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

[Daniel Kalchev]

I will try to discuss this issue strictly on technical and operational 
perspective.

On 03.08.12 00:24, Sivasubramanian M wrote:

> [...] 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. 

This is common misunderstanding of the IANA functions. IANA is not a 
policy setting body, it is a (very) small operational units, charged 
with the task to make sure the policy is properly implemented and that 
there is no chaos in the Internet's naming space. The Internet's naming 
space includes all kinds of numbers used on Internet, from IP address, 
protocol numbers and names, protocol port numbers, organization ids, MAC 
address prefixes .. up to the DNS root contents. People often see only 
the DNS root zone editor function of IANA, but they fail to remember, 
that IANA is in fact *only* the editor of the root zone: policy is set 
by ICANN and monitored by DoC.

IANA in fact employs people originating from all around the globe. There 
is however no point to employ many more there currently are, nor is 
there any benefit into turning IANA into an committee -- because none of 
IANA's functions have any policy impact.

> 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.
>

$3k was mentioned, because this is the current price of quality low-end 
server equipment, that is "guaranteed" to do the task. An root server 
does not require much computing power, nor (that) much bandwidth -- but 
it has to work reliably, when operational and therefore should be 
closely monitored. This is why it is built "to specification" -- to 
reduce the number of variables and ease the monitoring and 
administration tasks.

As already mentioned, there are hundreds of root server instances. Each 
of these is an actual root server. As good as any other. The technology 
used is called 'anycast'.

Basically, what 'anycast' does in this case is announce the IP address 
prefixes of the respective root server at an local exchange point for 
Internet traffic. Everyone who is connected at that exchange points sees 
this root server 'nearby' and sends there the DNS queries. That local 
instance of the server then responds.

In your example, Verisign can (and probably does) run an instance of 
their root server at both their 'primary' facilities *and* in Africa 
(perhaps in several countries in Africa as well). Each of these is the 
same root server. It contains the same data, answers the same way to 
queries.

There is absolutely no point for Verisign to leave only one instance of 
their server in Africa, and shut all others, including the one at their 
primary facilities and all others in other African countries (and across 
the globe). This will only damage Internet users, and is not worth it, 
whatever other political benefits it might seem to bring.

The 'why 13' limits were already explained. You just need to remember, 
that each of these 13 can be 'cloned' anywhere in the world and that 
most of them are in fact and if you need one in your country, it is 
relatively easy to set it up.

Daniel

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