From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 09:24:53 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net
Subject: Re: Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted
Message-ID: <01I0SEGNWJAYA0UTZ4@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


	One thing that I'm worried about is InterNIC. As I understand it, it
is a central company that is in the business of receiving domain name
registrations, including the info on what that domain is connected to, and
sending it out to various nameservers. The nameservers then use this to route
some (not all, I do believe) traffic.
	This situation is a weak point. The government in whatever country
InterNIC's physical presence is in (the US, I believe) can put pressure on
it for "faciliating breakage of laws" or some such nonsense (for some material,
such as the sites that have crypto material, the espionage argument that it
is cooperating in limiting their ability to work might be what was used). It
is then forced to stop issuing domain names except to people the US govt wants
to get such. Nameservers in the US that use any other service to determine
domain names get arrested themselves, under likewise treatment.
	Now, this can all be fought in the courts and will likely be defeated..
but it would still cause some problems. Am I completely incorrect, or do the
programmers on here and elsewhere need to start coming up with a better way to
do things?
	-Allen