FW: i am unable to restore my old account settings

["Aronson, David" <daronson at cryptek.com>]

Oops, silly me, forgot to cc the list again....

-----Original Message-----

From: Aronson, David 
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 9:48 AM
To: 'USELESS SSELESU'
Subject: RE: i am unable to restore my old account settings


Aronson, David:

 > [Your DNS server] should know the IP address of at least one
 > system that is "authoritative" about all .com domains, including
 > example.com.  (And likewise one for each of the other "official" 
 > domains, or at least where to find out about such official DNS
 > servers.)

USELESS SSSELESU:

 > WHO owns this "authoritative" system

 Abbott:    Well, yes, as it happens, they do own one.
 Costello:  Who?
 Abbott:    Yes.
 Costello:  Who owns one?
 Abbott:    Yes, and quite a lot of traffic it gets, too.
 Costello:  Wait.  What is the group that owns an authoritative .com DNS
server?
 Abbott:    No, *they* own an authoritative .ORG DNS server!
 Costello:  Hey, I'M askin' the questions here!

Okay, now a serious answer.  I honestly don't know for sure how one gets to
be an "authoritative" DNS server for some TLD.  (Er, that's Top Level
Domain, as in .com, .org, .cx, .ru, etc.)  For national ones (.ie, .ch, .il,
.us, .uk, etc., aka TLDs in the sense of Two Letter Domains), I suppose they
would be appointed by the government.  For .com and suchlike, I would guess
there might be some sort of "convince the ICANN that you are competent and
pay them a fee" sort of arrangement, after which they would list you in some
kind of frequently published Official List of authoritative DNS servers for
that/those TLD(s), and automagically send you updates on a very frequent
basis.

Anybody out there got a clue how close this SWAG is to reality?

-- 
Dave Aronson, Software Engineer, +1-571-434-2039 V, +1-571-434-2001 F.
Cryptek Secure Communications, 1501 Moran Rd., Sterling, VA 20166 USA.
Opinions above are MINE, ALL MINE -- but for rent at reasonable rates.