Alternative DNS systems and net neutrality - Was: Re: [governance] DNSsec and allternative DNS system

[Karl Auerbach]

Phil Regnauld wrote:
> Karl Auerbach
>> Over time some of these boutique TLDs will fail, some will remain tiny 
>> boutiques that are visible only within the scope of the root system that 
>> offers them, and some will grow to become new members of the "every root 
>> must have" club.
>>
>> This system permits natural growth of new TLDs without any central 
>> ICANN-like authority.
> 
> 	No, this system permits snake oil vendors to exploit gullible
> 	customers into believing that the TLD they just bought is actually
> 	visible by the rest of the world.

Let's go back to my premise - consistency.  Competing DNS roots that are 
consistent will lead to minimal degrees of user surprise.  Are you 
surprised when you go into a super market and it has some extra boutique 
products on its shelves in addition to all of the standard, expected 
brands?  No, you aren't.  So why should users be surprised when they 
find that through a competing root they get the familiar .com, .net, 
.org, .arpa, .biz, .info and the 250 ccTLDs plus a few new boutique TLDs?

Instant reachability is hardly the sine qua non of a valid idea:

Is it "snake oil" if I hand someone a business card and say call me - 
and the telephone number on that card is "sip://1234@cavebear.com"?

Which raises the question - are we inventing yet another consumer 
protection body?

If so, why?  And under what authority?

Moreover there are more than enough laws on the books about 
misrepresentation and fraud.

And do we want to assume that buyers are increasingly stupid and 
non-informed?  What about the intelligent and knowledgeable person who 
wants to, to usurp a marketing phrase, "think different"?  Do we deny 
that person in order to protect the rest?

The logic being expressed is the logic that would deny IPv6 - for the 
most part people can not use IPv6 beyond their local nets.  So, should 
IPv6 be banned as "snake oil"?

And perhaps we even ought to ban 4 letter TLDs because so much of the 
Javascript in web page forms around the world refuses to accept user 
contacts with 4+ letter TLDs in their email.  (Just wait until 
internationalized, IDN, TLDs come along - perhaps we ought to ban those 
too because they will also, in the eyes of some, be "snake oil.")

On top of this there is no technical way to deny the rise of competing 
roots.

One might ask "why in the world would one want to establish a competing 
root" (apart from the obvious answer that it escapes the USA hegemony 
over the current DNS)?

One reason is that it can be a money making proposition.  It is possible 
to derive a very valuable stream of marketing data from the query stream 
that hits root and TLD servers.   In fact, Verisign has express 
permission from ICANN to do this.

(And one can guess that those root servers operated by the US military 
and US government agencies are not quietly ignoring all the potential 
intelligence data that could be derived by watching the queries [and 
perhaps manipulating the responses.])

A prospective operator of a competing root system might induce people 
(or more likely their providers) to switch to their service by paying 
people to use it.  Imagine if you (or your ISP) were to get a check for 
$100 (the same unit of payment used in Google's AdSense program) every 
time you (or the ISP) resolved a million names?

I mention Google AdSense because it is a good model - Just as Google 
pays web site operators to post Google provided advertising (for which 
Google is paid by the advertisers), a competing root server operator 
could attract DNS query traffic by peeling off a portion of the revenue 
from sales of marketing data derived from the query stream and paying 
that peeled-off part to those users that send traffic.

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly people want to suppress the 
innovative and created spirit that created the internet in the first place.

When we started the net back in the 1970's - I was there - we were not 
able to interact with anybody else.  The common wisdom of that era was 
that data networks would be based on the then up and coming ISDN and 
that this packet switching stuff was ... well to use some words I've 
read recently, "snake oil".

In the 1980's when I formed my first two internet based companies not 
many people could send email to "karl at epilogue.com" or 
"karl at empirical.com" - in those days "real" email was from MCI or IBM 
and others.  Internet email addresses were, again to use some recent 
words "snake oil".


> 	How am I going to validate ".boutique-tld" if my nameservers don't
> 	know about it ?

What means this word "validate"?  How does one today "validate" 
gdfkjljd.xn-r5tyk8dkjui.com?

DNS is not a system of "validation".  Attempts to use it as one are like 
attempts to build balloons out of stones.

If you want more, then one needs to move to mutual identification and 
authentication mechanisms such as IPsec.

If you don't like TLDs not approved by <insert your favorite TLD 
creation body name here> then don't accept 'em.  Gaining that acceptance 
is part of the gauntlet that a boutique TLD needs to run - at its own 
expense and through its own efforts.

Which gets to a point raised by Mereyem - the cost of "building the 
brand in a new TLD".

I see no reason to institutionalize any kind of help or assistance to 
any new TLD aspirant.  The costs to set up a new TLD are small.

Take for example my .ewe TLD - 
http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000159.html - It operates on the 
basis of public-key certificates, permanent ownership of names, rather 
than the yearly rental cycle required by ICANN.  Thus my registration 
systems do not have to provide all those engines to do yearly cycles. 
And on the name server side - it's really not all that expensive to set 
up servers in will connected facilities all over the world - one hardly 
needs to begin operation on day one with a resolver capacity equal to 
that of Verisign for .com.

And for those who want public assistance to start new TLDs: Perhaps it 
is useful to remember one lesson that one learns very quickly here in 
the Silicon Valley area: be careful of the outside funding you accept: 
Startup funding often comes with Faustian strings.

		--karl--
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