On-going Internet Emergency and Domain Names

Sat Mar 31 16:44:59 UTC 2007

On Mar 31, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Paul Vixie wrote:

> fundamentally, this isn't a dns technical problem, and using dns  
> technology
> to solve it will either not work or set a dangerous precedent.  and  
> since
> the data is authentic, some day, dnssec will make this kind of poison
> impossible.

Some SPs are doing DNS manipulation/poisoning now for various  
reasons, with varying degrees of utility/annoyance.  If those SPs  
choose to manipulate their own DNS in a way which affects their own  
users, that's fine; if the users don't like it, they can to  
elsewhere.  Some enterprises are doing the same kinds of things, with  
the same options available to the user population (though not always  
quite as easy to 'go elsewhere', heh).

What SPs or enterprises choose to do for/to their own user bases is  
between them and their users.  When we start talking about involving  
registries, etc., that's when we've clearly jumped the shark.

There is no 'emergency', any more than there was an 'emergency' last  
week or the week before or the month before that - after a while, a  
state of 'emergency' becomes the norm, and thus the bar is raised.   
It's merely business as usual, and no extraordinary measures are  
required.  Yes, there are ongoing, long-term problems, but they need  
rationally-thought-out, long-term solutions.

'Think globally, act locally' seems a good principle to keep in mind,  
along with 'Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what  
you send'.  Much unnecessary grief and gnashing of teeth would be  
avoided if folks worries about what was going on in their own  
networks vs. grandiose, 'fix-the-Internet'-type 'solutions' (the  
appeal of the latter is that it requires no actual  useful effort or  
sacrifice on one's own part, merely heated rhetoric and a pointed  
finger, which appeals to some of the least attractive aspects of  
human nature).

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Roland Dobbins <rdobbins at cisco.com> // 408.527.6376 voice

         Words that come from a machine have no soul.

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