[governance] Vixie supports another root administration (fwd)

Mon Oct 10 13:47:53 EDT 2005

Listening in on the hypothetical scenario of USG removing the present .ir 
registry from the root zone, and currently in charge of .ir, I couldn't help 

but throw in my two cents:
1. If there is a war between the US and Iran, the root zone would be the 
least of my worries as far Internet goes. It would be very easy for the US 
to insulate Iran, Internet-wise, with or without ORSN or any other 
independent-minded operators, by simply cutting off Iran physically from the 

network. USG simply has to severe the fiber running from a southern Iranian 
port(and two other projected fibers through Turkey and Azerbaijan) and to 
jam the satellite signals that provide alternative external Internet 
connection. All 
very easy regardless of the location of Root Server A and who operates it. 
In fact at the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan a few years back, 

when about half of Iran's external Internet was served by an inclined orbit 
EUTELSAT, the connection became inexplicably unstable, and the provider( a 
France Telecom subsidiary) gave no official explanation although it alluded 
unofficially to the war going on in Afghanistan. 
2. So the real question is whether USG would do such a thing during peace 
time. So far it hasn't and maybe it never will. But we'd feel safer if 
there's a written guarantee that USG will not interfere in the operations of 

IANA, will not pressure ICANN, etc,etc. Note that political pressure can go 
many ways. If USG decides to appease the Iranian govt. by pressuring ICANN 
to redelegate .ir ccTLD to someone the Iranian GAC representative wants, 
then you'd have political interference going the opposite direction Milton 
Mueller is discussing.
My fear is that the net outcome of all governance discussion at WSIS, where 
the only voice coming from third-world countries is the voice of 
governments, will be to split the governance between 'North' and 'South', 
with the North staying more or less as it is and the South going to some 
inter-governmental agency like ITU. 
Siavash Shahshahani
*************************************************
IPM/IRNIC
P O Box 19395-1795, Tehran, Iran
Phone: (+98 21)22 29 18 12, Cell: (+98 912)104 2501
Fax: (+98 21)22 29 57 00
Email: shahshah at iranet.ir, shahshah at nic.ir
*************************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: "Milton Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu>
To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, <paul at vix.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:41:18 -0400
Subject: Re: [governance] Vixie supports another root administration   (fwd)

> >>> Paul Vixie <paul at vix.com> 10/09/05 9:32 PM >>>
> >i'm cc'ing mr. mueller in hopes that he will forward it to the 
> >list on my behalf
> 
> Done. My reply to your post below.
> 
> >If ORSN ever publishes data that did not come originally from 
> >IANA, beyond the minor change to the ". NS" RRset needed to 
> >make ORSN's project viable at all, then that will probably end 
> >my involvement with them.
> 
> I understand this distinction quite well. No one is accusing you of
> supporting an effort that is attempting to add new TLDs to the root
> zone
> via some process that is outside of and parallel to ICANN's. So, relax.
> 
> # ... if the USG abuses its oversight authority and does something to
> #the root zone that makes it different, such as throwing Iran's ccTLD
> #out of the root zone, will ORSN follow suit?  I suspect (and hope)
> not.
>  #Then you will have a split root.
> 
> >then you will have a root nameserver system that's publishing 
> >stale IANA data rather than up-to-date IANA data.  
> 
> I understand this distinction quite well, too. And you are wrong that
> the result is not two distinct name spaces. If up-to-date
> USG-controlled
> IANA data differs from "stale" IANA data, you have a split root.
> Period.
> You know this as well as I.
> 
> You would be much more convincing if you would point out that the
> existence of this independently-maintained root reduces the chance that
> the USG would abuse its oversight over the root zone file to begin
> with.
> It would  basically be a game of chicken in which the threat of a
> viable
> alternate root system capacble of creating a DNS incompatibility
> obviously not in everyone's interests would make USG think twice about
> doing it.
> 
> And that's why I support what you and ORSN are doing. So, relax.
> 
> >that ain't the same thing, at all, as a
> >split root.  
> 
> Wrong. To use my example, a root without .ir, or one in which USG
> unilaterally redelegates .ir to someone new, constitutes two different
> name spaces, if ORSN doesn't follow suit and sticks to the "stale"
> data,
> you have a DNS incompatibliity.  
> 
> Of course that scenario is highly unlikely. But the likelihood of the
> scenario is irrelevant to the logical point about the name space. (At
> least, I HOPE it is unlikely, but it is not too stupid for some of the
> militant idiots running around the Bush administration to contemplate,
> I
> am afraid. If you think otherwise I would suggest that you spend less
> time on the West coast and more time in neocon circles in Washington.
> And think less of about "Prepcom3 results" and more about the Family
> Research Council and .xxx. 
> 
> # In essence, Paul Vixie is saying is that he is willing to risk
> # splitting the root for defensive, political reasons, and not for
> # profit-motivated, economic reasons.
> 
> >no.  paul vixie (me) has never said he (i) would split the root.
> 
> Except for October 31, 1996, and January 1998....but we won't go into
> that ;-)
> 
> >there is a world of difference between "one namespace with 
> >multiple sets of servers" and "multiple namespaces".  and as 
> >anyone who has read this far knows, there is a world of 
> >difference between a deliberately stale root zone and an 
> >amended root zone.
> 
> There is an important difference between what ORSN is doing and what
> prior alt.root people did. But if the USG does something that causes
> ORSN's root to diverge - and you cannot deny that that possibility is
> one of the stated motives of creating ORSN -  from the standpoint of
> global namespace compatiblity, the two are not different at all.
> 
> >mr. mueller is not the first wisher-for-alternate-roots who has 
> >mistaken my support for ORSN as being supportive of their 
> >positions, but i hope that the end of that baggage train is near.
> 
> Mr. Mueller (me) has never "wished for" alternate roots per se. Mr.
> Mueller has as a social scientist insisted that 1) they are possible
> and
> we should talk about them, 2) there could be justifiable reasons for
> setting one up, or at least not to make them illegal, and 3) that we
> should analyze and understand their economics and in particular the way
> they affect DNS compatiblity. I think current events and in particular
> your "support" for ORSN have just proven that I was right about 2). Now
> if you'd read the rest of my work on the subject, you might find my
> contributions around 3) interesting.
> 
> >i'm not siding with them.
> 
> Your own article said you were "participating" in the Project. You have
> publicly associated with them, adding considerably to their visilbity
> and credibility. You use the words "helping" and "supporting" them. You
> could easily have ignored them, but did not. If you want to say you are
> not "siding" with them, it's fine with me, but I suspect this
> distinction won't matter to anyone but you. Let's not waste any more
> time on semantic debates of that sort, ok?
> 
> And hey, I think what you are doing makes a lot of sense. So relax.
> 
> 
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