U.S. Won't Let Go of DNS

An Anonymous Reader wrote in with a story on the Eweek site, reporting that the Federal Government is going to keep control of the Domain Name System rather than handing it over to ICANN. From the article: "...the United States is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS, and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file..."

If you believe everyone plays fair...

[newsblaze]

If you believe everyone plays fair, then put servers in other places, but the root servers need to work together. What happens if a government decides its going to play dirty and screw up the whole system? What about physical security? How can you guarantee that if the root servers are spread out across the world? There have been few problems so far and no dirty pool. Leave it as-is unless theres a compelling case to do otherwise.

Re:He who hs the nukes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even rhyme [rhymezone.com].

Seriously though, what's stopping anyone from making free rootserver clones?

It 's ours....

[icedcool]

So there....

What is the rest of the world gonna cry about it?

Correct My Understanding-

[LionKimbro]

My understanding is thus:

• root nameservers [wikipedia.org] are controlled by the private companies that host them (NASA, VeriSign, Cogent, US DoD, ...)
• ICANN [wikipedia.org] keeps the official registry of names; the private companies with the nameservers decides to go along with ICANN's registry, but is not legally required to do so
• ICANN has one root name server, but only one
• the private companies have, in the past, rebuked ICANN - in particular, ICANN asked them to install specific private keys and to be granted root access; the companies said (basically) to take a hike
• Country-coded TLD's are not managed by ICANN; somebody else does that. (yes..?)

This is just my understanding of the situation, and it probably has errors. That said, I've not once seen a good plain language [communitywiki.org] explanation of how this all works, and what the actual powers and obligations are. This is my understanding of what an IETF regular told me.

Neither the US or ICANN actually determines what goes into the root name servers: It's just by convenience and general agreement (but not obligation) that the root nameservers decide to humour ICANN, and let them maintain the list of names. There is no law or contract that says they have to do anything that ICANN says.

Congress doesn't control this, and never did, if I understand right.

Please correct my understanding; I'm sure at least some of this is wrong.

Re:Ask yourself this

[mindstrm]

Why would you want the expense and hassle of running this if you don't have to? The point is, ICANN wants it so they can change things.. what do tehy want to change, and how will it benefit you and me, the average user?

FreeDNS

[camcorder]

Time for an organisation to come up with FreeDNS. With enough cooperation, it's not impossible to bring FreeDNS networks. It might seem utopia but as in any other thing, having an alternative is always better than monopoly.

I know!

[BlackMesaLabs]

They want to keep the DNS so they can justify the new internet tax!

Re:I have educated myself, YOU have not

[Planesdragon]

It has become part of a world body that has done precious little to actually help the world

The UN was designed to do one thing: prevent World War III.

It did that exceptionally well. The USSR and the USA never had a huge tank/nuke war in Europe, and their proxy wars were fought with unusual restraint given that each side had nuclear arms.

The fact that the UN has been used to do some other things is a comparative footnote.

Re:I have educated myself, YOU have not

[king-manic]

Personally, I'm distrustful of them because the US veto has consistently kept them from being effective. When the #1 threat to world peace and prosperity has a veto on anything you do, your options are pretty limited...

Actually world peace is not threatened very hard these days. The three major world powers (USA/China/USSR) all have similiar goals and are achieving them economically. They find economic warfare has better PR, lower costs, and is more effective then troops. The single thing hobbling the Un is it's "democratic" nature. In so far as 1 country = 1 vote with a few notable countries gettign vetoes. The vast majority of those countries are run by horrible people trying to enrich themselves at everyone elses expense.

The Us itself is trying to secure oil to shore up it's resources in the coming all out economic war with China and the EU. As for peace, my peace as a chinese middle class canadian is threatened more by the Muslim populace (not just terrorists, but also because most of the thugs in my city happen to be lebenese.)

Mod down flamebait.

[geekee]

" Personally, I'm distrustful of them because the US veto has consistently kept them from being effective. When the #1 threat to world peace and prosperity has a veto on anything you do, your options are pretty limited..."

Yes, vetos of ridiculous resolutions by anti-semetic nations condemning Israel for defending itself is hampering world peace and prosperity.

Re:One little reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the GPS system (also US taxpayer financed in the billions and used by the world without gratitude or financial consideration), if people in other countries or Americans don't like the US govt administering it, go build your own.

Then why did the US government object so strongly to the European Magellan project?

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