[ih] Re: anyone remember when the root servers were hi-jacked? (fwd)

[Dave Crocker]

Just to add this to the archive for this mailing list:

Things were fragile back then. That included concern over the possibility
that NSI would go rogue. NSI controlled the master root. The one that all
others took their data from. Jon needed to test the ability to switch to a
different master DNS root, to make sure that there were ways to "route
around" this concern over NSI.

That's all the test was. Jon was clear about the need for this, weeks before
the test. All anyone needed to do was ask him, rather than engage in
unfounded, inflammatory speculation.

The other point that folks keep forgetting is that Jon had been issuing
operation directives for the root servers since the inception of the DNS.
How can one "take over" something that one has been responsible for over its
entire existence?

All of the storm and fury has been from people who have had nothing to do
with the running of the DNS, but instead have focused strictly on the
politics of it. (In fact, it was quite interesting to see that a year of
federal inter-agency task force meetings -- including Magaziner's
participation -- took place with most participants having almost no
understanding of DNS technical basics. We had to arrange a tutorial for
them.)


d/
-- 
 Dave Crocker  <mailto:dhc2 at dcrocker.net>
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