RE: Yesterday's Congressional Hearing

[Jim Fleming <JimFleming at doorstep.unety.net>]

On Wednesday, April 01, 1998 11:03 AM, Tony Rutkowski[SMTP:amr at CHAOS.COM] wrote:
<snip>
@
@Dooley began her remarks by noting that she was
@speaking for more than 700 ISP member companies,
@and that they support the Green Paper process,
@but concerned that users and service providers
@might be under-represented on the new IANA Board,
@that there be careful consideration in expanding
@new gTLDs, that the .US country domain management
@be revamped, and that a stable and secure root server
@system be effected. 

Tony,

Thanks for the excellent summary. One of the themes that seems to
be common among many parties is the interest in making sure that
the legacy Root Name Server Cluster (RSC) is stable and secure. I
recently suggested that all of the U.S. Government RSC operators
help to provide a better feeling for the security and stability of their
RSC. Many companies depend on that RSC, although more and more
companies are learning that there are alternatives that provide better
performance and better stability and security.

I was encouraged that Curt Howland of NASA informed me that the
server he operates is stable and secure. I assume that NSI also
has a stable and secure server. I am not sure about some of the
other parties.

It is encouraging that the IETF members are rallying around Jon Postel
at their meeting in Los Angeles, near USC/ISI. While there might be
talk of splitting the legacy Root Name Server Cluster away from the
U.S. Government, I think that people in the U.S. need to have the
comfort that the U.S. Government is not going to allow the stability
and security be compromised on any servers that remain in that RSC.

No matter what happens, I think that the U.S. Government should
become pro-active in making sure that there is a Root Name Server
Cluster that is stable and secure and 100% under their control. It
makes no sense for the U.S. Government to spend a lot of time,
energy and money developing plans to add new TLDs only to find
when the time comes to add those TLDs they do not have control
over the servers. This could cause chaos, which people do not need.

I realize that some of the details of Root Name Server operations
are too complex for non-engineers. Despite that I hope that the
average civilian realizes that people and companies have come to
depend on the U.S. for a certain level of service and it is in everyone's
best interest to maintain and improve that service. This is not an
international vs U.S.-centric issue. It is a question of common sense
and stability and security.

In closing I would point out that if the Internet was like the airline
industry and we found that some of the FAA towers were operated
by people that wanted to experiment with having commercial
airliners flying at all different altitudes, people would expect the
U.S. Government to step in to inform their contractors that this
is not an experiment that the American people want to pay for...
-
Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation
IBC, Tortola, BVI