On zaterdag, aug 30, 2003, at 21:28 Europe/Amsterdam, Christian Huitema
wrote:
Obviously, cutting of the A root would have some pretty drastic
consequences.
If that is the case then some people have been reading the relevant
RFCs with their eyes closed. The only consequence should some sporadic
short delays when a resolver asks the A but there is no answer so there
is a timeout and one of the other root servers must be consulted.
On the other hand, there are many computers that have no
business contacting directly the root servers. For example, in many
enterprises and campuses, computers are suppose to send their DNS
traffic to a configured relay.
How would that make a difference, other than that a central resolver
can cache more efficiently? If a host needs a domain in a
not-yet-cached TLD resolved, then someone somewhere has to ask one of
the root servers for the information about this TLD, whether this is
the host that needs the information or some other system working on
behalf of this host.
The better question for the IETF is whether we should do something to
SMTP to make it less easy to send spoofed mail.
Well, draft-fecyk-dsprotocol-04.txt is in the RFC editor queue and this
seems like a fair step in the good direction, without heaving read it
in detail. So unless this is no good it should be shipped as and RFC
and then the ball is in the vendors' court.