DNSSEC in Plain English

Edward Lewis Ed.Lewis at neustar.biz
Thu Jun 15 14:24:04 UTC 2006


At 11:11 +0100 6/15/06, Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:

>"certificates", and so on. This is fine for a
>technical audience but it won't help explain the
>issue to the decision makers who spend the money.

We should be clear on who the decision makers are.  I've spent a long 
time trying to trick folks with engineering budgets and policy roles 
into doing DNSSEC.  As much as they have been sympathetic to the 
cause, they can't find the justification they need to make DNSSEC 
happen.  It's not that they are "ignorant."  It's that they answer to 
other authorities - not the *gasp* engineers.

The people who have investments in the Internet are the decision 
makers here.  The consumers of the Internet, those who buy its 
services and turn them around for a profit, are the decision makers. 
They are the ones exposed to risk, they are the ones to best judge if 
DNSSEC fills a need.

Unfortunately, I don't speak their language.  Shucks, I'm just a 
simple country engineer from the old days.

I do not mean to say we should stop technical discussions of DNSSEC 
nor stop the education process happening today.  I also don't mean to 
say that we ought to give up on developing tools that will make 
DNSSEC less onerous.  I mean to say that the effort to deploy DNSSEC 
has to consider (or increase what's done now) reaching out to those 
who we think are the consumers or beneficiaries of DNSSEC.

-- 
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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Nothin' more exciting than going to the printer to watch the toner drain...



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