[governance] India's communications minister - root server misunderstanding (still...)

[Sivasubramanian M]

Dear David Conrad,

On Aug 3, 2012 1:57 AM, "David Conrad" <drc at virtualized.org> wrote:
>
> On Aug 2, 2012, at 12:34 PM, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn at gmail.com>
wrote:
> > The root server infrastructure, despite its harmless functions, occupy
a recurrent space in Internet Governance debates, their functions
understood, or otherwise, for its symbolic value.
>
> Understandable.
>
> > I have always wondered if it wouldn't be wiser for United States to
make a gesture of assurance to the rest of the world by exploring the
technical feasibility of locating a few more elsewhere.
>
> Technically, it is feasible to locate a root server anywhere there is
Internet connectivity (and, in fact, with the deployment of anycast
instances, this has already occurred, see http://root-servers.org/map/).  I
believe the issue isn't placement, it is ownership.
>
> > The Wikipedia article on Root Name Server says that "The choice of 13
nameservers was made because of limitations in the original DNS
specification" with a 'why?' asking for citation.
>
> The answer to "why?" is quite simple:  the original DNS specification
limited the guaranteed supported size of a DNS message to 512 bytes and 13
IP(v4) addresses is all you can fit in a message of that size.  While the
DNS specifications have evolved to support larger messages, it turns out a
surprisingly (at least to me) large percentage of the infrastructure
refuses to allow those larger messages (the refusals being largely due to
old software, broken implementations, or security policy that mistakenly
assumes DNS messages must be less than or equal to 512 bytes in length).
 As such, we're stuck with 13.
>
> > Assuming that there is a limitation, could there be other possible
gesturegs?  Fully Qualified Mirrors?  Or, could there be an extraordinary
gesture of one of the Universities retaining a Fully Connected Mirror in
their premises and relocate the Root Server to an Institution such as the
Indian Institute of Technology with transition support for 3 to 5 years?
 Or, would Verisign Inc do the same to make this extraordinary gesture by
shifting the root server to Verisign India or Verisign Africa? The
relocated servers would be under the present root server infrastructure any
way.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "Fully Qualified Mirror". The myriad of
root server instances spread all over the world as shown in that map are
indistinguishable at a protocol level from each other. The concern (as I
understand it) is that the administration of those root servers is in the
hands of 12 organizations, of which 9 are US-based.
>
> > It may not be easy, it could be technically complex, and possibly
expensive.
>
> It is actually quite easy and relatively inexpensive to deploy a root
server instance. I believe ICANN is more than happy to let pretty much
anyone run a copy of "L" if they buy a ~$3K server (to ICANN
specifications), provide Internet connectivity to that server, and sign an
agreement with ICANN saying they won't muck with or limit the data the
instance serves.
>
> > Even a pretension to add / relocate one or two servers would lay to
rest most of the criticism about the unilateral control of the root, read
(conveniently by those who archestrate anti-Internet propaganda),
unilateral control of the Internet.
>
> Unfortunately, I suspect this isn't true.  My impression is that the
"control of the root" isn't really about root servers, it is about
editorial control of the data in the root zone.

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed reply explaining the
technical answers.

I did have an idea, more so from Ian's earlier response, that the central
issue is one of what you call "editorial control". I don't expect a
political decision on Internationalization of the IANA functions, but US
probably knows that these functions would not eternally remain as a DoC
controlled operation. In the long term (how long it is is left to the
comfort if the reader), US would open up. If not bequeath the functions to
a committe of 200, IANA might at least include a few experts from different
geographic regions in a gesture of Internationalization. US would know that
a posture of total unwillingness causes undesirable moves such as
imaginative proposals for a Circus for Internet Governance.

As an answer to all these undesirable distractions, why not offer a glimpse
of what is to come 10 years or less or more later ?

The Fully Qualified Mirror that I talked about is a mirror that is not a
$3k mirror of ICANN's specification, but a Mirror with specifications for
its infrastructure almost as rigid that of one of the 13 root server
instances. It could be a mirror with an elevated symbolic status. The other
ideas expressed, that of moving a root server from Verisign Inc to Verisign
Africa are with the same purpose of offering a glimpse, conveying an
inclination.

I still believe that it would make an enormous difference and make it
easier to handle the negative overtures.

Sivasubramanian M
(Thinking aloud, on my own, hats on the hanger)

>
> Regards,
> -drc
>
>
>
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