On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Anthony Atkielski wrote:
From: <Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu>
Umm.. No. We haven't. You got a phone book in your
office? Ever dialed 555-1212?
Not a valid comparison. Do we have a worldwide, global phonebook that lists
every telephone number on the planet? No. Do we have telephones with
keyboards into which you type a name instead of a number? No. And yet we
get by very well without them.
The issue of how distributed a database can be before it ceases to be a
single database aside, yes, I do have a telephone into which I type a name
instead of a number. However, the name must be stored on the phone -
analogous to /etc/hosts, not DNS.
You're really muddying two issues, though. The initial claim, as I
understood it, was that the ability to do DNS lookup was irrelevant, that
one would simply maintain one's own database of "IP numbers I like",
whether one was a computer or a person. And then, when one of those
computers changed IP addresses, one would... one would... wardial all
the IP addresses available until one received the expected response,
presumably.
Yes, the DNS database is much better organized, easily accessible,
thorough, and generally more accurate than what passes for a global phone
number database. However, I don't think you can deny that there exist
transactions which are worth promoting under IP and telephony which could
not exist without such semi-authoritative databases.
With that in mind, what is your claim, again?
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