Enable BIND cache server to resolve chinese domain name?

Mon Jul 4 13:33:06 UTC 2005

>    That works, up until the point where India decides to use a 
> different alternative root solution than China does.

The only people affected by this are the people who run
the alternative root used by China because, presumably,
it means that they lose some business to a competitor
who has won the Indian market.

>  That works, up 
> until the point where the inexperienced alternative root operators 
> screw something up and their entire "expanded" Internet goes down, 
> while the real root servers continue normal operations.

Yes, and Google works until they screw something up and
their wonderful search engine goes down while Excite and
Yahoo et al. continue normal operations. These things
happen and one would hope that the customers of this
alternative root system make sure that their supplier 
has resiliency superior or equal to the ICANN root system.
Some people may be shocked that I said "superior" in that 
sentence but consider that these alternative roots are
likely to be more regional than the ICANN root and thus
they could put more servers throughout a specific region
than the ICANN roots can afford to set up.

>    The balkanization of the 'net is something to be avoided at all 
> possible costs.

My company makes good money off balkanization of the 'net
and we are definitely *NOT* the only one. AOL has always
operated a network apart from the rest. The Internet is 
so big now that some balkanization is inevitable and it 
can even be a good thing. Do your customers care how
fast they can get to http://www.satka.ru or http://www.vernon.ca

> What matters is that there can be only one root.

One ring rule them all, 
One ring to find them, 
One ring to bring them all 
And in the darkness BIND them

Isn't that what the Berkeley Internet Naming Daemon does?

Some people think that this is too much like a single
point of failure and that the right thing to do is
to route around this by creating alternative root systems.
They may be right and they may be wrong, but the only
way to find out is to let them have a go. It has been 
almost 10 years now since the first alternative root
(Alternic) started operation. The fact that this has not
simply faded away shows that there may be something
to it. 

Remember, the public root systems are not attacking
the ICANN root infrastructure at the network layer
in any way. They are not impeding the ability of the
ICANN roots to function and they are not stopping 
people from following your "only one root" model.
Their entrepreneurial spirit is consistent with the
free and open way in which the Internet has developed.
Remember the paraphrase from Voltaire:
   "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend 
    to the death your right to say it"

--Michael Dillon