root nameserver problems ?

Art Houle houle at zeppo.acns.fsu.edu
Thu Jul 17 17:17:32 UTC 1997


The shutdown of the root name servers is the shutdown of the internet!

Take out 12 servers and you disable a multi-billion dollar industry (are
you listening cisco, microsoft, intel, ....??) The only reliable
protection of the internet from this weakness is to allow the free and
open duplication by anybody of the full information in the root servers
and in the whois database. 

Otherwise just wait and some fool will test the weakness.  ...What if the
internic does not have a full backup ???  Has this weakness been tested
before, and what is your confidence factor in a business that is streached
to the max?  

On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 17, 1997 at 05:13:09AM -0700, bmanning at ISI.EDU wrote:
> > Roy, methinks you are a bit hasty here.  j-m have never had tlds present.
> > And the other servers are being corrected as we "speak".  But then, perhaps
> > you don't have a problem reloading your servers every couple hours or so... 
> 
> Maybe I'm just too much of a babe in the woods, but I don't think he's
> being a _bit_ hasty.  AFAIC, root nameservers are the quintessence of
> "mission critical", and the Internet simply is _not_ a geek toy anymore;
> it actually _matters_.
> 
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> -- 
> Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
> Member of the Technical Staff             Unsolicited Commercial Emailers Sued
> The Suncoast Freenet      "People propose, science studies, technology
> Tampa Bay, Florida          conforms."  -- Dr. Don Norman      +1 813 790 7592
> 

Art Houle     				e-mail:  houle at zeppo.acns.fsu.edu.
Academic Computing & Network Services 	 Voice:  644-2592
Florida State University		   FAX:  644-8722




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