Perspective on Root Server Attack

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Bob has a point

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Frankston <[mailto:rmfXIX-II-OE () bobf Frankston com]> 
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 3:57 PM
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: <[IP]> Perspective on Root Server Attack

Perhaps I'm being naive but I have the opposite view. The strength of
the
system is due to the ineffectiveness of ICANN and the ability of the
server
managers to take different approaches to resilience and security. If
ICANN
were able to impose a monoculture we would be more vulnerable and,
worse, it
would be easier to impose social policy onto the plumping of the
Internet. The
use of commercial identifiers instead of stable handles in the DNS is a
good
(or very bad) example of what happens when we confuse technology with
social
policies that presume there is always a way to cut the baby in half.

Most of the anti-ICANN efforts seem focused more on increasing the
entanglement which makes it harder to distribute the root services
because of
the complexity of maintaining the .COM fantasy and the attempts to make
it
work. My latest dotDNS proposal is at
http://www.frankston.com/public/Writing.asp?item=Essays/dotDNS.html

The goal should be to make ICANN uninteresting rather than assuming that
if we
just elected the right people ICANN would do the right thing whatever
that is.


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