Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
There are several crucial attributes that are hard to replicate that
way. One is uniqueness: whenever I do a query for a name, I get back
exactly one answer, and it's the same answer everyone else should get.
You're making assumptions that its one system. No other medium requires
uniqueness for the names _people_ use. You and I are perfectly capable
of understanding that there might be two Steven Bellovins in the world.
Its the email routing system that requires uniqueness. There is no
reason why the addresses that system uses need to be remotely
understandable by humans. The identifier I use to look you up and be
able to differentiate you from someone else would be run completely
differently from the addressing system used to route a message through a
store and forward network.
This is the problem with "alternate" roots -- depending on where you
are, you can get a different answer. It's also what differentiates it
from a search engine -- my applications don't know how to make choices.
And conflating all of that into one system is the problem. Take those
things that humans use and separate them from those things that
computers and networks need to get things done. Don't burden people with
the uniqueness requirement when that's not the way they expect the world
to work and don't burden the network with having to differentiate badly
between service behaviors given nothing but an IP address and a port
number.
Beyond that, the mapping should be under control of the appropriate
party. I don't want the moral equivalent to "Google-bombing" to be
able to divert, say, my incoming mail.
Again, you're conflating two different services that should be... Which
is my point. Look at the problem from a purely requirements point of
view and ignore what's been done to date.....
Finally, you need locality: people within an organization must be able
to create their own names.
Yep.....
It may be that some of these requiremets are fundamentally at odds with
the notion of full decentralization.
If you try and shove it all in one system, sure.... The addressing
requirements of IP addresses and SMTP addresses are different and
probably "fundamentally at odds with each other". Does that mean you
still force both to use something that doesn't satisfy either system? No....
Reexamine the premises....
-MM
--
Michael Mealling Masten Space Systems, Inc.
VP Business Development 473 Sapena Ct.
Office: +1-678-581-9656 Suite 23
Cell: +1-678-640-6884 Santa Clara, CA 95054
http://masten-space.com/
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