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

[Dave Crocker]

Craig,

Wednesday, November 13, 2002, 8:53:05 AM, you wrote:
Craig> I'll put the gist of my response up front. Was it a hijacking? No. Was 
Craig> it a technical test? No.  Jon was seeking to put physical control of the 
Craig> root where he honestly thought it belonged -- under IANA.

You are confusing a specific action with a larger goal. The mistake of
having NSI hold physical control over the root was, by then, clear to pretty
much everyone in the ops community. IANA was a logical alternative to
pursue. This was not even slightly controversial. The question was how to
achieve that end.

My exchange with Jon was a pretty casual conversation, weeks beforehand.
Indeed, as I recall, the topic had been discussed among the community for
quite awhile, but I was not active in the DNS community during the time
immediately preceding the IAHC work.  So my direct knowledge of that earlier
period is very limited.

Postel's comments to me, weeks before the test, were clear about the problem
and clear about the nature of the solution.  Any competent ops person will
approach such a transition incrementally, starting with a test.

Let me stress this.  You begin transition of mission-critical operations by
doing tests.  Whether you tell people it's a test does not make it something
else.  Given the nature of the concern over NSI, one can easily argue that
part of the test required treating the root server operators mechanically,
by issuing a limited note, rather than describing anything in detail.

Consequently there was absolutely nothing in Jon's approach or actions that
was even slightly interesting, until the pols decided to make it an
emotional event, and folks decided to pretend that he was doing a power
play.

You are over-interpreting small bits of language and you are inventing your
assessment of Postel's motives. That you do not see this speaks loudly about
how much all of this really is nothing but a Rorschach test for the non-ops
participants. You want a power play. What a surprise that that is what you
see.

d/

-- 
 Dave Crocker  <mailto:dhc2 at dcrocker.net>
 TribalWise <http://www.tribalwise.com>
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