[IP] NTIA on Internet's DNS
Begin forwarded message:
From: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: July 1, 2005 6:15:15 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] NTIA on Internet's DNS
Reply-To: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, David Farber wrote:
"U.S. Principles on the Internet's Domain Name and Addressing System
I was wondering when this shoe was going to drop. For years NTIA has
emitted official sounding noises about relinquishing its oversight.
However, what up-and-comming head of NTIA would really like to be
known as "the man who lost the internet"?
... As such, the United States ... will therefore maintain its
historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the
authoritative root zone file.
In other words, somebody in the US Government will have to accept the
responsibility for approving .xxx. That could easily put a big dent
in some aspiring bureaucrat's career prospects. Will NTIA drop the
another shoe and overturn ICANN's decision with regard to .xxx?
Governments have legitimate interest in the management of their
country code top level domains (ccTLD). The United
Statesrecognizes that governments have legitimate public policy
and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their
ccTLD.
In which case one has to wonder about the role of the US Dept of
Commerce rather than the US Dept of State with regard to the
previously noted "changes or modifications to the authoritative root
zone file" with respect to ccTLD entries.
Which raises a point - the only reason that the NTIA root zone is
"authoritative" is because a lot of people adhere to it voluntarily.
But things that are voluntary are things that can change. Imagine if
Coca Cola were to claim that it is the authoritive beverage - those
who chose otherwise might find the claim amusing.
ICANN is the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS.
As we have seen over the years, the set of *technical* functions that
ICANN actually performs for DNS is a reasonable facsimile of "nil".
ICANN does lots and lots of non-technical management of DNS - like
ensuring that our privacy is violated 24x7x365 - but as for
*technical* management: None.
One of the sounds the one hears in the back-channels of the WSIS/WGIG
effort is the deep concern, by governments, that nobody is really
taking steps to ensure that at a technical level, the upper tiers of
the DNS run reliably, accurately, efficiently, without discrimination
- today and tomorrow, even if natural or human disasters occur. That
is a job that ICANN was to have performed. But it is a job that
ICANN has never even attempted to perform. The internet, and all of
its users, are left at risk.
So this announcement seems to say two things:
1. Somebody at NTIA finally realized the political cost that will
ensue if they relinquish final control over the internet.
2. That NTIA still has its head in the sand and still does not
recognize that ICANN does nothing to ensure the technical stability
of the net.
--karl--
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