From: "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 15:02:53 +0800
To: Jim McCoy <mccoy@communities.com>
Subject: Re: Alternic.net (was domain zapping)
In-Reply-To: <v02140b02adf75a42eda3@[205.162.51.35]>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.94.960626220042.157A-100000@gak>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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On Wed, 26 Jun 1996, Jim McCoy wrote:

> John Fricker writes:
> 
> > DNS server administrators need only add one line to their named.boot file to
> > resolve .nic hosts.
> >
> > secondary       nic     204.94.42.1             db.nic
> >
> > It's that easy!
> 
> Sorry, but this only gives you domain name resolution for the .nic TLD, not
> the other new top-level domains they want to create or any domains that
> alternic is proposing to provide service for.  To do that one needs to add an
> appropriate line into the root.cache file (or whatever the root server list
> is in your name server setup), at which point you are also trusting alternic
> with pointing you properly to any domain they get queried on.

A better way is to add the nameserver data file distributed by alternic and
adding it to primary nameserver data.  The file that the alternic distributes
does not have any root level servers defined (except the ones distributed by
the Internic) so there isn't much trust involved.

> 
> > The concept of centralized name resolutions is flawed and
> > only exists out of habit.
> 
> It is not just about habit, it is also about trust.  There are alternatives,
> but they need to be thought-out much more than this alternic stuff...

I don't see trust as being much of a factor on the user-end.  The only people
that really need to trust alternic are the people who have domain names
registered with them.  If the alternic starts screwing with its nameserver
data, this will just cause them a severe loss of reputation without any gain.

- -- Mark

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