Photo Op: You too can have your picture taken with a.root-servers.net

Wed Nov 14 14:15:21 UTC 2001

However, do not forget that only Verisign operates the .com, .net, and 
.org name servers. 

While it seems that the government meeting yesterday was focused on 
physical security, which as pointed out below, is somewhat a moot point 
given the physical diversity of the multiple gtld-servers.net boxes, we 
can't forget about the network security of these machines.

IIRC, Verisign operates every gtld-servers.net server, and as such, I'm presuming that they feature very 
similar software builds. As such, a security exploit found on one of them 
could potentially be present on all of them. If such an exploit were to be 
found and used, the results could be catastrophic for anyone with servers 
(or trying to access servers) in the .com, .net and .org namespaces.

Does Verisign use the same hardware and OS on all of these servers, or are 
the vendors distributed?

-Chris

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 01:03:14AM -0500, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> 
> I don't whether to laugh or cry.  Its just a computer.
> 
> http://www.washtech.com/news/netarch/13672-1.html
> 
> If you destroyed the copy of the US Constitution in the National Archives
> in Washington DC, would that mean the end of the US Government? If someone
> broke into NARA and scribbled a new amendment on the tail of the
> parchment, would the US Government be bound to follow what ever he wrote
> on the Constitution?  No, of course not.
> 
> The Root Zone files aren't unique historical documents, and there is
> nothing special about the copy on a.root-servers.net.  If a tornado blew
> through Verisign's offices tomorrow, would it mean the end of the
> Internet?  No. If someone corrupted Verisign's files, would that mean we
> have to follow the bogus records? No, we'd clean them up.  Or more likely,
> the other operators would rollback their zone files to the previous known
> good copy.
> 
> Would it disrupt our operations. Yes.  Would it be irrecoverable? No.
> The root files are important business records, and I expect the custodian
> to take reasonable precautions appropriate for their value.  Do I expect
> to see machine-gun nests outside Verisign's office?  No.
> a.root-servers.net is just a piece of hardware.  If it was destroyed,
> we've got more.
> 
> 
> http://www.sms800.com/
> http://www.dtc.org/
> 
> 

-- 
---------------------------
Christopher A. Woodfield		rekoil at semihuman.com

PGP Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB887618B