-- On Thursday, November 14, 2002 8:52 PM +0100 -- hostmaster <hostmaster@nso.org> supposedly wrote:
This all strikes me as incorrect. The function of the domain name system is primarily to translate an IP number into a domain name, vice versa. If a user wishes to browse to <http://64.236.16.20> he/she will arrive also at <www.cnn.com>. The domain name is propagated and subsequently refreshed throughout the World. A browser request and reply may take each time hundreds of different routes through the Internet from end-to-end. If Spain would want to deploy blocking of the domain CNN.com (or in fact any other domain) it would have to factually block individual IP's at the telco 'in and out of Spain routes' to accomplish that. This, by the way is currently e.g. done in the Peoples Republic of China, be it not really successful :) It is also so easy to set up secondary dns's anywhere else on the globe with a ptr to some other IP no., that a dns block sec would never be a successful action. Blocking a /24 in Spain may be effective, but if the Spanish site would be hosted elsewhere, or would have a mirror hosted elsewhere, the elsewhere legislation would be the regulations the telco's are confronted with, and looking at.
Suppose they just make it a law that each ISP has to block "domain.com" in their caching name servers? Sure, the user could telnet somewhere and find the IP address themselves, but it would stop 99.99% of the lusers out there. -- TTFN, patrick