Re: [ga] I want to be on the Inclusivbe Name Space SIG ML

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 07:49:48PM +1000, Dassa wrote:
> I have no objections to anyone running their own private name space,
> either connected to the legacy DNS or totally independent.

Connected is bad.  Contrary to popular opinion, because of cache
pollution issues it is really not safe to connect arbitrary name spaces. 
When you do a lookup on a name, DNS sends back extra information,
including name servers information for the name you are looking up. 
This is information you didn't explicitly ask for, and there is no way
to tag that nameserver as to which root it comes from.  Moreover, there
are other uses of DNS that create connections that cut across the tree
structure -- inverse delegations are one such; mx records are another. 
For example, you could look up IP address 4.3.2.1 and get back
"a.b.alt" as the associated name, *and NS information* that tells you
how to look up names in the "b.alt" domain.  As a result of this 
lookup, you are suddenly hooked up to alternate servers.  Moreover, if 
there are multiple ".alt" tlds, you have absolutely no guarantee which 
one you getting *regardless* of what root zone you are using.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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