Re: Statements against new.net?

[Patrick Greenwell <patrick () cybernothing org>]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> > To be clear I am not arguing the merits of any of these particular
> > efforts, but simply that they exist, are operational, and as of yet the
> > "Internet" has not come crashing down upon anyones head. 
> >
> > Were you not aware of the existence of one or more such organizations when
> > the IAB formulated this document?
> ....
> > What exactly was the motivation for such a document if not political, 
> > especially given the timing? 
>
> Of course we were aware of such efforts -- that's precisely why we 
> wrote the document, to warn that they were bad ideas. 

These efforts had been going on for *years* before this document was
inked, with actors like Kaspureff(sp?) et. al. You'll forgive me if I find
the timing of this document somewhat coincidental with the timing of the
process that has left us with ICANN. 

> And the fact that the Internet "has not come crashing down upon anyones
> head" is due to their very limited deployment.  The Internet is quite
> large; local disruptions *usually* don't affect most of the net.

Disruption? What disruption? People making a concious decision where to
point resolution to is "disruptive?"

> > Second, the alternative root server operators have attempted to address
> > this issue through communication/negotiation, like responsible members of
> > any community would. My understanding through following the various
> > mailing lists is that the majority of conflicts have been resolved in this
> > fashion. Where there is a refusal to communicate, or where conflict still
> > remains, the various operators act as they best see fit. I understand that
> > a community-based approach to "claim-staking"/conflict resolution makes
> > the "command and control" crowd a bit uncomfortable(witness some of the
> > virulant posters on the subject of new.net, et al.,) but this does nothing
> > to change the fact that these alternative root server networks exist and
> > that the Internet still works, mostly(as I'm sure you'd agree it's always
> > a little broken.) 
>
> If our statement has advocated "command and control" as opposed to 
> consensus-based design of the root, it would indeed have been a 
> political statement.  But it didn't say that.