Re: Internet partitioning event regulations (was: RE: Sending vs requesting. Was: Re: Sprint / Cogent)

[Nick Hilliard <nick () foobar org>]

On 06/11/2008 02:00, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:
> Who owns the DNS root?

The US Government claims to.  However, asserting authority over the DNS 
root is a different matter to a mere claim to ownership, and if the US 
Government were to unilaterally decide on an action which directly acted 
against the interests of various other stakeholders in the DNS root (say, 
the rest of the world - and hey, did anyone mention that there are about 
6.4 * 10^9 people outside the USA?), then there are a variety of remedies 
to the situation, most of which involve balkanisation and all of which are 
pretty unpalatable to all stakeholders, including the US.

IOW: the DNS root is a system based on trust, rather than mandate of the 
the USG.

Nick