Multiple Roots are "a good thing" - Karl Auerbach
On Fri Mar 16 08:48:04 2001, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@civicnet.org> wrote:
For the Internet to work, at least with currently accepted DNS standards, everyone has to use the same root servers. Otherwise things can rapidly degenerate into chaos. The whole point of law and due process is that a duly authorized somebody has to have the authority to insist that everyone use the same root servers.
From a technical point of view all that a root server group does is to give its users a way to find the DNS servers that handle the various Top Level Domains (TLDs). The root servers do not themselves answer queries about what names are inside the various TLDs. Those questions are passed on to the TLD servers
Sorry, Miles, it's not true. It's just ICANN FUD. Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer, has said that potential problems exist for users with any of the several alternative root or domain systems on the market. He argues: "The Internet works because of common protocols. The DNS protocol depends for its reliability and trustworthiness on the principle of authoritative uniqueness, which requires the use of a single root." He added "Anything else creates the potential for conflicts." Read carefully, Andrew McLaughlin is saying there's a need for uniqueness as otherwise the same name will resolve in different ways. He is arguing, like you, that the *only* way to resolve the problem is with a unique (read "ICANN") root. Of course, ICANN's claim to be the one and only authority over the internet allows them to get away with introducing a new dot BIZ knowing it is causing a collision. But, in answer to your point, Karl Auerbach has described how multiple roots work as follows: "What I would say to the House Commerce Committee were I invited to testify" by Karl Auerbach. <snip> 2. Multiple Roots are "a good thing" http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_2.htm#multiple_roots It wasn't that many years ago in the United States when there was one big, monolithic telephone company. It was taken as gospel by many that the stability of the telephone network depended on there being one unified, monolithic telephone company. We've seen through that. Today we have a flourishing competitive telephone system filled with all kinds of commercial and technical offerings that were inconceivable during the days of "Ma Bell". We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in various shapes and forms, web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM). These telephone directories are not published by any unified authority, there is no regulatory body sitting over them. And we as consumers are not damaged or harmed by this. And the telephone system continues to work just fine. Yet, on the Internet there are those who wail and gnash their teeth at the thought that the Domain Name System, the Internet's "white pages" might have multiple points of entry. Indeed, the whole series of documents from NTIA -- including the Green and White Papers -- and the existence of ICANN is founded on the notion that there is but one root system for the Domain Name System. I assert that those nay-sayers are wrong. I assert that just like the telephone system can have multiple publishers of telephone directory services, the Internet can have multiple roots to the Domain Name System. There is no doubt that as a purely technical matter, the Internet can have multiple root systems for the DNS. It has had these for years. The question is whether to recognize the value and use of multiple root systems and not foreclose them. Let's get a bit more specific. When I say "multiple root systems", I mean a regime in which you, or I, or anybody can set up a set of computers to serve as a suite of root servers for the DNS. In other words, you, or I, or anybody could establish a group of computers to operate in parallel with, and not necessarily in administrative coordination with, the legacy A-L.root-servers.net computers now operated by NSI, IANA, ICANN and others. themselves. That is a subtle point and a point that is often lost when discussing the DNS. It bears repeating -- all that a root server does is to answer queries about how to find a server handling a TLD named in the query. In other words, a root server only answers queries such as "Where do I find a server that contains the list of names in .com?". Now that we know that root servers and root server systems are nothing more than the doorway through which one enters the Domain System, we can ask this question: What happens when we begin to think of the Domain Name System not as an intrinsic core service of the Internet, but rather as an elective service that can be offered by many providers and among which customers and user select based on the packages offered by the providers? I'll give you a preview of the answer: We end up with a stable Internet with no loss of reachability. We get a system of competitive root operators who make business decisions about what TLDs they want to incorporate into their "inventory". We get rid of questions about "how many TLDs should be created?". We don't need complicated ICANN-like quasi-governmental agencies overseeing the DNS and the Internet. And we end up with a means for communities of users to fine tune the view of the Internet Landscape that they want to allow into their communities. So, you should be asking yourselves, how does this Nirvana come about? Imagine each operator of a root server system as a store. The shelves contain the store's inventory. In this case the inventory consists of TLDs that the root server system knows about. Thus, a user of a root server system will perceive a Domain Name name space composed of the TLDs in the store (the root server system) that that user has elected to use. Now, I should mention, that when I say "user has elected to use", I don't really usually mean the end-user directly. In most cases, the end-user will have delegated the choice to that user's ISP or to his or her organizational information manager. Of course, the technically inclined, such as myself, will tend to make the choice for ourselves. How does a root server operator select the inventory of TLDs that it wishes to offer? The answer is "whatever satisfies the needs and demands of the operator's customer base." If we look at this through the eyes of a businessman operating a root server system, we realize that there are two elements that the customers will care about: TLD coverage and value added services. As a general rule, customers of a root server system will act much like subscribers to a cable TV system -- they will want as many TLDs (or as many channels) as they can get. This will drive the root server system operators to include as many viable TLDs as they can into their inventory. The net result of all the root system operators following this strategy will be that they all attempt to trump one another by each including more TLDs. The end of this is that all root server operators will incorporate all viable TLDs. The benefit of this is that the domain names of all people and organizations who have registrations in these TLDs will be essentially universally resolvable no matter which root server system us being used. I've used the phrase "viable TLDs" to describe those which are of a character that most reasonable root system operators would feel that they could incorporate that TLD into their inventory without undue risk of problems. It is easiest to define "viable TLDs" by listing what kind of TLDs would be non-viable. TLDs that are being contested are not very viable. Thus, if two or more claimants were offering different versions of a TLD named ".foo", it would be unlikely that any root system operator would add any version of ".foo" to the inventory. This tends to remove the issue of TLD ownership from the current ICANN regulatory framework and place it where it belongs -- in the traditional give and take world of business and open market economics. Since all root server systems will tend to eventually incorporate all viable TLDs into their inventory, value added services will tend to become the differentiating factor between root server systems. One might well ask how a root server system can offer value added services? It does seem an odd concept at first, but then again, a few years ago, the notion of value added long distance telephone services was an odd concept. An example of a value added service would be that of filtration -- A root server system operator may offer a service in which customers who use that root will be able to have the responses cleaned of any answers that are sources of pornographic material. This could be a valuable tool for communities that wish to tailor their view of the Internet Landscape according to their own community standards. And it is a mechanism which allows any member to opt out of the community, and its restrictions, simply by selecting another root server operator. Yes, there are other ways to achieve the same kind of filtering, but who are we to say which methods are the most viable? Indeed, we should be careful not to dismiss, or worse to foreclose, an area of Internet entrepreneurship simply because we don't see the immediate value. I'd like to finish this discussion about multiple roots with a few observations. Multiple root systems add to the stability of the internet by removing a dependence on a single root system for the Domain Name System. Multiple root systems eliminate the need to face questions such as "what new gTLDs should be added" - multiple root systems permit the marketplace to provide the answer. Multiple root systems provide means for inventors and entrepreneurs to create new ways of packaging DNS servers. And I've suggested one such extension that could add a new means for individuals or communities to shield themselves from the tidal wave of questionable material on the Internet. So, why have multiple root systems not evolved? One of the reasons is that the existing system has so far worked reasonably well, so there has been little pressure. But there is a very strong secondary reason -- those who have advocated or established a multiple root system have been shunned by the technical community. But the biggest reason why it hasn't happened is that ever since the NTIA process started, the idea that there could be multiple roots has been swept aside with an administrative flick of the wrist and an offhand repetition of the stale legend: "oh that would never comport with network stability". <snip>
On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Patrick Corliss wrote:
Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@civicnet.org> wrote:
For the Internet to work, at least with currently accepted DNS standards, everyone has to use the same root servers. Otherwise things can rapidly degenerate into chaos. The whole point of law and due process is that a duly authorized somebody has to have the authority to insist that everyone use the same root servers.
Sorry, Miles, it's not true. It's just ICANN FUD.
I respectfully disagree, at least in part.
Read carefully, Andrew McLaughlin is saying there's a need for uniqueness as otherwise the same name will resolve in different ways. He is arguing, like you, that the *only* way to resolve the problem is with a unique (read "ICANN") root.
I probably should have said, in the first place, that if there are multiple roots, they need to be authoritative. One can envision a number of ways for that to be implemented - most of which would seem to require a human arbiter to settle disputes (if not ICANN, then some other body). re. Karl Auerbach's comments:
"What I would say to the House Commerce Committee were I invited to testify" by Karl Auerbach.
2. Multiple Roots are "a good thing"
We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in various shapes and forms, web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).
I would suggest that telephone books/directories are not an appropriate analogy. Rather, DNS is a lot closer to the internal plumbing of the net - more akin to Signalling System #7. I'd guess that for 95% or more of phone calls, the caller already knows the numeric phone number in question - while for the Internet, very few people give their email addresses as mfidelman@207.226.172.79 or http://207.226.172.79. Telephone directories are optional in most cases, DNS is not. Yes, the Internet can function on numeric IP addresses alone - but unlike the phone network, people don't give out email addresses or URLs containing their numeric host addresses. Regarding the rest of Karl's article, talking aout a completely open world of multiple root servers. I am simply reminded of the days when we had rapid additions to the range of area codes an local exchanges. I remember numerous times when I could not make a call from a company's PBX - because that PBX's software hadn't been updated, and didn't recognize the validity of some new area code or exchange. I've also encountered this problem with software not recognizing new zip codes. At least with phone numbers and zip codes, we don't have the problem of overlapping namespaces - there are clearly established legal and regulatory authorities that manage the telephone numbering and postal code namespaces. I suggest that there are three very specific problems that need to be addressed: - propagation of new namespace information - uniqueness of namespace information. - avoiding namespace hijacking As long as there is a single set of root nameservers, run by a single, accountable organization, these are easy problems. As soon as one admits of multiple root servers, the following problems have to be addressed: - the operational problems of dealing with incomplete propogation of information (particularly when dealing with the clueless: "what do you mean you can't find my web site, I registered it with new.net") - an official way to deal with conflicts between overlapping top level domains (dealing with the trademark issues is bad enough, but where does someone go to fight out ownership of "good.sex" when 100s of different people register it with competing registrars) -- I'm not saying we can't come up with an arbitration scheme and somebody with the clout to enforce decisions, just that one will be needed. In the current system, as with phone numbers and area codes, there simply is no way that the same domain can be assigned to multiple people. - a similarly offical mechanism for dealing with conflicts when different registrars, above board or otherwise, provide different information for the same domain In other words, we need an authorized international body with the clout to oversee the whole mess. But then, isn't that what ICANN is supposed to be? (Or would you rather have the ITU oversee the Internet?) Speaking as someone who hosts a whole bunch of web sites and web sites, I see a world of profit-motivated, competing rootservers as creating an incredible number of problems that I'd just as soon not have to deal with. ************************************************************************** The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618 Miles R. Fidelman, President & Newtonville, MA 02460-0006 Director, Municipal Telecommunications Strategies Program 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946 mfidelman@civicnet.org http://civic.net/ccn.html Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!" **************************************************************************
[ On Sunday, March 18, 2001 at 14:23:26 (-0500), Miles Fidelman wrote: ]
Subject: Re: Multiple Roots are "a good thing" - Karl Auerbach
I would suggest that telephone books/directories are not an appropriate analogy. Rather, DNS is a lot closer to the internal plumbing of the net - more akin to Signalling System #7. I'd guess that for 95% or more of phone calls, the caller already knows the numeric phone number in question - while for the Internet, very few people give their email addresses as mfidelman@207.226.172.79 or http://207.226.172.79. Telephone directories are optional in most cases, DNS is not.
You are absolutely correct. :-) Telephone directories are most definitely *not* like the DNS. A domain name is more like a telephone number itself, and as you say the IP numbers are more like the underlying circuit routing glue in something like SS#7. We really do not have a "telephone directory" for the Internet (unless you count WHOIS/RWHOIS). A directory is something that can be searched with approximate matches. Because the DNS is "D"istributed, it is literally impossible search it that way (and if there were multiple roots then all users would really be up the creek without the proverbial paddle!).
Yes, the Internet can function on numeric IP addresses alone
The Internet could sort of run on IP address numbers alone (but it almost never has -- there was hosts.txt before DNS). However since IP numbers can change (at a much greater frequency than telephone numbers ever change) without the "content" changing, the indirection of DNS names to IP numbers is a critical part of the longer-term consistency of the net. In the phone system analogy it would be like having the phone company come along and randomise your entire number every month or so (not just your "network" (aka local exchange) number). Since most people don't actually move locations that often such a regular but random renumbering that was not in the direct control of the user would cause general havoc with telephone users. In the real-world phone systems it might not be so easy to re-number and re-route exchanges in the underlying signaling systems as it is to renumber IP networks, but then again most analogies only go so far....
- but unlike the phone network, people don't give out email addresses or URLs containing their numeric host addresses.
Well, some spammers do, but that's their fault! :-)
In other words, we need an authorized international body with the clout to oversee the whole mess. But then, isn't that what ICANN is supposed to be? (Or would you rather have the ITU oversee the Internet?)
some days I'd rather have the UN do it... :-) -- Greg A. Woods +1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@acm.org> <robohack!woods> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>
At 03:47 PM 3/18/01 -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
I would suggest that telephone books/directories are not an appropriate analogy. Rather, DNS is a lot closer to the internal plumbing of the net - more akin to Signalling System #7. I'd guess that for 95% or more of phone calls, the caller already knows the numeric phone number in question - while for the Internet, very few people give their email addresses as mfidelman@207.226.172.79 or http://207.226.172.79. Telephone directories are optional in most cases, DNS is not.
You are absolutely correct. :-)
Telephone directories are most definitely *not* like the DNS.
I don't get this argument at all. A telephone white pages lookup takes a name [a-z + 0-9] and looks up a number [0-9]. DNS does exactly the same thing. The only difference is a hierarchical naming convention in DNS which specifies/delegates where the information is stored. The information could reside in the same place, or be distributed.
A directory is something that can be searched with approximate matches. Because the DNS is "D"istributed, it is literally impossible search it that way (and if there were multiple roots then all users would really be up the creek without the proverbial paddle!).
DNS can be searched up, down and sideways. It may change the normal query method or add additional transactions to a lookup, but it can be searched and indexed. The questions are "does the index scale" and "does it matter"? Best Regards, Simon Higgs -- It's a feature not a bug...
In other words, we need an authorized international body with the clout to oversee the whole mess. But then, isn't that what ICANN is supposed to be? (Or would you rather have the ITU oversee the Internet?)
some days I'd rather have the UN do it... :-)
Well, the end result would probably be the same. To quote http://www.itu.int/aboutitu/history/history.html (...) In 1947, after the Second World War, the ITU held a conference with the aim of developing and modernizing the organization. Under an agreement with the United Nations, it became a specialized agency of the United Nations on 15 October 1947 (...) So... If you think choosing ITU as the governing body would be bad, it might be wise to be careful what else you wish for. Regards, - Håvard
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 03:38:54AM +1100, Patrick Corliss wrote:
Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief policy officer, has said that potential (...) "The Internet works because of common protocols. The DNS protocol depends for its reliability and trustworthiness on the principle of authoritative uniqueness, which requires the use of a single root."
The DNS namespace is a lot like assigning shortwave radio frequencies, which have a worldwide reach. We've seem some pretty spectacular bidding for 3G UMTS frequencies. It would be interesting to look for parallels, and see how international radio frequencies are given out. Perhaps we can learn something. I once read that the FCC assigns frequencies for use in Europe, or at least, they claim they do. That looks a lot like ICANN to me! Regards, bert -- http://www.PowerDNS.com Versatile DNS Services Trilab The Technology People 'SYN! .. SYN|ACK! .. ACK!' - the mating call of the internet
We've seen through that. Today we have a flourishing competitive telephone system filled with all kinds of commercial and technical offerings that were inconceivable during the days of "Ma Bell".
And yet the address -- NPA-NXX-NNNN -- remains centrally administered and globally unique. Would we be better off if the result of dialing NPA-NXX-NNNN depended on which root translations table your phone service provider happened to subscribe to.
We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in various shapes and forms, web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).
You are confusing three distinct layers. As perceived by the public, we have: (1) Directories, where you go to look up the "address" of what you are searching for. In the PSTN, we have indeed, as you note, had many directories for years. The same applies to the Internet, where there have always (for some values of always) been multiple directory options (Yahoo, Google, etc.). (2) The Address, or a publically known, relatively constant, identifier for a specific contact. People expect addresses to be unique, and if they aren't lots of things start breaking. (This is the phone number in the PSTN, and the Domain Name on the Internet.) (3) Underlying routing information. This is what makes the Address end up where it's supposed to, and the public neither knows nor cares about this. (This is the IP Address in the Internet, and can be all sorts of thigns in the PSTN.) Comparisons between the PSTN and the Internet can be confusing because: (a) The PSTN has traditionally combined #2 and #3: my PSTN address is NPA-NXX-XXXX, and the call is also typically routed based on NPA-NXX-XXXX. (This is changing, though, with Local Number Portability, 800 portability, etc.). This Internet, though, as kept #2 and #3 completely distinct. (b) The Internet "Address" (DNS name) has traditionally been somewhat directory like -- www.companyname.com traditionally got you to company name. (But the PSTN address has generally been purely arbitrary, with a relatively small number of 1-800-some-name-here exceptions.) Many technical people equate "IP Address" with "Telephone Number" and "DNS Name" with "Name in the Yellow Pages (or other directory)". This is presumably because they know IP is the routing layer and they assume that the telephone number is the routing layer (sometimes it is, sometimes it's more). They then go one level up and assume DNS = Phone Directory. But the public would never see it that way. Most people don't even know what an "IP Address" is. To them, the DNS name is like the phone number -- it's what people advertise, it's what people dial/type to reach the company/person they want to reach; and Yahoo and the phone book are comparable -- it's where consumers go when they want to find the address of the entity they wish to reach. Watch TV: you see: 1-800-xxx-xxxx www.xxx.com Not: Under "xyz" in the White Pages or www.xxx.com and not: 1-800-xxx-xxxx 11.22.33.44
These telephone directories are not published by any unified authority, there is no regulatory body sitting over them. And we as consumers are not damaged or harmed by this. And the telephone system continues to work just fine.
These telephone directories are also nothing like DNS.
Yet, on the Internet there are those who wail and gnash their teeth at the thought that the Domain Name System, the Internet's "white pages" might have multiple points of entry.
DNS is nothing like the "white pages". Yahoo and Google are like the white pages. DNS is like the phone number: it's the address used by the general public.
It bears repeating -- all that a root server does is to answer queries about how to find a server handling a TLD named in the query. In other words, a root server only answers queries such as "Where do I find a server that contains the list of names in .com?".
That's basically what the central 800# routing database does: it tells the LEC with IXC to send the call to; the IXC then consults it's own tables and finished routing the calls. Would you also argue that we should have several 800# routing databases, so that dialing an 800# gets you different places depending on which 800# database offered your LEC the best deal? Don't respond by saying that "of course phone numbers should be unique, just like IP addresses are unique". That completely misses the boat.
From the consumer perspective, phone # != IP address. Phone # = DNS name.
Yes, in the Internet we can technically have multiple address spaces -- that is, multiple roots -- because we have cleanly divided routing (IP addresses) from addressing (DNS name); and we can't technically have multiple address spaces in the PSTN, because routing and addressing are not cleanly divided. But make no mistake about it: the fact that you *can* partition the addressing layer without partitioning the routing layer doesn't make it a good thing, and it doesn't make it any less problamatic for users. -- Brett
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 03:38:54AM +1100, Patrick Corliss had this to say: [snip]
We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in various shapes and forms, web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).
yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing. However, when I dial +1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco is, or how many switches it passes through on the way. Multiple equally valid 'root zones' will most certainly give rise to a situation analogous to calling a phone number and having it ring at different destinations depending on the point of origin. [snip] -- Scott Francis scott@ [work:] v i r t u a l i s . c o m Systems Analyst darkuncle@ [home:] d a r k u n c l e . n e t PGP fingerprint 7ABF E2E9 CD54 A1A8 804D 179A 8802 0FBA CB33 CCA7 illum oportet crescere me autem minui
On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Scott Francis wrote:
We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in various shapes and forms, web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).
yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing. However, when I dial +1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco is, or how many switches it passes through on the way.
But if you access, for example, www.bbc.co.uk there is no knowing which of many machines you will reach, nor even what continent that machine is on.
Multiple equally valid 'root zones' will most certainly give rise to a situation analogous to calling a phone number and having it ring at different destinations depending on the point of origin.
Yes. But we are already there and have been for a long time. Because of the widespread use of NAT, proxy servers, round robin DNS, local directors, and other such technology, a very large fraction of IP traffic is already thoroughly "virtualized". Where transparent proxy servers are involved, party A trying to access party B is actually talking to machines owned by party C, which may be getting the information from party D, with A, B, C, and D all being legally distinct entities. The network operators keep all of this running smoothly, although there are at least tens of thousands of such schemes (NAT, [transparent] proxying, etc) in operation. Distibuting the root of the DNS would be far less complex - and far less vulnerable to spoofing and other such technical trickery. I am not saying that it would be invulnerable, just less open than the kaleidescope of trickery already in operation. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 12:33:07AM -0800, Scott Francis wrote:
yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing. However, when I dial +1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco is, or how many switches it passes through on the way.
On my phone I get an error if I dial that. I have to dial something else first to tell it that I'm looking for a number that's not on my local phone network, but instead on the one Bellsouth participates in.
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 03:24:57PM -0500, Shawn McMahon had this to say:
On my phone I get an error if I dial that.
I have to dial something else first to tell it that I'm looking for a number that's not on my local phone network, but instead on the one Bellsouth participates in.
naturally, you have to include the right set of prefixes (correct TLD, perhaps?). That example was picked with an eye towards brevity, not towards accuracy for every case. In the US, that will work. Elsewhere, you may have to dial +011 or whatever your local international prefix is. My point holds true. -- Scott Francis scott@ [work:] v i r t u a l i s . c o m Systems Analyst darkuncle@ [home:] d a r k u n c l e . n e t PGP fingerprint 7ABF E2E9 CD54 A1A8 804D 179A 8802 0FBA CB33 CCA7 illum oportet crescere me autem minui
Why Dial 10-10-321? 10-10-321 can save you money.... and so on Call 1-800-COLLECT and save a buck or two! 10-10-220 - it's just 7 cents after 20 minutes (Newman's ads) There's a whole slew of others, not to mention all the different pre-paid calling cards, each with a different procedure for placing a call. How is adding .new.net to the end of a domain name any different from pre-pending 10-10-220 to a phone number? if you sign up with AT&T, the 10-10-220 becomes transparent, just as if you install the new.net plugin. I don't see any end in sight to the 10-10-xxx services, or the calling card companies, and there's no end to the spam - on and off line - about making easy money in an all-cash business selling phone cards. I don't think these outfits have customers leaving in droves. Long distance is highly competitive, despite a boggling array of different ways to place a call. Shawn McMahon
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 12:33:07AM -0800, Scott Francis wrote:
yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing.
However, when I dial
+1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco is, or how many switches it passes through on the way.
On my phone I get an error if I dial that.
I have to dial something else first to tell it that I'm looking for a number that's not on my local phone network, but instead on the one Bellsouth participates in.
On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Mike Batchelor wrote:
How is adding .new.net to the end of a domain name any different from pre-pending 10-10-220 to a phone number? if you sign up with AT&T, the 10-10-220 becomes transparent, just as if you install the new.net plugin.
The difference is that you use the prepending when YOU dial. People don't have to do anything special to dial you. If they desire to dial 1+NPA+NXX+NNNN, they can. They don't have do do ANYTHING special as a result of your choosing an alternate LD carrier. You can't really think that this is the same as mucking up the root can you?
I don't think these outfits have customers leaving in droves. Long distance is highly competitive, despite a boggling array of different ways to place a call.
Again. Different ways to PLACE a call. People calling you don't have to guess which LD carrier you use to call you. Even to call you collect. It's NOT the same and it's a bad analogy.
Shawn McMahon
On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 12:33:07AM -0800, Scott Francis wrote:
yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing.
However, when I dial
+1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco is, or how many switches it passes through on the way.
On my phone I get an error if I dial that.
I have to dial something else first to tell it that I'm looking for a number that's not on my local phone network, but instead on the one Bellsouth participates in.
--- John Fraizer EnterZone, Inc
[ On Monday, March 19, 2001 at 16:36:28 (-0800), Mike Batchelor wrote: ]
Subject: RE: Multiple Roots are "a good thing" - Karl Auerbach
How is adding .new.net to the end of a domain name any different from pre-pending 10-10-220 to a phone number? if you sign up with AT&T, the 10-10-220 becomes transparent, just as if you install the new.net plugin.
Ah ha! but that's an entirely different question than that of considering multiple authoritative DNS "roots". Suddenly you elimiate the technical problems entirely. (not that long-distance provider "prefixes" have really done the consumer any good -- most people just complain about the idiocity of it all) -- Greg A. Woods +1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <gwoods@acm.org> <robohack!woods> Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>
On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Patrick Corliss wrote:
Read carefully, Andrew McLaughlin is saying there's a need for uniqueness as otherwise the same name will resolve in different ways. He is arguing, like you, that the *only* way to resolve the problem is with a unique (read "ICANN") root.
At the risk of being pedantic, he never actually says ICANN is the one and only true unique root, thou shall have no other roots before me. You're making an assumption there.
It wasn't that many years ago in the United States when there was one big, monolithic telephone company.
Really? Even 30 years ago the phone company was a mixture of local operators and AT&T.
It was taken as gospel by many that the stability of the telephone network depended on there being one unified, monolithic telephone company.
We've seen through that. Today we have a flourishing competitive telephone system filled with all kinds of commercial and technical offerings that were inconceivable during the days of "Ma Bell".
I'm hard pressed to think of a CLEC that is "flourishing."
I assert that just like the telephone system can have multiple publishers of telephone directory services, the Internet can have multiple roots to the Domain Name System.
As a collective, we can't agree that the sky is blue - how do you plan on us comming to a concensus on who uses what TLD's? This isn't as cut and dried as a phone book... people register domain names and expect that they are the only one with that domain name, just as I assume when someone calls my cell phone number, they are going to reach me, and not Uncle Billy's Country Store. I expect when someone enters my host and domain that they're going to end up at my host and domain, not where some local network admin decides it should point to. Domain names are more permanant to users than the IP addresses they resolve to.
In other words, you, or I, or anybody could establish a group of computers to operate in parallel with, and not necessarily in administrative coordination with, the legacy A-L.root-servers.net computers now operated by NSI, IANA, ICANN and others.
We can all provide .xxx and have conflicts everywhere. That's a great idea.
to find a server handling a TLD named in the query. In other words, a root server only answers queries such as "Where do I find a server that contains the list of names in .com?".
This brings us back to the orignal reason there's so much resistance to the idea of multiple root zones... what happens when I point to server A for .blah and you point to server B to server .blah.
What happens when we begin to think of the Domain Name System not as an intrinsic core service of the Internet, but rather as an elective service that can be offered by many providers and among which customers and user select based on the packages offered by the providers?
Aha, the let's back DNS more like Usenet argument. I'll pass.
I'll give you a preview of the answer: We end up with a stable Internet with no loss of reachability.
What do DNS and routing have in common?
Thus, a user of a root server system will perceive a Domain Name name space composed of the TLDs in the store (the root server system) that that user has elected to use.
With the average clue level of the internet user dropping like an acme safe, I can hardly believe we're advocating makeing the system more complicated for them to find where they want to go.
Now, I should mention, that when I say "user has elected to use", I don't really usually mean the end-user directly. In most cases, the end-user will have delegated the choice to that user's ISP or to his or her organizational information manager. Of course, the technically inclined, such as myself, will tend to make the choice for ourselves.
Of course, we're going to be barraged by phone calls "How come when I go to foo.bar on AOL I get to website X, but when I go to foo.bar on your service I go to website Y?" This is a great idea.
If we look at this through the eyes of a businessman operating a root server system, we realize that there are two elements that the customers will care about: TLD coverage and value added services.
The idea of considering DNS to be just another value-added service is absurd.
The net result of all the root system operators following this strategy will be
chaos.
TLDs that are being contested are not very viable. Thus, if two or more claimants were offering different versions of a TLD named ".foo", it would be unlikely that any root system operator would add any version of ".foo" to the inventory.
Hardly. I think we've seen enough poor practices and clueless marketing folks think up just "great" ideas. Use our freeze-dried, oven-fresh, .foo instead of UUnet's... it's terrific. Act now. Supplies are limited. Hurry! Operators will be forced to carry one or the other due to customer pressure. It's a lose-lose situation. You can offend all the customer base by refusing to carry a contested TLD at all, or just the half that wanted to go to Server X instead of Y.
This tends to remove the issue of TLD ownership from the current ICANN regulatory framework and place it where it belongs -- in the traditional give and take world of business and open market economics.
We can take the issue of NPA/NXX ownership from the current NANP regulatory framework and place it where it belongs -- in the traditional give and take world of business and open market economics. Bah.
An example of a value added service would be that of filtration -- A root server
For an example of how this works in practice, examine the mess that is Usenet.
standards. And it is a mechanism which allows any member to opt out of the community, and its restrictions, simply by selecting another root server operator.
Of course, it's difficult enough for many users to figure out how to send an e-mail and/or assign a mail server to their POP client. We should be putting more issues like this into their hands since we obviousally don't spend enough on customer support yet. Or something like that.
Yes, there are other ways to achieve the same kind of filtering, but who are we to say which methods are the most viable? Indeed, we should be careful not to dismiss, or worse to foreclose, an area of Internet entrepreneurship simply because we don't see the immediate value.
No, it has an immediate effect on the value of our companies. From a provider point of view, it's going to seriousally increase suppport costs. There's a direct negative effect.
One of the reasons is that the existing system has so far worked reasonably well, so there has been little pressure. But there is a very strong secondary reason -- those who have advocated or established a multiple root system have been shunned by the technical community.
Rightly so. There are a couple of usability issues that this argument conviently overlooks. A telephone has a very simplistic interface and there are people in the shallow end of the gene pool who still can't use them correctly. Once you enter the number you want to dial, everything associated with putting the call together is handled for you, and the call is connected. A computer has the potential to be a much more complicated interface, especially for someone who isn't all that computer-savvy. You have to assign resolver addresses, assign mail servers and news servers, have a username and password, etc. Everytime you switch ISPs, the set-up is different... some do all the work for you, some expect you to do all the work. I can understand where it would be confusing to some, therefore I can't advocate making the system more difficult or confusing. Further, the argument of DNS simply being a phone book is over-simplifying the issue. DNS requires uniqueness because of the way that it's been implemented. We use it in place of an IP address. The PSTN has nothing like this. You can be damn sure that if someone was able to pick up the phone and put in dever.call instead of dialing 11 digits, there would be a procedure to make sure there weren't conflicts. -- Douglas A. Dever dever@verio.net Network Engineering Manager Verio - http://www.verio.net
participants (13)
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bert hubert -
Brett Frankenberger -
Douglas A. Dever -
Havard Eidnes -
Jim Dixon -
John Fraizer -
Mike Batchelor -
Miles Fidelman -
Patrick Corliss -
Scott Francis -
Shawn McMahon -
Simon Higgs -
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