD servers.
Yes. There is a lot more than feeding secondary domain servers going on here and yes, there are very real security interests involved. I have to agree with this decision, as unpopular as that view may be here.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
It's this kind of sh*t that will cause the first new TLD after a handover to ICANN to be .us-sucks.
Personally i think the ICANN should keep control of the root servers, It needs to be managed by a professional standards organisation and it definetly not something that you can open up freely. If anyone could make a root server pharming attacks would explode people would become even more increasingly pissed off with the internet until it gets so full of spam and other crap it'd become as popular as CB radios.
Then you will be pleased to hear about my new faith-based initiative to hand over management of the internet to church groups. Just to show that this is not one of those wacky christian-right things, we will have a separate top level domain ".heathen" to carry domains with Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic content.
Ask your pastor how you can help.
Think of the children!
Please, fill the details if you are dns expert.
Create own new root servers, copy content from root dns servers, require all minor dns to direct queries to new ones. Reconfigure routers block or redirect requests to us servers. Major hassle, lots of problemos in transition phase. But doable. Lot's of financial problems to major internet companies (located in USA mainly).
I quess that US would give the roots to ICANN if UN or somebody big enough group would threaten to do this. US firms have too much to lose when dns problems occur.
Dyslexics have more fnu.
Internet was designed to be a network without a "central place", owner, any critical points that would take it down. Now what would the Internet be without DNS? Taking out one company's equipment would take about 95% of the services down. I find decentralizing DNS services essential. They are the weak spot of the Internet, the only thing that once destroyed bring almost whole net down.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Because the rest of the world will be using IPv6 in a short bit while we won't. Although I think China uses their own DNS servers as it is, so it's a moot point for them.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
...perhaps it's because the "international organizations" we work with, like the UN, can't even keep their word and uphold the tenets of their own charters for things that are much more important than the root servers?
Also, no one said anything about al-Qaeda.
Except you, of course.
But the US believes that the root servers are important enough that they should be under the control and purview of the same entities that have been their stewards in some cases since the literal inception of DNS itself, rather than an organization along with international entities that may not have the same level of experience. This isn't just about "keeping machines patched" or knowing how to run a DNS box. That's the most vanishingly small part of this equation.
Also, it might help to remember that the US, along with its vast military-industrial complex, the Department of Defense and DARPA's investments into pie-in-the-sky technologies, and our massive academic research establishment are what you and the entire fucking world HAS TO THANK for the "internet", and we've already proven that we can manage the root servers and have a secure and well established network of capable contractors, so I think that, given the geometrically increasing importance of the internet to the US and its economy, you're damned straight we have a vested interest in making sure critical internet infrastructure is properly administered (and by "administered", I don't mean from a sysadmin perspective).
And while the corporations with the root server contracts make some money and might not want to see that go away, this decision is NOT for "making more money for some corporations". It's been made for the security of these critical infrastructure pieces. In our own system, we have some accountability and we know it. Even if ICANN meets the DoC-set guidelines, there are no guarantees that its capability and contingencies are better than, or even meet, the capability that already exists in the prevailing arrangement. Why ratchet back from predictability and reliability, and a known set of variables, frankly, to "please" the international community? The "internet", in general, was not an international creation. It was a US creation, the result of a lot of investment and research dollars from the exact entities that no one else would have supported. The fact that it has easily become an exceedingly open international and global tool is a testament to its creators.
I'm starting to get fed up with the anti-US dick waving on slashdot, really...
Mod me as you like, but please think at least for a second about what i said.
Fortunately, the USA believe in free speech.
... I guess it must be a blip. Bush would never attack freedom of speech using US power ...
Oops, where did that anti-war site go? Oh gosh, and something advocating equal rights for gay people
The U.S. Commerce Department (and DARPA before them) has successfully guided the Internet throught explosive growth. The system that *they* constructed works and works beautifully (not perfectly... but pretty darn good, otherwise we wouldn't be able to have this conversation). Have you head the saying "If if ain't broke, don't fix it"?
As unlikely as it is for me to concede that the US should still do anything for the world good... the root zone should still be run as it has been for the last couple decades. Few, infrequent changes, and very very stable. THat's what matters.
Why do other parties want control of the root zone? So they can bargain with it? Add new TLD's? Give me a break.
The root zone needs to simply run as it is, that's all.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All your webs are belong to US
I have long felt that the internet, while created by the US, should evolve into a complete international body. That ICANN should take over all authority of the internet. Unfortunately, this will bring the same level of difficulty as the UN has, but to a lesser degree.
I have long felt that as we evolve, (socially, and politically), the idea that all of the earth will eventually fall under one global gov't will happen. I also feel that this won't happen until long after space travel becomes a normal mundane thing. Systems like the internet, will not only help bring this, but are an essential part of this.
Keeping with that mentality, the internet needs to serve everyone's interest, and to do so, it must be controlled by an open body made up of an international representation.
They also gave us Microsoft ...
Anyway a phased hand over is the only way to go, which will probably happen when there Bush+Republican administration is out of office.
These guys are just control freaks and we have the rest of the world just has to live with that.
Although this is not huge, but its just one more thing alienating the US from the rest of the world.
In other news: US Government to rename ICANN to NOYOUCANNOT
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
with the kneejerk slashdot reactions that come from pulling shit out of your asshole, rather than actually considering the truth, such as the actual NTIA statement itself:
U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System
The United States Government intends to preserve the security and stability of the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System (DNS). Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure. As such, the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United States recognizes that governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD. As such, the United States is committed to working with the international community to address these concerns, bearing in mind the fundamental need to ensure stability and security of the Internet's DNS.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS. The United States continues to support the ongoing work of ICANN as the technical manager of the DNS and related technical operations and recognizes the progress it has made to date. The United States will continue to provide oversight so that ICANN maintains its focus and meets its core technical mission.
Dialogue related to Internet governance should continue in relevant multiple fora. Given the breadth of topics potentially encompassed under the rubric of Internet governance there is no one venue to appropriately address the subject in its entirety. While the United States recognizes that the current Internet system is working, we encourage an ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders around the world in the various fora as a way to facilitate discussion and to advance our shared interest in the ongoing robustness and dynamism of the Internet. In these fora, the United States will continue to support market-based approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly.
You may also take note that there are plenty of "international organizations" already involved with the root servers.
The Internets are a strategic resource of the United States. As an American, it would be swell if France just gave away its wine, South Africa its diamonds, or Saudi Arabia its oil. However, the Internets are ours. If you don't like it, compete with us and create your own, but don't whine that we won't just give it away.
The idea of equality is a fractured one. Yes the internet is a great leveller.. today. But what is to start having economically fractured internets that DON'T permit just anyone of any nationality on. Then we'd be back into the dominant mode society runs on.. greed and selfishness.
Don't believe me? Fire up nslookup (no arguments) on a Windows machine and type set norecurse and press enter. Then type it.slashdot.org a.root-servers.net. You will get a referral to the .org DNS servers. If you then try it.slashdot.org tld1.ultradns.net you will get a referral to the slashdot.org DNS servers. If you try it.slashdot.org ns3.vasoftware.com you'll get an (authoritative) answer.
If you prefer Unix - and who doesn't? - you can get the same results with less typing via dig +trace it.slashdot.org, which will show you the path a recursive query will take. Note that the buck usually starts with the root servers. The only time it doesn't is if you can have a clear path up and down the tree of authoritative replies. Which does not usually happen.
The neocon movement -- the one which literally promotes global domination as its basic tenet -- is kind of like Scientology. The movement's ideals justify any dirty tricks to silence the opposition, because they believe they must succeed at all costs. So don't confuse the poor modding for insomnia; it's probably just a sign that whoever modded it down was unable to debate it on equal terms.
Okay, I apologize for the excessive punctuation. Salary caps? Non-profit? Distributed throughout the world? Only fence you're on is between Moscow and South Moscow.
But hey, just between us, Comrade, be careful. Big Brother watches also the internyet.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Can you exactly tell me what ICANN has to do with the Bush Admin?
I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but ignorant comments like yours don't help the cause.
hellbent on controlling the internet like it does TV and radio... ughh
From the article
The Bush administration announced that the U.S. government will not hand over control of the Internet to any other organisation, a surprise move that could presage an international flap.
I hate Bush as much as the next guy, but ignorant comments like yours don't help the cause.
Well, I didn't mean for "asleep at the keyboard" to be interpreted as insomnia, but rather as not knowing what they are doing. I suppose they didn't want to bother with the debate. My post got modded offtopic, which is funny. This one probably will be as well.
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
CENTR - an organisation representing a large number of country-code domains - has responded to the US government's declaration. In a cautious welcome, it agreed that the root files needed to be run in a neutral manner and welcomed its support for ICANN, but pushed that ICANN should focus only on its "core function and limited remit".
Disingenuously, CENTR also says that the stated approach to be taken by the US government "de-politicises the role of the Root Servers and empowers the relevant local Internet Registries and the respective Government to once again". As representative for country-code domains, CENTR will be delighted by the US government's statement that it considers different countries as having complete rights over their own country domain.
I had been looking into the arguments for WSIS against ITU-T and ICANN and have to agree with CENTR that both need vast improvement, but the WSIS in November might have been detrimental due to countries choosing sovereignty over stability. This at least throws a spanner in the works, allowing a bit more stability until a real alternative to ICANN/ITU-T (and now the US DoC) is worked out.
Warhammer forums
American news is worthless--it's just scenes of car chases and celebrities doing dumb things. That's our news. In America, real news only comes from 2 places--public broadcasting (NPR & PBS which the government clearly wants to kill off) and the internet. Yes, we have to go overseas to find out what's happening in our own country. Broadcast flag, National ID, Downing Street Memo--most Americans have no clue what these things are. If the US government wants to control the internet, you can bet it's so that they can control the information that we receive so that they can carry out their agenda with minimal risk of a revolution. There's no tinfoil hat here. This is right out in the open. We're pwned.
Marge: Grandpa, this flag only has 49 stars on it.
Grandpa: I'll be deep in the cold cold ground before I recognize Missourah!
why not uses the United Nations as mediator. I'm sure it would make non-us-military types more comfortable.
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
"
...with the first four words of your post. And the last two. As for the lack of a tinfoil-hat, you can download one from http://www.move-on.orgy/ and I recommend you do so soon. You have indeed been pwned; when your hat comes in, fire up foilwall, and go through your brain registry (or .brainrc file), and look for the entry keyed "AlFranken12345BillSocialistMoyers". There's your culprit.
...or at least cause one to flinch...
ObOnTopic: click the link above to interact with a REAL LIVE Root DNS Server!
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
(sorry)
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
I mean, I'm relatively neutral in either court, but whats to stop say Asia from springing up its own root DNS servers, serving .notus, eventually if it grows enough the demand would be large enough to force a merge, or at least in theory it would.
I only hope that we can remember what arrogant assholes we were to the world as the EU continues to climb and the US continues to slide.
Ah, I looked at your source. For some reason, teh sl4shd0t replace your tags with TR and TD tags. You should ALWAYS preview your post.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
I don't know that, and at the rate you're proving it, I might never.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
beuorcrats => bureaucrats
;-)
motiviation => motivation
just so you know.
-1, Offtopic for the parent post??
Either the mods today can't read, or they're promoting a very specific agenda...
you might as well give the number system and the concept of zero back to the Indians/Arabs who discovered it.
I don't give a shit-lick where the Internet was born or whose military gave birth to it. The internet is too integral to the present and future development of civilization for an ideologue government quite capable of manipulating it for its own petty commercial interests to retain control over who gets access.
We need to create a new fork, fix the existing problems*, and route the new internet around the damage that is the US goverment.
*They'll take credit for the internet when it means retaining control, but 'oh well' the flaws that hinder it today.
Mod me as you like, reactionaries. I know how the idea of a world without Yankistan terrifies you.
And the rest of the world doesn't?
Do you really want China, who sits on the Security Council, making decisions about the internet? Under the control of the USA, the internet has florished, under the control of the UN, it would be strangled.
Look at all the scandels that constantly plague the UN, all the corruption. And you have no say at all in anything the UN does. You want them to control the internet? This isn't dick waving, this is just common sense. If you think anyone in the international community can do a better job than the USA, please, by all means, tell us who you have in mind and why they can do a better job.
And maybe the US is afraid to 'cooperate', as you put it, because we do all the work, spend all the money, and then get screwed by those we 'cooperate' with, when they don't cooperate back. Just look at the Human Rights commission!
Mod me as you like, but please think at least for a second about what i said.
I did, and I can only believe that you are a troll, and a complete nitwit.
Really? Who would do as good a job as the USA has?
You're all so quick to insult the United States over this, but who is censoring the internet these days? No one in the USA is, but China does, France does, several other countries as well. Do you want Them to run it? Or the UN, on which those two countries sit on the Security Council? How about all the other countries in the UN that are opposed to free speech? You want those people to run it?
Really now.
I see a lot of folks here screaming to take it from the USA, but the fact is, the USA built it, and under the USA it has florished and grown. Any other country could have done this, but they didn't. Why? Because no one else has the freedoms that we enjoy here in the US.
With everything that has happened, saying that you 'do not think that having the root domains under US control' shows that you 'do not think' at all. The internet could only have happened with the US control. The fact that it did is simple proof of that. Give that control to someone else, and the internet will no longer be free.
Yeah after all, the UN supports Genocide, Dictator's, suppression of free speech, slavery, and is the most corrupt world body in the history of the world!
Yes, why don't we let the UN look after it? Then they can silence all those stories of their soldiers raping children and Koffi Anann taking bribes to help prop up a sadistic dictator who likes to drop people into shredders feet first.
A key document is called Rebuilding America's Defenses, available here: http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDe fenses.pdf
From page 12: 'CONTROL THE NEW "INTERNATIONAL COMMONS" OF SPACE AND "CYBERSPACE," and pave
the way for the creation of a new military service - U.S. Space Forces - with the mission of
space control.'
The scariest part is that the folks who wrote all this crap are controlling our government right now.
I've heard that the root name servers are privately owned, and that they just let ICANN take care of the names and what not for them.
But my understanding was that they don't have to follow ICANN. They just let ICANN do it's thing because they're not in the business of keeping track of names.
I heard about a case where ICANN told the root name server maintainers to install specific private keys- to basically hand over all control of the name servers to ICANN. And the root name server maintainers basically told them to take a hike.
Is this true?
ICANN is nothing more than a beaurocracy that can't do anything but sniff it's own ass and wonder what it sat in. ICANN is ridiculously selfish with its control over the domain industry as it is. I really, REALLY don't want to see them have any more control over it than they already do. Remember, these are the same people who took about 6 years to open the registration process to other registrars besides Network Solutions/Verisign/InterNIC. $35/year down to, in some cases, less than $8.00 almost imediately after they relinquished control.
They wouldn't know a proper business decision if it tossed their collective salad. Believe me, they don't DESERVE more control.
Mike
Inverted Mind: Useless stuff to read when you should be working
http://www.invertedmind.com/
Wait! Arn't we supposed to not like the EVIL ICANN? Why is it sooooo bad that they don't get control over the root servers?
"The US Department of Commerce has reversed its original decision on the Internet's root DNS servers, which would have eventually seen them pass into the hands of ICANN." Who runs the USDC? Someone appointed by whom? This ain't flamebait or a troll post. It's legit criticism. This decision was based on the political philosophy of the administration, not with our interests in mind. I am faulting them for that.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050630/ap_on_hi_te/in ternet_control
""The signals and words and intentions and policies need to be clear so all of us benefiting in the world from the Internet and in the U.S. economy can have confidence there will be continued stewardship," Gallagher said in an interview with The Associated Press. [...]
Policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable. [...]"
Hallelujah! Don't y'all feel so much happier now that the "stewardship" of the Internet will remain indefinitely in the hands of the wingnuts in the Bush government?
What, the UN that rapes children?? And you want to put them in charge of the root DNS servers? America needs to get over the KofiAddiction and how. I have never seen an International Peace organization allowed to be so frickin' filthy. I would honestly like to know what would happen if it were made public that our soldiers were raping Iraqi children. Or selling them into sex slavery. Have you been to Darfur or Bosnia and seen the conditions of the UN Refugees??? They can't live up to what their charter says they are supposed to do to facilitate peace.
No offense, but the UN needs to pull their head out of the sand, make a complete reformation and revamp the Security Council before they can have *any* more power in the World, developing or otherwise.
Sorry man... the Internet pooped on me.
Root DNS != DNS Registry
.uk, .fr, .to, ...) are generally run by an agency of the country's government, and has total control over the names in their domain. Except for .us, the US government has no power over them. If someone tries to change the root servers to deflect them, it's not hard to set up a few new root servers and point your own resolv.conf files somewhere that uses them.
Good point. And to be a bit more direct, we might point out that it doesn't actually matter all that much who runs "the DNS Root Servers".
After all, the Internet itself (at the network level) doesn't use DNS; it routes entirely on address with no concern for any symbolic names that might be associated with the addresses. If some gang of users wants to set up their own name-to-address mapping scheme, who's to stop them? Who's to even know they're doing it? And how could it impact the current DNS system at all?
In fact, I've taken part in a couple of setups that did this. The purpose was testing some new software, and we didn't want to impact anyone else. So we set up our own set of DNS servers (partly with our own experimental software), and put their addresses in the resolv.conf files of our test setup. It worked just fine. We could debug our software without affecting anyone else at all. When we got it working, we tied it into the public Internet, but I see no reason that we had to do this. We could have kept using it indefinitely as our private DNS system if we'd liked.
I've seen a few claims that there are parts of the Internet that are using their own DNS servers for various reasons. I haven't really investigated, because it's not actually all that interesting an idea. If you understand the Internet at all, you just shrug, say "Why not?" and go about your business.
So, instead of pretending that the US or any other government has total control over "the" DNS system, why don't we discuss the actual alternatives? This would include pointing out that anyone who doesn't like ICANN or the US government or whatever can easily do an end run around them and set up their own DNS system.
In a sense, many countries have already done this. The national domains (.us,
So why all the flamage, when independent DNS servers are so easy?
Am I missing something? Did the independent servers in our test setups do something subtly wrong that we didn't see? Is there some international law against this?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm pissed. How can I protest this? "Mission accomplished." -- Very funny!
... turned up a good article on the topic of alternative DNS root servers. It turns out that several are alive and well, and serving the communities that use them.
No surprise, actually, if you know anything about how the Internet works. And it's quite possible that some of these may eventually become mainstream servers.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The UK believes that passenger locomotives are important enough that they should be under the control and purview of the same entities that have been their stewards in some cases since the literal inception of railroads itself, rather than in the hands of individual couintries that may not have the same level of experience. This isn't just about "running on time" or knowing how to run a get to the next station. That's the most vanishingly small part of this equation.
Also, it might help to remember that the UK, along with its vast military-industrial complex, Stockton & Darlington Railroad Company and Samuel Homfrays investments into pie-in-the-sky technologies, and their massive academic research establishment are what you and the entire fucking world HAS TO THANK for "passenger trains", and they proved that they can manage the stations and have a secure and well established network of capable contractors, so I think that, given the importance of trains to the US, its economy, and the rest of the world you're damned straight they have a vested interest in making sure critical internet infrastructure is properly administered (and by "administered", I don't mean from a engineering perspective).
And while the corporations with the maintenaince contracts make some money and might not want to see that go away, this decision is NOT for "making more money for some corporations". It's been made for the security of these critical infrastructure pieces. In our own system, we have some accountability and we know it. Even if individual countries meet our guidelines, there are no guarantees that their capability and contingencies are better than, or even meet, the capability that already exists in the prevailing arrangement. Why ratchet back from predictability and reliability, and a known set of variables, frankly, to "please" the international community? The "railroad system", in general, was not an international creation. It was a UK creation, the result of a lot of investment and research dollars from the exact entities that no one else would have supported. The fact that it has easily become an exceedingly open international and global tool is a testament to its creators.
(I realise there were a number of horse drawn rail wagons in Germany/Europe which is why I tries to use "passenger locomotives" where appropriate.)
This is quite interesting, in light of Pakistan's current Internet outage:
http://www.pakistantimes.net/2005/07/01/top1.htm
Brazil is keeping in line at this point, I imagine.
Why Vegan? No other food choice has a farther-reaching and more profoundly positive impact on all of life on Earth.
This decision has virtually no impact on anything. Any changes ICANN would like to do could be requested in any case.
Also, the US Gov't is sill more secure (as bad as it is) than something ICANN or the UN would come up with.
Everyone, no matter where your from, should be thankful. The Internet will run as is without worry.
My systems contact "US approved" root DNS servers because thats how I configure named on my local sever. If China, Iran, Zimbabwe or other enterprises that don't like the US servers for whatever reason, they can operate their own set of "root" servers (and impose the one-bullet-to-base-of-skull penalty to anyone in their country who attempts to use proscribe servers). The Internet was designed to be open and thats where this "forking" of the DNS will end up.
Yeah -- how *dare* they listen to the majority of their people?
Funny how this "democratic coalition" consists almost exclusively of administrations who ignored *even larger* majorities of their people opposing the war than the ones who wound up joining the warmongering.
E.g., opposition in countries like Spain and Turkey was larger than in France et al -- so in the name of democracy you're criticizing these countries for refusing to overrule their people's majority opinion?
Get a clue, please.
If you want people to check out individual articles, you should really permalink those things, rather than linking to your main page.