Neustar to create their own DNS root

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: September 30, 2005 12:15:11 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Neustar to create their own DNS root


Neustar, a company that should certainly know better, has announced
that they're going to create a .gprs TLD to serve the mobile phone
industry (http://www.neustar.com/pressroom/files/announcements/ 
ns_pr_09282005.pdf)
This, of course, requires creation of a private root zone, against the
very strong warnings in RFC 2826.  This is not quite as bad as a
general-purpose alternate root, since it's restricted to use by mobile
operators, but it's bad enough.  Here's one possible complication:
suppose some operator decides that some other company is better
qualified than Neustar to operate yet another private TLD.  Which root
should they then subscribe to?  (Yes, this would punish that company
more than Neustar.  It would also leave Neustar in the driver's seat
for any future such private TLDs.)

There may be even more to this situation.  ICANN recently approved
.mobi, which is aimed at consumers and "providers of those products,
services, content, and other items to ... other Providers".  Why aren't
they using .grps.mobi for this?

(Beyond all that, a U.S. diplomat stated in Geneva that the U.S. would
not agree to turn over control of the Internet to the U.N.  "It's not a
negotiating issue. This is a matter of national policy.")

        --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb




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