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

Sun Aug 5 15:12:52 EDT 2012

Dear Parminder,

On Aug 5, 2012 6:10 PM, "parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Sunday 05 August 2012 05:17 PM, parminder wrote:
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>>
>> A 'technical community' committed to such specific and clear
'techno-political' viewpoint can do very little to improve the
understanding of political actors, who could have different base political
positions, or at least would want to keep alternatives open. It is my view
that this is 'the' key issue at the bottom of what we see here often as the
display of disappointment/ dismay by many of the 'technical community' or
close-about on this list about what seems to them as such poor
understanding of political actors, and their pious statements of desire to
do something about to improve it.
>
>
> Let me illustrate my point by referring to the case under discussion, of
root servers and geopolitical IG inequity. There has been a lengthy
discussion on this subject on this list, but I remain unclear about some of
the most important 'facts' with regard to the statement of the problem
being 'what is the connection between the root server architecture and
geopolitical IG equity or inequity'. Can we first agree that this is indeed
the main question that we are addressing? Let me proceed with the
assumption that we do agree on this.
>
> Now, we know that there are three kinds of root servers, the
authoritative root server (in which changes are made to the root file vide
the IANA process), 13 root servers and then the any number of mirrors that
can allegedly be created by making an investment of 3k usd .
>
> What I see is that, while there are of course clearly very significant
differences between these three layers or kinds of root servers, much of
the 'technical input' on this list that I have come across seem to focus on
the non-difference and greatly underplay the difference. This I think is
politically motivated, though disguised as factual neutral/ technical
information. The political motivation is to defend the techno- political
status, which in this case is best defended by 'showing' that power is
indeed already distributed and not centralised. Such a motivation has
clearly led to, and I repeat, overplay of the non- difference among the
three root server layers and underplay of the difference, which has left
most of us technically mis-informed. I am making the point that the fault
here is not necessarily on the side receiving technical wisdom.
>
> In an earlier long discussion on US oversight role, a few weeks back, we
went back and forth on how the 13 root servers could, and likely would, act
independently of the authoritative root server with Verisign...... I felt
that those professing technical knowledge clearly were more interested in
demonstrating one side of the view rather than the other, which focusses on
the hierarchy (and difference) between the two root server layers .......
>
> The present discussion has focussed more on the difference/
non-difference between the 13 root servers and their numerous anycast
mirrors. So much indeed has been said as if there is really no difference,
to the extent ridiculing the African minister, who seems to have said at
some meeting that there are no root servers in Africa, through a retort
that there are two in J'berg itself, where the meeting seem to have taken
place.
>
> Is it indeed that there is absolutely no difference between root servers
and their mirrors, and if there is, indeed, what is it? This question
requires a non politically motivated response, of which there has been a
great dearth of in the present discussion. Is the difference so less that
the African minister could be ridiculed in this manner? And if indeed,
there is no or ittle difference why stick to this 1-13-others hierarchy.
Why not go to 1-all others system (since I understand that 'one
authoritative root' is an issue of a different level).
>
> We read in the discussions that the limit of 13 no longer is meaningful.
So if indeed it is not, why not breach it and make people of the world
happy. Even within the limit of 13, why not allocate root servers in a
geo-graphically equitable manner, as Sivasubramanian has suggested,
especially when it seems to make no difference at all to anyone. Why not
make all these ill-informed ministers happy.
>
> I read that there is no central control over the 13 or at least 9 of
these root servers. Is it really true? Is the 13 root server architecture
not something that is aligned to what goes in and from the authoritative
root server.  If it is, why can these root servers not be reallocated in
the way tlds have been reallocated. Can they be reallocated or cant they?
>
> I also read that the it is not about 13 physical root servers, but 13
root server operators, so the number 13 is about the root server ownership
points, and not physical location points. Therefore what is needed is to
reallocate the ownership points in a geo-politically equitious manner. As
Siva suggests, probably one to an Indian Institute of Technology

Thank you for mentioning my name in reference to what I have written
earlier on this and another thread. I did mention the Indian Institute of
Technology but in one of the paragraphs above you said - BEGIN QUOTE - Even
within the limit of 13, why not allocate root servers in a geo-graphically
equitable manner, as Sivasubramanian has suggested - END QUOTE - That is
not the  language I used.

The same idea with your argument and rationale?, -expressed with your
convenient distortions- becomes destructive. While David Conrad has
subsequently corrected you on the technical flaws of your assumption, I
will sit and pray that your flawed eloquent verbosity on policy aspects
does not impress anyone in our Government this time.

Sivasubramanian M.

Why this is not done, or cant be done are the real questions in the present
debate. Any answers?
>
> Also better clarity will be useful about the process of setting up
anycast mirrors. Are they to seek a relationship with a specific root
server or can they be set up just like that....
>
> Is the real problem here that if root server allocation issue is opened
up, countries would like to go country-wise on root servers (as the recent
China's proposal for 'Autonomous Internet') which will skew the present
non-nation wise Internet topology (other than its US centricity), which is
an important feature of the Internet. If this is the base political
question, then let us discuss it as the main political question.
>
> Parminder
>
>>
>> regards
>> parminder
>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> -drc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
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