Root Servers not updated

Thu Jul 3 18:22:20 UTC 1997

There's a lot of smoke going around this list and others about the root
servers.  The internic generated a corrupt zone file on Tuesday which Bind
did not load and prevented XFERs to the secondaries.  We became aware of it
last night and it is currently fixed.  New zones will be ready for XFER
within the next hour.  

The issue with requiring a login for retrieving the zone files was designed
to help reduce spamming.  We are currently experiencing a huge system load
due to several individuals who are trying to register recently deleted
domain names.  The requests are being repeated and fired off every few
milliseconds.  One individual has over 50,000 templates in the system as we
speak.  We believe that  by requiring an identity to download the zone
files we will better protect the community.

Note that this ftp policy has not yet gone into effect.

Lastly, it appears irresponsible to fan the flames of "the internic is
trying to get over" via lists like these.  How about giving us the benefit
of the doubt?  We generally stay silent on these issues, but feel that it
is important to explain what we are doing and why.  No, we are not trying
to take over the net.  Sorry for the confusion.

David H. Holtzman
Senior VP Engineering, NSI
dholtz at internic.net