On May 18, 2024, at 02:30, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
So Cogent operates a root server because they bought PSI who ran a
root server and ICANN has never chosen to throw down the gauntlet.

As John said, ICANN has nothing to do with who runs root servers.

Wrong in 2 ways:

1) ICANN runs one of root servers.

2) https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=120820189

Last I knew, NTIA still believed that NTIA selects the root server operators.

I doubt even NTIA would _ever_ have said this, and certainly not since the IANA Functions transition. This is simply not how the relationship between NTIA and ICANN operated (pre-transition, after transition it is even less).

Eventually the last person at NTIA who still knows what that means will retire, and then nobody in the USG will believe that they have responsibility. Then, ICANN lawyers will presumably start insinuating that, actually, ICANN can do what it wants there. Which they’ve already laid the groundwork for by failing to reassign the L-root nameserver for the last twenty-two years. Not a task that should take twenty-two years, in my opinion… CGI is perfectly capable, and there are no root servers administered in the southern hemisphere. State and Commerce were considering reassigning it as an apology for the Rousseff spying incident in 2013, but they didn’t quite get it together to act.