ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: get technical, please? , Re: Trees have one root

2002-07-31 08:51:07

--- Caitlin Bestler <caitlinb(_at_)rp(_dot_)asomi(_dot_)net> wrote:
On 7/30/02, Peter Deutsch wrote:

g'day Vint,

"vinton g. cerf" wrote:

ed, how would you suggest to resolve an email
address if
it returns ambiguous
results?

Maybe it's because I've spent part of the last week
poking
around with synchronous serial protocols (I2C,
anyone?) but
I think I may have a useful analogy here.

You can divide serial communication protocols into
two
classes, those which included embedded clocking and
those
which rely on external clocking. One technique
isn't
naturally superior to the other, and in fact there
are
times you want to use one or the other, depending
upon
design goals, circumstances, etc.

We can think of the DNS service as commonly used
today as
having "embedded clocking", in that the knowledge
of where
to go to resolve a query is assumed as part of the
query.
This is less flexible than having this knowledge
outside
the query but it's simpler and does lead to a
simpler
system. It also ties everyone together in ways
that,
because of admittedly non-technical decisions made
outside
the scope of this list, the resulting service is
running
up against constraints a lot earlier than might be
expected absent such decisions. Sadly, now that
"steampowered.com" is gone I can wail all I want,
but I'm
not getting it as long as we all use the same
resolvers
(ie. the same "embedded clock"). This is the only
way to
guarantee universality of response.


A clock, whether embedded or external, is only
useful if it
is used by both the sender and all the recepients.
Given the
goal of having a single clock, there are indeed many
different ways to achieve the same result.

You cannot, however, have two of the devices on an
I2C bus
decide that the clock the rest of the bus is using
is
defective, and just decide to use a better clock on
their
own.


Additionally, I think it is also important to
recognize that
domain names are now an integral part of trademarks
and have
meaning far beyond translating a name to an IP
address.

Suppose the IETF were to somehow get the crazy idea
to
radically change the entire domain registration
system, and
as a result Disney no longer owned "disney.com"?

Does anyone really think the courts would back the
IETF?




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com