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[IP] more on Neustar to create their own DNS root



Begin forwarded message:

From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 1, 2005 1:33:53 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: John R Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Neustar to create their own DNS root



From: John R Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxx>
Date: September 30, 2005 10:36:11 PM EDT



Neustar, a company that should certainly know better, has announced
that they're going to create a .gprs TLD to serve the mobile phone
industry



This isn't quite as stupid as it seems.  The GSM industry needs some
way to maintain its roaming user database, the database is getting
considerably more complicated with 3G features, and it looks to me
like they made a reasonable decision to use DNS over IP to implement
it rather than inventing yet another proprietary distributed database.
So this is really a private network disjoint from the Internet.



John, I think you're confusing policy and implementation.
There's no reason that the dns infrastructure couldn't be used as you describe by rooting everything under gprs.neustar.com. Software in the terminal could even twiddle 1-650-555-1212.gprs.neustar.com (or gumby.verizon.gpr.neustar.com) to strip the last three domain elements.
So first of all, this mobile-based dns that's controlled by a carrier cartel will surely be flipped around the opposite way: neustar will control what dns info is available to the handsets (flipping the orientation around the other way from what you described). We'll be back to a walled garden. So for instance, AoL.gprs might be available to every user, but what if want to get to Yahoo? Sorry, there's no Yahoo.gprs for Verizon customers, but maybe for Cingular customers.
Now all this user-hostile nonsense can be implemented by rooting everything under gprs.neustar.com leaving the rest of the DNS infrastructure uniform and intact (they could even block mobile access to port 53 except for the neustar servers). So why implement a new root?
The answer is wider control: How will software developers access the .gprs names etc? Neustar could "dual home" their serves with regular names in the DNS namespace for external use, but why bother? Instead, mobile developers can point their computers at _neustar's_ roots.... and _then_ the games can begin.
If you believe that the mobile networks (both via phones and GPRS and EV-DO in notebooks) will become a primary channel for access -- say up to 50% of usage -- then we will all need a uniform view of the dns whether we're using wireless or plugged into the network at work. And the only way to get that will be to use the carrier-approved DNS roots. And _that_ will allow them to sidestep ICANN and everybody else tussling for control of today's roots and control a chokepoint. 

-d





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