From: shields@tembel.org (Michael Shields)
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 14:23:49 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: censored? corrected [Steve Pizzo cited in The Spotlight]
In-Reply-To: <199511022000.OAA09507@galil.austnsc.tandem.com.>
Message-ID: <47eti3$18q@yage.tembel.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


(Hopefully someone will correct me if any of this is wrong.  But it
would be nice if the thread ends.)

Here's how it works, politically.  IANA is the ultimate custodian of
the namespace.  IANA has delegated administrative control of the six
traditional top-level domains (TLDs) to the InterNIC.

The InterNIC is a building in my zipcode.  It's in a mundane industrial
park they share with PSI.  It is operated by NSI, which is owned by SAIC,
and funded by an NSF grant and the new domain charges.

Here's how it works, technically.  Your nameserver, if it doesn't
know how to jump into the middle of the tree (via cached data, or the
preconfigured servers for the local domain and the root), will start at
the top of the tree and walk down.

The root nameservers are run by volunteers.  There are nine.  One is
at the InterNIC, but it need not be.  The others are at ISI, PSI, UMD,
NASA, UUNET (ISC), DDN, the Army Research Lab, and NORDUnet (in Sweden).

(The most central point is actually Paul Vixie, maintainer of BIND,
the software used for almost all nameservers, including the roots.
UUNET funds BIND development.)

If the InterNIC yanked your domain, this would *not* affect your IP
connectivity -- your ability to be reached by any Internet protocol via
IP address.  The InterNIC has nothing at all to do with that.

I'm much more worried about a lack of competency at NSI than I am about
the FBI asking them to pull the plug on troublemakers, especially since
it would be taken very seriously if you had a legitimate complaint
about unjust termination (and some people, upset at having to pay for
their domain(s), are looking for any reason to tear into the InterNIC's
reputation).

And *especially* since the evil government types could just call up
Bell Atlantic, who they are already friendly with, and have them make
my line unusable.  That's what I'd do, were I an evil government type.

And if anyone wanted to subvert your domain at a small fraction of the
sites, DNS is easily spoofable....

So keep a sense of perspective.
-- 
Shields.