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Re: Trees have one root

2002-07-29 07:23:31
Hello Brian E Carpenter -- and all ...

There is a very simple solution (which ORSC has employed now for
several years) to your phantom problem (see your message below).  It
is part of our primary purpose to solve this problem, rather than
intensify conflicts in some kind of power grab, or fight over who is
rightly designated to be in control of the use of the Internet.  In
our view, the Internet users are and should be in control of their
use, and should accordingly have a choice in the matter.

So, it should be no surprise that all Internet users do have a
choice, in that their choice of root service provider is lodged in
the root service IP address that they, in their free individual
wisdom, choose to put in their own password controlled "root server
entry field" in their own computer's TCP/IP tables.

They exercise this choice by "voting early and often" every time they
use their chosen root service to resolve a DNS name.

There is no law, and no contract with Internet users, that might
force them to only use the ICANN root servers.  In fact, if you look
around the Internet, you will see that every Intra-Lan and Extra-Lan
has its own private root servers with subsets of the total set of
available TLDs.  This is all part and parcel of the design of the
Internet and the DNS service.  The users of the Internet are free to
decide these issues for themselves, with no global design or control
scheme in place to control individual user's choices in this matter.
That is why every attached computer or Local Area Network with a NAT
box has total control over this matter of choice.
Go read your copy of the Internet DNS Standards.

That some uninformed users believe that the ICANN root is the only
root, is a myth propagated by those who are interested in denying
access to the rest of the net to those users who are ill informed.
That ORSC does not have the marketing resources to overcome this
ignorance may or may not be unfortunate, but this fact does not
change the fact that the ORSC root service exists and is used without
causing any problems for those who are unaware of it, as many on this
list seem to be unaware.

We simply do not deny the existence of ICANN, and strive mightily to
avoid all possible conflicts among the names of honored TLDs so as to
avoid conflicts among the combined ICANN and ORSC root's TLDs.  ORSC
has resolved a large number of conflicts in the past, and stands
ready to help resolve any new conflicts, and also, of course, strives
to discourage new conflicts from arising.  We cannot say the same for
ICANN.  (And neither can ICANN;-)...

ORSC was highly successful in this effort, until ICANN chose to
collide with one of our ORSC pre-existing TLDs, and the refusal of
ICANN (and others such as IETF, IAB and ISOC) to recognize this
reality and to act responsibly to resolve the conflict has led to its
continued existence, which diminishes the value of the conflicted TLD
name to all parties to the conflict.  Conflicted names simply have
lesser value, for what I assume are obvious reasons.

So, in spite of the ICANN Mission to avoid conflicts among TLD names
in the Internet DNS root system, ICANN is the only party that has
deliberately chosen to knowingly create a conflict in the aggregated
collective root.

ORSC has worked hard to avoid all such conflicts by negotiation and
coordination, and has been successful with all instances except with
ICANN, while ICANN denies our existence and the existence of all our
other TLDs which may well exceed in number all the TLD names in the
ICANN root.  This, in our ORSC view, violates all aspects of the
concept of mutual coordination and conflict avoidance.

ORSC accepts the concepts of "a single composite root" which is
possible if the involved parties will all recognize each other and
deal with each other fairly and openly, but ORSC does not accept the
arbitrary and capricious central control and conflict generation
policies of ICANN, which installs in the Internet a Single Point of
Failure, in place of coordinated stability with distributed
architectures such as the original Internet, which was intentionally
designed to be free of any single points of failure.

ICANN (and apparently IAB and IETF) appear to be dedicated to having
some kind of central control and accompanying single point of
failure.  ORSC is dedicated to maintaining a coordinated conflict
free DNS ROOT, and expects that in due course, ICANN, IAB, IETF and
ISOC might see the light and find ways to negotiate a resolution of
the only existing TLD name conflict in the present situation.

In our ORSC view, the responsibility for negotiating a resolution
lies directly with the two conflicting registries, or with their
superior organizations.  ORSC does not directly control the
registries that it recognizes, and so expects them to directly seek
resolution of any conflicts that might arise.  ICANN TLDs exist in a
top down control structure and we must so assume that the lack of
interest of the ICANN sponsored conflicting registry is directed by
ICANN, which casts a blind eye on the entire problem, pretending that
the conflict does not exist.

If you don't know what this conflict is, you need to do a bit of
research, and also take note that if you are unaware of the single
existing TLD name conflict, then you have no grounds to claim that it
causes any harm to anyone you know.  In the ORSC view, the conflict
harms the conflictees more than anyone else, and in our ORSC view it
is the ICANN Board of Directors that has asserted itself in a
deliberate act to knowingly create the only existing conflict.

The BoD was clearly informed of the impending conflict, but chose to
ignore the notice without any response there-to.  In the face of such
denial, ORSC has chosen to take no action to resolve the conflict
until ICANN (and IETF, IAB, and ISOC) take public notice of the fact
of their conflict creation.

It is my personal opinion that the ICANN sponsored conflicting TLD
registry would and should have a strong interest in resolving the
conflict, but that ICANN has instructed it to avoid any form of
recognition and thus to avoid any activities that might lead to
resolution of the conflict.

So, at this point, the ball is in the ICANN court, since ORSC has
always been available and ready to help work on finding an equitable
resolution any time that ICANN and its chosen conflicting registry
might seek to operate in some honorable way to seek a resolution.

I am certain that the cost of resolution will be vastly smaller than
the wasted value caused by pretending that the conflict does not
exist.

In the meantime, the ORSC root is in use by a vast number of Internet
Users, with equal or better stability than the ICANN root, and ORSC
users can see the entire Internet because we include all ICANN TLDs
in our collective ORSC root servers.

After all, all TLDs should be visible to all Internet Users who wish
to see them.
ORSC fulfills this desire in the marketplace, and ICANN does not.

So who do you suspect does the better job?

Cheers...\Stef


At 8:50 AM +0200 7/29/02, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Keith Moore wrote:
 >
 > > Keith Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>:
 > > >"alternate DNS roots" aren't part of DNS.  if someone wants to propose
 > > >a URN based on a DNS-like system with its own root zone, they're free
 > > >to do so and see if they can get support for it.   For that matter if
 > > >someone wants to propose a URN based on some other naming system that
 > > >doesn't look like DNS they're free to do that also.
 > > >
 > > >But trying to make "alternate DNS roots" fit into a DNS URI scheme is
 > > >like trying to make OIDs or some other naming scheme fit into a DNS
 > > >URI scheme.   We don't need to do that - there's a separate scheme for
 > > >OIDs.  And trying to do so would make DNS URIs far more complex than
 > > >they need to be -  for no real benefit.  For instance, how do you
 > > >assign names to the alternate roots?
 > >
 > > By specifying the root name as a prefix?
 >
 > great.  then people can start arguing about who gets to maintain the
 > set of names for ... er...  what were formally known as roots.
 > most of us have better things to do with our time.
 >
 > > I agree that alternate roots are not part of DNS as long as you
 > > contrain your universe to be the ICANN/USG published set of DNS
 > > names, but there are other things floating around the net that
 > > do use the DNS protocols and do resolve names for people who
 > > choose to use them.
 >
 > there are other protocols on the net than those defined by IETF
 > standards, too.  the fact that they exist does not compel IETF to
 > endorse them.

Amusingly, Richard has, by suggesting that we should name the
"alternate roots", just discovered why the whole "alternate root"
story is nonsense.

Since the DNS is a hierarchical namespace, and since trees have one
root, if you add "alternate roots", you then discover that you have
to uniquely name them, i.e. insert a new unique root "above" the various
"alternate roots".

Or to put it another way, if we need several naming authorities, one for
each "alternate root", we're going to need a naming authority to uniquely
name those naming authorities.

Funny how you can't change mathematical facts, isn't it?

However, back in the real world, the existing unique root works just fine.

   Brian



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