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

[David Conrad]

On Aug 7, 2012, at 11:38 PM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> When I and others argued why US cannot be relied on to have the unilateral authority to change the root file at its will - the MAIN argument by David and others was; the 13, or at least 9, root zone operators will very likely simply refuse to publish a file so changed by the US.

Actually, my MAIN argument was that it is ridiculously unlikely that the US government would destroy everything it has invested in its push to "privatize" Internet resource management by bypassing documented policies and procedures to force an inappropriate change in the root zone. It would just be silly. 

However, even if the US government decided to destroy all their efforts in privatizing Internet resource management, inappropriate modifications to the root zone would still have to be published to the root servers and be accepted by resolver operators. Ignoring lawsuits from ICANN and Verisign (since this scenario presupposes the USG doesn't act rationally), since 3 root server operators are outside the US and only 5 root servers are directly associated with parts of the US government, the rogue US government would have no direct way to force all of the root servers to accept the inappropriate root zone updates. Further, resolver operators, once made aware of inappropriate changes to the root, could take steps if they so desired to address the issue (e.g., point their resolvers at different root servers).  The implied chaos of all of this in and of itself would make "ridiculously" turn into "ludicrously" (or more directly: "it ain't gonna happen").

As I said in an earlier message, the focus on root server (operators) is a red herring. I've engaged in this discussion primarily to make sure people understand how the root system, from ICANN to NTIA to Verisign to the root servers, actually works, not how various folks with political agendas would like people to think it works.  Hopefully someone found it useful.

> (2) Or, indeed, at least potentially, root operators can refuse to publish what is considered as an improperly changed file by the US, and support the internet system continuing to work on the basis of the original 'proper' file

This is actually what I've been arguing (although I believe Stephane disagreed). I believe some of the root server operators, being confronted with an inappropriate zone modification, would refuse to update the zone thereby giving the Internet community time to figure out an alternative to the USG-controlled distribution master and/or saner heads to prevail within the USG.
 
> - whereby, it is useful to redistribute root server operator-ship among agencies that together are more likely to resist US unilateralism. 

Knock yourself out.  There are 12 organizations you can talk to to convince them they should give up their root server(s).  If you'd like contact information, let me know. If you do pursue this, I (honestly) wish you luck -- my interactions with the root server operators most typically spike my blood pressure, but that's probably just me.

Regards,
-drc



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