Multiple Roots are "a good thing" - Karl Auerbach

Mon Mar 19 08:56:59 UTC 2001

On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Scott Francis wrote:

> > We routinely use directory services in a multiplicity of forms -- telephone
> > books published by local telephone companies or entrepreneurs, 411 services in
> > various shapes and forms,  web pages, or even on CD-ROMs (indeed a well known
> > Supreme Court case involved a telephone directory published on CD-ROM).
> 
> yes, and multiple directory services are a great thing. However, when I dial
> +1.310.642.0351 it reaches the same number no matter where the call
> originates, in what phone network, who my LD carrier is, who my local telco
> is, or how many switches it passes through on the way.

But if you access, for example, www.bbc.co.uk there is no knowing which 
of many machines you will reach, nor even what continent that machine 
is on.

> Multiple equally valid 'root zones' will most certainly give rise to a situation
> analogous to calling a phone number and having it ring at different destinations
> depending on the point of origin.

Yes.  But we are already there and have been for a long time.

Because of the widespread use of NAT, proxy servers, round robin DNS, 
local directors, and other such technology, a very large fraction of
IP traffic is already thoroughly "virtualized".  Where transparent 
proxy servers are involved, party A trying to access party B is 
actually talking to machines owned by party C, which may be getting
the information from party D, with A, B, C, and D all being legally
distinct entities.  The network operators keep all of this running
smoothly, although there are at least tens of thousands of such 
schemes (NAT, [transparent] proxying, etc) in operation.  Distibuting
the root of the DNS would be far less complex - and far less 
vulnerable to spoofing and other such technical trickery.

I am not saying that it would be invulnerable, just less open than
the kaleidescope of trickery already in operation.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015