The whole alternate-root ${STATE}horse (was Re: Enable BIND cache server to resolve chinese domain name?)

Tue Jul 5 08:08:35 UTC 2005

At 10:32 PM -0400 2005-07-04, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

>  But the whole "there's a non-ICANN root: the sky is falling" thing is
>  an argument cooked up to scare the unwashed; us old wallas don't buy
>  it.

	That's because you understand the underlying technology, and you 
understand how to deal with the problem (including understanding that 
you may just have to live with it).

	Most people don't understand the underlying technology or the 
true nature of the problem, nor are they capable of doing so.  All 
they know is that their e-mail doesn't work, or they can't get to the 
web pages they want.  And for them, this is a very real problem.

	Since there's a lot more of them than there are of us, and we're 
the ones who are likely to be operating the systems and networks 
where these people are our customers, when they have a problem, that 
creates a problem for us.  Moreover, most of them are unlikely to be 
willing to just live with the problem, if no other suitable technical 
solution can be found.  Instead, they'll believe the sales pitch of 
someone else who says that they can fix the problem, even if that's 
not technically possible.

	Okay, the sky may not be falling.  Maybe it's just the Cyclorama, 
or the fly grid.  But when the actors are on stage and one of these 
things falls, there's not much practical difference.  And us techies 
are the ones that have to pick up the pieces and try to put them back 
together again.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.