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Re: Microsoft spokesperson blames ICANN

  • From: Henry Yen
  • Date: Thu Jan 25 00:28:28 2001

On Wed, Jan 24, 2001 at 11:04:55AM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> In message <[email protected]>, Jim Duncan writes:
> >Sean Donelan writes:
> >> Microsoft appears to be blaming ICANN for the failure with Microft's
> >> domain name servers (all located at the same place at Microsoft).
> >> 
> >>   Microsoft has yet to pin down the cause of the DNS error. "It can
> >>   be a system or human error, but somebody could also have done this
> >>   intentionally," De Jonge said. "We don't manage the DNS ourselves,
> >>   it is a system controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned
> >>   Names and Numbers (ICANN) with worldwide replicas."
> >> 
> >> http://www.idg.net/ic_386962_1793_1-1681.html
> >
> >I have read that article many, many time today, trying to see how you 
> >came to that conclusion and I don't get it.  To reach that conclusion, 
> >you've clearly quoted them out of the context of the larger article.  
> >Even to reach that conclusion from the small part you quoted requires a 
> >logical leap that is inappropriate, if not outright incorrect.
> 
> Sorry, Jim; I think it's not that much of a stretch.  They said that 
> (a) it's a DNS problem, (b) they don't understand the cause, but (c) 
> they don't manage the DNS, ICANN does.  OK -- the problem is therefore 

if icann munged one or more root servers, then icann would be at (partial
or total) fault.  microsoft's authoritative nameservers are managed
by microsoft.  as is pointed out below [ snipped ], if the "internet's"
name servers were at fault, then it's true that microsoft "doesn't manage
the DNS".  if microsoft's nameservers were (directly or indirectly)
at fault, then (c) would be irrelevant and misleading.  my take (and
i am trying to stay unbiased) is that the latter is pretty much clearly
correlating with the symptoms seen 'net-wide, so far, and not the former.
that is, (a), (b), and "(c) we manage the portion of our DNS that seems
to be the broken portion".