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U.S. Won't Let Go of DNS
An Anonymous Reader wrote in with a story on the Eweek site, reporting that the Federal Government is going to keep control of the Domain Name System rather than handing it over to ICANN. From the article: "...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..."
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/061825 0&tid=103
rooooar
Yeah well, the agency within the UN that would administrate the TLDs, should the US release control over them, is the very same agency that made sure that the world has one telephone standard, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The ITU was founded before the UN was, and oviously, it has very little to do with human rights issues, they just happen to share some organizational structure.
This constant ignorant whining of the "the UN is a worthless piece of garbage" kind, is getting on my nerves. Educate yourself instead of repeating soundbites you heard on the news.
More info here: ITU history
What about physical security? How can you guarantee that if the root servers are spread out across the world?
The root servers are spread out all over the world. It is that, in fact, that guarantees physical security, because the system is physically distributed. There is no central point of failure to attack.
That's rather the point of the Internet.
KFG
Basically, the identities of the root nameservers are defined by the contents of the root hints files in the nameserver software used by every company and ISP on the planet. If a release of BIND comes out and it has a certain IP address in its root hints, then that's what the people using that release of BIND will use. If Windows Server 2010 uses a different IP address, people using that nameserver will get that root server instead.
So, most of the big nameservers out there are using BIND, with dedicated Windows shops running AD or running BIND on Windows and everyone sane using UNIX, it's really up to Paul Vixie at ISC. So long as he plays ball with the Commerce Department, nobody needs to get hurt...
If I am so ignorant of the real, good accomplishments of the UN, the please post them here. Let's see them.
No problem. Some googling resulted in this list of UN accomplishments.
Please take some time to read it. There's some pretty good stuff in there, I think.
Some highlights:
5. UNICEF spends more than $800 million a year, primarily on immunization, health care, nutrition and basic education in 138 countries.
9. Over 300 international treaties, on topics as varied as human rights conventions to agreements on the use of outer space and seabed.
11. The UN was a major factor in bringing about the downfall of the apartheid system.
12. More than 30 million refugees fleeing war, famine or persecution have received aid from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
41. Improving global communications Regulated international mail delivery, coordinated use of the radio spectrum, promoted cooperation in assigning positions for stationary satellites, and established international standards for communications, thereby ensuring the unfettered flow of information around the globe.
45. Improving education in developing countries 60% of adults in developing countries can now read and write, and 80 percent of children in these countries attend school.