Re: [ga-roots] Alternate Roots, Naming Systems Coming Under Fire

["Patrick Corliss" <patrick@quad.net.au>]

On Fri, 8 Jun 2001 01:51:42 -0700, William X. Walsh wrote
> Friday, June 08, 2001, 1:42:54 AM, Patrick Corliss wrote:
>
> > But at least one ICANN board member, Karl Auerbach, takes a different
view
> > on the issue, saying that "there need not be a single uniform namespace
that
> > everyone conforms to."
>
> Strange, his compadres in the alt.root community on this list don't
> seem to agree with him.

Hi William

Hard to tell, from the quote, who agrees with Karl and who doesn't.  My
understanding, from previous list discussions, is that most people in the
alt.root community agree with Karl's paper on Multiple Roots.  I'd ask
anyone who doesn't to raise their hands.

Best regards
Patrick Corlis

"What I would say to the House Commerce Committee were I invited to testify"
by Karl Auerbach.

<snip>

2.  Multiple Roots are "a good thing"

http://www.cavebear.com/cavebear/growl/issue_2.htm#multiple_roots

It wasn't that many years ago in the United States when there was one big,
monolithic telephone company.

It was taken as gospel by many that the stability of the telephone network
depended on there being one unified, monolithic telephone company.

We've seen through that.  Today we have a flourishing competitive telephone
system filled with all kinds of commercial and technical offerings that were
inconceivable during the days of "Ma Bell".

We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone
books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services
in
various shapes and forms,  web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well
known
Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).

These telephone directories are not published by any unified authority,
there is
no regulatory body sitting over them.  And we as consumers are not damaged
or
harmed by this.  And the telephone system continues to work just fine.

Yet, on the Internet there are those who wail and gnash their teeth at the
thought that the Domain Name System, the Internet's "white pages" might have
multiple points of entry.

Indeed, the whole series of documents from NTIA -- including the Green and
White
Papers -- and the existence of ICANN is founded on the notion that there is
but
one root system for the Domain Name System.

I assert that those nay-sayers are wrong.

I assert that just like the telephone system can have multiple publishers of
telephone directory services, the Internet can have multiple roots to the
Domain
Name System.

There is no doubt that as a purely technical matter, the Internet can have
multiple root systems for the DNS.  It has had these for years.

The question is whether to recognize the value and use of multiple root
systems
and not foreclose them.

Let's get a bit more specific.

When I say "multiple root systems", I mean a regime in which you, or I, or
anybody can set up a set of computers to serve as a suite of root servers
for
the DNS.

In other words, you, or I, or anybody could establish a group of computers
to
operate in parallel with, and not necessarily in administrative coordination
with, the legacy A-L.root-servers.net computers now operated by NSI, IANA,
ICANN
and others.

>From a technical point of view all that a root server group does is to give
its
users a way to find the DNS servers that handle the various Top Level
Domains
(TLDs).  The root servers do not themselves answer queries about what names
are
inside the various TLDs.  Those questions are passed on to the TLD servers
themselves.

That is a subtle point and a point that is often lost when discussing the
DNS.

It bears repeating -- all that a root server does is to answer queries about
how
to find a server handling a TLD named in the query.  In other words, a root
server only answers queries such as "Where do I find a server that contains
the
list of names in .com?".

Now that we know that root servers and root server systems are nothing more
than
the doorway through which one enters the Domain System, we can ask this
question:

What happens when we begin to think of the Domain Name System not as an
intrinsic core service of the Internet, but rather as an elective service
that
can be offered by many providers and among which customers and user select
based
on the packages offered by the providers?

I'll give you a preview of the answer: We end up with a stable Internet with
no
loss of reachability.  We get a system of competitive root operators who
make
business decisions about what TLDs they want to incorporate into their
"inventory".  We get rid of questions about "how many TLDs should be
created?".
We don't need complicated ICANN-like quasi-governmental agencies overseeing
the
DNS and the Internet.  And we end up with a means for communities of users
to
fine tune the view of the Internet Landscape that they want to allow into
their
communities.

So, you should be asking yourselves, how does this Nirvana come about?

Imagine each operator of a root server system as a store.  The shelves
contain
the store's inventory.  In this case the inventory consists of TLDs that the
root server system knows about.

Thus, a user of a root server system will perceive a Domain Name name space
composed of the TLDs in the store (the root server system) that that user
has
elected to use.

Now, I should mention, that when I say "user has elected to use", I don't
really
usually mean the end-user directly.  In most cases, the end-user will have
delegated the choice to that user's ISP or to his or her organizational
information manager.  Of course, the technically inclined, such as myself,
will
tend to make the choice for ourselves.

How does a root server operator select the inventory of TLDs that it wishes
to
offer?  The answer is "whatever satisfies the needs and demands of the
operator's customer base."

If we look at this through the eyes of a businessman operating a root server
system, we realize that there are two elements that the customers will care
about: TLD coverage and value added services.

As a general rule, customers of a root server system will act much like
subscribers to a cable TV system -- they will want as many TLDs (or as many
channels) as they can get.  This will drive the root server system operators
to
include as many viable TLDs as they can into their inventory.

The net result of all the root system operators following this strategy will
be
that they all attempt to trump one another by each including more TLDs.  The
end
of this is that all root server operators will incorporate all viable TLDs.
The
benefit of this is that the domain names of all people and organizations who
have registrations in these TLDs will be essentially universally resolvable
no
matter which root server system us being used.

I've used the phrase "viable TLDs" to describe those which are of a
character
that most reasonable root system operators would feel that they could
incorporate that TLD into their inventory without undue risk of problems.
It is
easiest to define "viable TLDs" by listing what kind of TLDs would be
non-viable.  TLDs that are being contested are not very viable.  Thus, if
two or
more claimants were offering different versions of a TLD named ".foo", it
would
be unlikely that any root system operator would add any version of ".foo" to
the
inventory.

This tends to remove the issue of TLD ownership from the current ICANN
regulatory framework and place it where it belongs -- in the traditional
give
and take world of business and open market economics.

Since all root server systems will tend to eventually incorporate all viable
TLDs into their inventory, value added services will tend to become the
differentiating factor between root server systems.  One might well ask how
a
root server system can offer value added services?  It does seem an odd
concept
at first, but then again, a few years ago, the notion of value added long
distance telephone services was an odd concept.

An example of a value added service would be that of filtration -- A root
server
system operator may offer a service in which customers who use that root
will be
able to have the responses cleaned of any answers that are sources of
pornographic material.  This could be a valuable tool for communities that
wish
to tailor their view of the Internet Landscape according to their own
community
standards.  And it is a mechanism which allows any member to opt out of the
community, and its restrictions, simply by selecting another root server
operator.

Yes, there are other ways to achieve the same kind of filtering, but who are
we
to say which methods are the most viable?  Indeed, we should be careful not
to
dismiss, or worse to foreclose, an area of Internet entrepreneurship simply
because we don't see the immediate value.

I'd like to finish this discussion about multiple roots with a few
observations.

Multiple root systems add to the stability of the internet by removing a
dependence on a single root system for the Domain Name System.

Multiple root systems eliminate the need to face questions such as "what new
gTLDs should be added" - multiple root systems permit the marketplace to
provide
the answer.

Multiple root systems provide means for inventors and entrepreneurs to
create
new ways of packaging DNS servers.  And I've suggested one such extension
that
could add a new means for individuals or communities to shield themselves
from
the tidal wave of questionable material on the Internet.

So, why have multiple root systems not evolved?

One of the reasons is that the existing system has so far worked reasonably
well, so there has been little pressure.  But there is a very strong
secondary
reason -- those who have advocated or established a multiple root system
have
been shunned by the technical community.

But the biggest reason why it hasn't happened is that ever since the NTIA
process started, the idea that there could be multiple roots has been swept
aside with an administrative flick of the wrist and an offhand repetition of
the
stale legend: "oh that would never comport with network stability".

<snip>



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