Re: [ga] Re: ICANN before the US Senate...

[Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 02:32:14PM -0400,
 L. Gallegos <jandl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote 
 a message of 160 lines which said:

> Pretty simple, really.  Pre-existing TLDs prevail unless there is 
> agreement among managers to the contrary or an abandoment of the
> TLD.  

Cool, I just created ".bortzmeyer" on my PC at home (which is its own
root name server) yesterday evening. Let's add it to the root.

I also created ".biz" ten years ago (I have some friends that can
testify). Let's give it to me. A purely technical decision.

> In actuality, it is a technical decision more than a political one,
> as well as using established guidelines.

I have never see actual proposals for such guidelines, other than
pious "We will work very hard to avoid collisions".

> Calling them dummy domains is incorrect.  I may not agree with their
> methods (and do not), but they are technically operational, fully
> functional TLDs.

So is ".bortzmeyer". Creating a "technically operational" TLD is
simple. There is no merit in it.
 
> Creation of a gTLD isn't rocket science either.  Set the technical
> guidelines

Again, I would appreciate to see actual proposals for such guidelines.

> That is a separate function and a critical one.  If an RIR is to be
> added, I think it should be with the cooperation of the other RIR's,
> which have done a good job thus far.

You call leaving *two* /8 (including one which is not announced via
BGP) to a large US company and now pressuring african countries to be
"reasonable" and to use only a /28 for an entire University, "a good
job"?

Otherwise, see my response to Karl Auerbach.

>  Quite frankly, I would like to see what would happen if the USG
> root suddenly included all currently operational TLDs, thus
> eliminating the political issues.

There are several ".mp3" or ".home". Which one will be included?
 
> With some ten thousand TLDs, there would be a major shift in the
> monetary value of a single domain - downward, the elimination of
> fighting over IP rights (which has no place in the DNS) and
> rendering politics surrounding TLDs obsolete.

I agree it is an interesting idea. But I fear that it might have the
opposite effect: users will stick with ".com" because they do not
understand all these new domains. Paradoxically, creating 10 000 new
TLD might reinforce Verisign's position.

> A DOS attack or crack would then have to be carried out on hundreds
> of servers rather than just 13.

Because of anycasting, there are already more than 13 (21 the last
time I counted, not including the unofficial replicas that many
operators or network administrators create, and the number is rapidly
growing since October 2002).

> Many also use different operating systems and DNS servers,

All 13 name servers use different operating systems and DNS servers.

> The distribution of servers is also wider.

The geographical distribution of the root name servers is much better
now, thanks to anycast. The political distribution, unfortunately,
remains the same (I agree with you here).