North American Network Operators Group

Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

Re: Statements against new.net?

  • From: Patrick Greenwell
  • Date: Wed Mar 14 02:46:01 2001

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> >To be clear I am not arguing the merits of any of these particular
> >efforts, but simply that they exist, are operational, and as of yet the
> >"Internet" has not come crashing down upon anyones head. 
> >
> >Were you not aware of the existence of one or more such organizations when
> >the IAB formulated this document?
> >
> ....
> >
> >What exactly was the motivation for such a document if not political, 
> >especially given the timing? 
> 
> Of course we were aware of such efforts -- that's precisely why we 
> wrote the document, to warn that they were bad ideas. 

These efforts had been going on for *years* before this document was
inked, with actors like Kaspureff(sp?) et. al. You'll forgive me if I find
the timing of this document somewhat coincidental with the timing of the
process that has left us with ICANN. 

> And the fact that the Internet "has not come crashing down upon anyones
> head" is due to their very limited deployment.  The Internet is quite
> large; local disruptions *usually* don't affect most of the net.

Disruption? What disruption? People making a concious decision where to
point resolution to is "disruptive?"

> >Second, the alternative root server operators have attempted to address
> >this issue through communication/negotiation, like responsible members of
> >any community would. My understanding through following the various
> >mailing lists is that the majority of conflicts have been resolved in this
> >fashion. Where there is a refusal to communicate, or where conflict still
> >remains, the various operators act as they best see fit. I understand that
> >a community-based approach to "claim-staking"/conflict resolution makes
> >the "command and control" crowd a bit uncomfortable(witness some of the
> >virulant posters on the subject of new.net, et al.,) but this does nothing
> >to change the fact that these alternative root server networks exist and
> >that the Internet still works, mostly(as I'm sure you'd agree it's always
> >a little broken.) 
> 
> If our statement has advocated "command and control" as opposed to 
> consensus-based design of the root, it would indeed have been a 
> political statement.  But it didn't say that.

>From RFC2826:

"...That one root must be supported by a set of coordinated root servers
administered by a unique naming authority."

This statement in the context of the timing, pretty much sums up the
issue.