RE: [ICANN-EU] meeting esther dyson - a very short report

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Dear Christian,
this is a long dabated and explained issue. The hireachy may be
observed from two stand-points:

- as the owner of the Internet and you want your a-root to rule the
   world and say that otherwise the same url may not lead to the
   same page and you want to respect the author

- as the user of Internet and you want the root to be the root on
   your machine (as initialy devised) and you want the url to to lead
   to the places you accept as you want to be respected

Depending on your concepts of the society, you may chose one
or another. A good compromise is that every root defaults to the
others, so the unity and the liberty are respected. If there are
clone TLD the first hit version has the priority.

Examples: I could offer a clone .com nameservice removing from
it all the adult sites. I could change some banner sites by others.
etc... There are lready several hundreds of TLDs and a lot of them
are under alt.root. It works well if your PC call the alt.root instead
of defaulting to the a-root.

Jefsey



At 09:47 26/10/00, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>
>I certainly agree that from a political point of view a decentralized
>root-server-system would reduce the risk of abusive control by any
>one entity. However, I am not sure if it is technical feasible.
>
>Have a look at: ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2826.txt
>
>There it is specified:
>
>To remain a global network, the Internet requires the existence of a
>    globally unique public name space.  The DNS name space is a
>    hierarchical name space derived from a single, globally unique
>root.
>    This is a technical constraint inherent in the design of the DNS.
>    Therefore it is not technically feasible for there to be more than
>    one root in the public DNS.  That one root must be supported by a
>set
>    of coordinated root servers administered by a unique naming
>    authority.
>
>    Put simply, deploying multiple public DNS roots would raise a very
>    strong possibility that users of different ISPs who click on the same
>    link on a web page could end up at different destinations, against
>    the will of the web page designers.
>
>
>My question to all the techies on this list: Is this a mere justification
>of the current structure ( a claim to centralized power), or what?
>
>Best
>CH
>
>
>
>Date sent:              Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:52:34 +0200 (CEST)
>From:                   Marc Schneiders <marc@schneiders.org>
>To:                     "McMeikan, Andrew" <andrew.mcmeikan@mitswa.com.au>
>Copies to:              "'icann-europe@fitug.de'" <icann-europe@fitug.de>, 
>csif-l@jca.apc.org,
>         "'Andy Mueller-Maguhn'" <andy@ccc.de>
>Subject:                RE: [ICANN-EU] meeting esther dyson - a very short 
>report
>
>On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, McMeikan, Andrew wrote:
>
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > A very informative report and one that should give good cause for some
> > serious thinking.
> >
> > In my mind if the system is going to change to a truly de-centralized one
> > then some infrastructure needs to be in place to achieve this.  That means
> > something that can not be shutdown or controlled by any government
> > anywhere, with all the power for changes in a distributed web of trust,
> > outside of legislation, tm-mark laws or UDRP action.
>
>That would be heaven. Basically it needs different roots. Right now
>there is a single point-of-failure / attack.
>
> > Does anyone have good reason why a linkage of private, corporate and
> > organizational networks could not be managed in this way?
>
>This would work if some very big players would go for it. Perhaps all
>the big ones are too much interrelated with the IP/TM interest to want
>it, or be able to do it.
>
> > If corporate wishes to abide by arbitrary rulings (they may well since
> > they have the lawyers) they can stick with the existing method.
> >
> > But the free exchange of network addressing in a distributed manner (by
> > perhaps a freenet descendant) is something I think should be pursued and
> > would result in a truly robust and bottom up run internetwork.
>
>Freenet, yes. I got lost shortly before 0.3 came out. It *never*
>worked for days, weeks (I may be exaggerating, just for once). Must
>try it again soon. Still a long way to go.
>
> > I hope that Andy can make enough noise in this direction that the system
> > opens up a bit so that there will be one addressing scheme that serves all
> > instead of alternate DNS roots springing up.
>
>ICANN may now have its last chance. If they mess up the new gTLDs
>alternate roots may have an opportunity. (They are already there of
>course.) I am less and less worried about 'splits'. It will make DNS
>less hierarchical, if successfull. And less vulnerable. Which brings
>us back to the top of your message.
>
>Successfull would mean: 20% users within 6 months.
>
>--
>Marc Schneiders
>
>"In re tam iusta nulla est deliberatio."
>(Acta SS. Mart. Scillitanorum [AD 202])
>
>
>
>Christian_Ahlert@harvard.edu              recent writings at:
>
>Giessener Pforte 39                       http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/icann
>35440 Linden                              http://www.telepolis.de
>Germany
>Mobile: 0049 +171 581 3662
>
>Different versions of cyberspace support different kinds of dreams. We 
>choose wisely, or not.