DNS and potential energy

Tue Jul 1 14:28:56 UTC 2008

>
> Maybe it's not that bad.   The eventual result is instead of having
> a billion .COM SLDs, there are a billion TLDs:  all eggs in one

There are simply not going to me billions, millions, or even probably 
tens of thousands of TLDs as a result of this. It's still a complex 
several months long administrative process that costs some multiple 
of $100,000.

As far as I can work out, minus the press noise, the difference is 
that creating a TLD will take half a year rather than half a decade 
or more.

> basket, the root zone -- there will be so many gTLD servers, no DNS
> resolver can cache the gTLD server lookups,  so almost every DNS
> query will now involve an additional request to the root,  instead
> of (usually) a request to a TLD server  (where in the past the TLD
> servers' IP would still be cached for most lookups).

Maybe, maybe not.

> Ultimately that is a  1/3   increase in number of DNS requests, say
> to lookup www.example.com
> if there wasn't a cache hit.   In that case, I would expect the
> increase in traffic seen by root servers to be massive.

There will probably be a significant increase if there is a very wide 
takeup of new TLDs, yes.

Conversely load on some of the existing gTLD servers may decrease if 
the number of domains in active use is spread across a larger number 
of independent TLDs.

> Possible technical ramifications that  haven't been considered with
> the proper weight,
> and ICANN rushing ahead towards implementation in 2009  without
> having provided opportunity for internet & ops community input
> before developing such drastic plans?

> Massive further sell-out of the  root zone (a public resource) for
> profit?  Further
> commercialization of the DNS?  Potentially giving  some registrants
> advantageous treatment at the TLD level,  which has usually been
> available to registrants on  more equal terms??
> [access to TLDs merely first-come, first-served]

Don't think that is operational and in any case the current system is 
weighted towards entities who have had domains for eons when they 
were able to be the first comers, it's very unfair and unequal in the 
sense that it works against the interests of newer registrants. 
Definitely not operational though.

> Vanity  TLD space may make  ".COM" seem boring. Visitors will expect
> names like
>  "MYSITE.SHOES", and consider other sites like  myshoestore1234.com
> "not-legitimate"
> or "not secure"
>
>
> The lucky organization who won the ICANN auction and got to run the
> SHOES TLD may price subdomains at $10000 minimum for a 1-year
> registration (annual auction-based renewal/registration in case of
> requests to register X.TLD by multiple entities) and registrants
> under vanity TLD  to sign  non-compete agreements  and  other
> pernicious EULAs and contracts of adhesion merely to be able to put
> up their web site,
>
> As a subdomain of what _LOOKS_ like a generic name.
>
>
> And, of course,  http://shoes/   reserved for the TLD registrant's
> billion-$ shoe store,
> with DNS registration a side-business (outsourced to some DNS
> registrar using some "domain SLD resale" service).

The operational issue is?

Actually your shoe shop still now has a greater number of choices 
(.com or .shoes) and I can bet that if your scenario comes to pass 
with a very aggressive and restrictive registrar of .shoes, some 
enterprising soul will register .boots, .sneakers or .shoeshop etc to 
make their living on those parts of the market that don't like .shoes 
policies.

> The possibilities that vanity TLD registry opens are more  insidious
> than it  was for someone to bag a good second-level domain.

Questionable and certainly not operational.

>
>
>
>> Sure, nefarious use of say .local could cause a few problems but
>> this is
>
> I'd be more concerned about nefarious use of a TLD like  ".DLL",
> ".EXE", ".TXT" Or other domains that look like filenames.

Or .com. Oddly enough I just now found a Windows box and typed 
"command.com" in a browser URL bar and it did what I expected, when I 
typed the same thing at a cmd prompt it did something different and I 
expected that too.

> Seeing as a certain popular operating system confounds local file
> access via Explorer with internet access...
> You may think "abcd.png"  is an image on your computer... but if you
> type that into your
> address, er, location bar,  it may be a website too!

To the extent that possibility already exists, there is a reason that 
web URIs have both a host and path component. I don't see why new 
TLDs substantially change this. If applications insist on confusing 
the two then bad things will always happen but that is an app issue.

--
	Rob.