IP: Proposed US Govt Status Quo Policy on DNS ROOT ZONE Control

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Just for the record, Stef is an old net person who has never been accused
of flaming or wild speaking. I suggest you read it and make up your own=
 mind.


Dave






From: Einar Stefferud <stef () nma com>=20


I have been watching the DNS Wars and the US Government's struggle to
find a rational policy framework for stopping the DNS war and
returning the Internet to its peaceful invasion of the global society
and its global economy.=A0=20


> From my point of view, this DNS war is just so much silly noise, but
as long as enough people take it seriously it can mount into a real
crisis, so here is a proposal for the US Government to take actions to
just stop the war and promote peaceful resolution of whatever real DNS
problems actually exist.


First, I want to pound on how and why there is no actual crisis,
except in the minds of those who think that the basic (and perhaps the
only) problem is that NSI has not yet been killed off!


This is now compounded by a new IPOC/CORE crisis that will arise when
those 90 newly accepted registrars discover that ISOC/IAHC/IPOC/CORE
cannot simply deliver their coveted 7 new gTLDs, which IAHC pulled
from thin air and assumed it could unilaterally insert into the
Official ROOT ZONE.=A0 But, this failure of IAHC expectations is in no
way a crisis for the Internet Community, or for the US Government,
since neither of them encouraged the IAHC to create this impending
IPOC/CORE expectation crisis.


So, my firm recommendation to the US Government Inter-agency Working
Group (IWG) and to the White House, is to find that there are no
crises, except for those created by people trying to unilaterally gain
control "on behalf of others in order to preserve the DNS for the rest
of us as an International Resource".


And I recommend that the US Govt announce that since there are no
crises, "no new gTLDs be added to the NSI DNS ROOT ZONE" that is
maintained by NSI under US Govt Contract.


Further, the US Government should declare that this stay of action on
all new gTLDs will remain in effect until such time as a proper plan
is developed by means of cooperative actions of all interested parties
in the Internet Community to form a confederation based on open
processes for making decisions about policy, operations and funding
for administration and control of the DNS ROOT ZONE.=A0=20


No prior restrictions should be placed on development of the desired
confederation except that it must demonstrate "rough consensus and
running code" which of course requires broad cooperation.


This would mean that IPOC/CORE will be denied immediate insertion of
their unilaterally determined "7 gTLDs" into the official IANA
controlled ROOT ZONE.=A0 At least two of these 7 gTLDs are contested by
other parties who have already mounted them in alternate ROOT servers.
IPOC/CORE will then be left with only one way to get any new gTLDs.


They will have to find a way to cooperate with all the other parties
which they have worked so hard to knock out of the game, and which
have serious disputes with IAHC/IPOC/CORE which will need to be
resolved, or CORE will not get what it wants.=A0 The US Government
should just step aside and leave the warring parties to settle their
differences.=A0 As long as any authority tries to make the decision for
them, they will only succeed in attracting conflicting petitions.


Of course, all those so far unnamed others who have also been trying
to knock everyone else out of the game will also be confronted with
the same problem, but what is fair for one, must be fair for all.=20


My proposed US Govt Policy simply uses the status quo to hold the gTLD
expansion game hostage to the development of an open cooperative
confederation of gTLD register operators and their registrars, whether
they operate shared registries or not.=A0 There is room for both kinds
of operation, and no harm to be found in allowing both kinds to enter
gTLDs into a confederated DNS ROOT ZONE.


To cap it all off, I cite Geoff Goodfellow's story [COM-PRIV Fri, 14
Nov 1997 00:13:14] about his upstaging of the official HOSTS.TXT file
long ago and far away in the original ARPANET.=A0 The facts of the
matter are very simple.=A0 The power to point at the DNS ROOT SERVER of
choice is firmly rooted in hundreds of thousands of independent local
NAME SERVER RESOLVER ADMINISTRATORS who have the power of the password
over their local systems to point each of them to the DNS ROOT SERVER
of their choice.=A0 They just need to edit their /etc/named/boot files.
They already have to enter a list of ROOT SERVERS here, so adding a
few more will not involve any hardships.


Thus, in a terribly humorous sense, this whole fight over who does or
who should "Control The DNS ROOT" is entirely moot, since none of the
challengers has the power to impose any such control.=A0 The only way
for any central authority institution to gain control of "THE ROOT
ZONE" is to assert control over all those hundreds of thousands of
LOCAL DNS NAME SERVER RESOLVER ADMINISTRATORS, worldwide.


Even if the US Government retains control, it will be easily subverted
if a better alternative ROOT ZONE ever materializes, and it will
materialize if the "official" DNS ROOT does not satisfy the demands of
the Internet Community.=A0 And, I must note, the same thing goes for any
other supra-national body or treaty organization that might try to
assert control.=A0 The ITU and the UN included.


The power of the Internet's fine old tradition for "Working Around
Problems", which has over time evolved from Paul Baran's original 1962
Distributed Packet Switching scheme for "routing around damage" will
always find a way to make things work.=A0 The Internet can even survive
a sustained attempt by governments to stamp it out, if they should
happen to try.


In short, there is no crisis in terms of potential failure of the
Internet, even if the DNS ROOT finds itself without any central
authority over its "MASTER ROOT ZONE TABLE".=A0 Such central authority
and control is actually not required.


The Internet Community citizens hold so much value for all its
cooperating parts that its ROOT SERVICE will not be allowed to fail
for any significant period of time.=A0 We already have alternate servers
standing in the wings with enough facility capacity and operational
savvy to step in and keep it running, if the Official root fails.


Such a calamity would of course immediately pull all the waring
parties together to make it work again!=A0 It would also require that
all those local NAME SERVER RESOLVER ADMINISTRATORS will have to
quickly decide where to point in their named.boot files, but that is
where the main action would have to take place.=A0 Better that this
shift should occur slowly and peacefully, without benefit of
casualties.


This does not mean or suggest that the 1,000,000+ .COM registrants
will be well served if the NSI operation is disrupted in an effort to
end what some people think is a patently unacceptable monopoly, and
which they believe must be destroyed at almost any cost.=A0 So, an NSI
contract extension should be negotiated to maintain stability until
the war ends and a cooperative confederation solution is in place.


So, the basic points of strategic policy determination should be the
following:


1.=A0 There is no crisis threat to the stability of the Internet, except
=A0=A0=A0 for various manufactured expectation crises, perhaps designed to
=A0=A0=A0 force premature action.


2.=A0 Manufactured false crises must not be allowed to interfere,
=A0=A0=A0 especially as they pose a greater danger to stability than doing
=A0=A0=A0 nothing at this point in time.=A0 There is no significant shortage
=A0=A0=A0 of names or registries now, or on the horizon.


3.=A0 Hold DNS gTLD expansion hostage to the Internet Community
=A0=A0=A0 creating a cooperative open confederation solution before the US
=A0=A0=A0 Government will release its hold on maintaining the status quo of
=A0=A0=A0 the DNS gTLD zone.=A0 After the confederation is in place, then=
 the
=A0=A0=A0 US Government can simply relax its hold and the Internet will be
=A0=A0=A0 free and fully international, with full community backing and
=A0=A0=A0 participation.


=A0=A0=A0 NOTE: This is roughly equivalent to sending the naughty children
=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 to there rooms till they can behave in more=
 reasonable ways.


4.=A0 In the process of doing nothing, extend the NSI contract, but with
=A0=A0=A0 some negotiation to obtain improvements in the practices of
=A0=A0=A0 NSI in the ways they deal with name registration disputes.=A0 At
=A0=A0=A0 minimum, NSI should offer some assistive advice to its registered
=A0=A0=A0 name holders in the matter of obtaining trademarks for their
=A0=A0=A0 registered DNS names.=A0 And, NSI should be encouraged to be more
=A0=A0=A0 open and forthcoming about their operations and their policies and
=A0=A0=A0 practices.=A0=20


=A0=A0=A0 Perhaps NSI should accept a board of advisors that will be
=A0=A0=A0 populated by people drawn from the many constituencies that they
=A0=A0=A0 serve.=A0 Any such board should have broad powers to question all
=A0=A0=A0 aspects of the NSI registry operation, but not have any power to
=A0=A0=A0 control.=A0 The power to openly question on behalf of the market=
 is
=A0=A0=A0 enough to force careful attention to be paid to the market.


=A0=A0=A0 And, to clean up all the loose ends, the US Government should
=A0=A0=A0 negotiate a clean agreement about who owns what parts of the NSI
=A0=A0=A0 DNS operations that NSI now has in their hands, and leave NSI free
=A0=A0=A0 to compete openly in the community.


I believe this recommendation embodies a sound non-zero-sum-game
strategy, as compared to the warring parties tendency to see the DNS
ROOT as a zero-sum game, wherein "what ever you gain must be taken
from what I have".


The meta strategy I am employing is to convert the war-game from
zero-sum to non-zero-sum.=A0 To do this we need to create a situation
where cooperation with Traditional Internet Rough Consensus and
Running Code is the only rational solution.


Cheers...\Stef








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