News of ISC Developing BIND Patch

Thu Sep 18 19:06:04 UTC 2003

> On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 bdragon at gweep.net wrote:
> 
> > > If the goal were unique identification, MAC addresses would do just fine.
> > > No need for DNS.
> > 
> > MAC addresses are not without authority delegation. The IEEE is the ultimate
> > authority in said case.
> 
> Yep... But have you seen any controversy about who gets which block of MAC
> addresses recently?  They're not scarce, and every block is just as good
> as any other block.

There is no controvery because there is both close cooperation (those who
choose the mac addresses aren't the great unwashed masses of spammers
and those with nebulous business plans) and a singular authority to
arbitrate in the event of collisions.

> > Any solution which requires uniqueness also requires a singular ultimate
> > authority.
> 
> Not really.  You can just take random numbers. If you have enough bits
> (and a good RNG) the probability of collision would be less than
> probability of an asteroid wiping the life on Earth in the next year.

While collisions are unlikely, they are not impossible, and humans being
humans, the general public is unlikely to cooperatively resolve collisions
without a central authority.

RNG is not uniqueness, it is merely pseudo-uniqueness.

So, again, when uniqueness is required, a single central authority
is also a requirement.

<snip>