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This is a review of the reasons
gathered from the dot-root initial NS Managers, Advisory Committee
Members and supporting Civil Society Organizations |
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security |
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The system of root servers currently
in use for the Internet is a single system, without back-ups,
without mirrors, without live testing, without a system for evaluation
and control, without alternatives in case of failure, and without
statistical reports nor any controlling authority. This single
system is the object of specific threats as a military and terrorist
target. It had has been subjected to attempts at intrusion by
numerous breakers. It has been "hacked" at least twice.
After September 11, 2001 the ICP-4 mailing list gathering of
DNSO/BC and GA Members concluded a need for a global review of
the DNS system to consider multiple kinds of threats. This was
the origin of the dot-root project. U.S. Presidential Advisor
Richard Clarke's report also calls for such a review of the DNS
system for the same reasons. Such an effort, which concerns the
security of the core of the world's data network, should be considered
and tested as a commonwealth effort. |
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system load |
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The DNS and its root servers
system were developed in 1983. Until the deployment of the World
Wide Web the rate of the queries was low, as was the number of
registered names, and caching was good. The web application introduced
important traffic with a huge number of hyperlinks calling for
very brief connections, dramatically increasing the load.
Today the important issue is
the way users and applications behave. For example, Microsoft
Windows machines update as they reboot, as do portables that
have a need to update their cache when they geographically change
DNS resolvers. Some programs call ten root servers in parallel
for speed. There is an reported heavy reversed lookup leak on
some occasions. New technologies, like ENUM may turn out to be
extremely demanding on the root servers system. |
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digital foreign
affairs |
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The master file used in this system
is under the sole control of the American government that could
decide on e-embargoes or alternate routing, to block access or
wiretap traffic of anyone in the world. The American government
thus has, at its exclusive disposal in its archives, information
on the use of the network and potentially on the economy and
life of other countries and their users, however necessary for
the application of their laws and for their internal security.
It decides unilaterally on the TLDs to be supported and complicates,
in practice to the point of forbidding them, local commercial
and cultural developments relating to naming which are not chosen,
or authorized, by its own industrial and political leaders, as
if Internet governance was under their dominance instead of a
world joint concerted effort. |
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innovation |
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These times face a major change
in the way mankind's relational network operates. This results
from the new technologies that change our space-time perception
in some very common ways. This help us value pertinence over
proximity, and a new form of shared relations involving knowledge.
After focusing on hardware in the mid-20th century and on software
at the end of the 20th, we are now able to focus on brainware:
the way we collectively apprehend our computer-assisted or documented
environment and communities. After a "digital infancy"
where numbers like telephone, network services and sites are
given mnemonic names, with new functions being created and quickly
integrated into our day to day life. At the heart of this evolution
is the DNS using domain names to relate brainware mnemonics to
hardware IP addresses.
All this will certainly result
in major societal evolution supported by industrial innovations
that must be studied, real life tested, technically and socially
validated, and democratically debated before being deployed on
a large scale, on the global networks. |
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