An interesting question I've dealt with a few times:
From whom do the root nameservers derive their authority?
we (i'm speaking for f-root here) have no "authority". nobody has to listen to us, we are the most powerless bunch of folks you'll ever meet. now if you'd asked where we derive our *relevance*, i'd say the same as mr. bush and mr. kletnieks -- from all the root.cache files that point at us. and as long as we don't do anything stupid i guess (and hope) that this state of affairs will continue. (relevance trumps authority.) that having been said, f-root got its start as NS.ISC.ORG and the man who said it was ok for us to be a root name server was jon postel. i'm not sure he had any "authority" either, but folks "pointed at" him and so what he said was relevant in spite of any authority he mightn've had. -- Paul Vixie