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Internet's root DNS servers to stay on US soil

StaticFish   on 04 July 2005 - 13:34 · 34 comments & 1611 views

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A decision by the United States to indefinitely retain oversight of the main computers that control internet traffic drew concerns Friday from foreign officials, many of whom want an international body in charge instead.

"When the internet is being increasingly utilized for private use, by businesses and so forth, there is a societal debate about whether it's befitting to have one country maintaining checks on that," said Masahiko Fujimoto of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' data communications division. "It's likely to fuel that debate."

"The signals and words and intentions and policies need to be clear so all of us benefiting in the world from the internet and in the U.S. economy can have confidence there will be continued stewardship," Gallagher told The Associated Press on Thursday.

He said the declaration, officially made in a four-paragraph statement posted online, was in response to growing security threats and increased reliance on the internet globally for communications and commerce.

Though the computers themselves — 13 in all, known as root servers — are in private hands, they contain government-approved lists of the 260 or so internet suffixes, such as ".com."

View: Wired News


Cont...

It's not clear whether Famitsu is simply basing an assumption on the inclusion of the drive on Kutaragi's previous comments, or if the magazine actually has new information about Sony's thinking on the matter.

If PS3 doesn't ship with a hard drive, it will give an edge to the Xbox 360, particularly in terms of massively multiplayer games - an increasingly popular genre which currently requires significant amounts of storage on the client side. Sony may be hoping, however, that the PS3's superior capabilities for removable storage, which includes slots for Memory Stick and other types of high-capacity memory cards, will allow MMOGs to be played on the console even without a drive.

It's also possible that Sony may adopt the approach which many commentators expected Microsoft to follow with the Xbox 360, by launching two versions of the PS3 - one without a hard drive and with limited media capabilities, and a more expensive model with a hard drive and full media functionality.


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#1 bucko on 04 Jul 2005 - 13:36
Heh I live in the UK but would rather have USA maintain it, I mean they have the $ to do so and if it aint broke don't fix it.
(1 reply) #2 Geo on 04 Jul 2005 - 13:38
*insert president bush world domination comment here*
#2.1 kyro on 04 Jul 2005 - 17:48
all your root dns are belong to us. resistance is futile
(1 reply) #3 FloatingFatMan on 04 Jul 2005 - 13:38
This took it's time to work it's way up from RWI !!

RWI Thread
#3.1 TheSarge on 05 Jul 2005 - 01:40
I saw this on the CBC two days ago.
(6 replies) #4 Ely on 04 Jul 2005 - 14:38
The US created and developed the internet, why shouldnt they be allowed to keep up maintaining its core? it just makes common sense to me.
#4.1 antkov on 04 Jul 2005 - 14:59
They may have been the creators of the Internet, but they certainly aren't the only developers of it anymore. Times do change and since it's inception, the Internet is now much more global than it was before and therefore, should be managed by an international body to a certain degree. Keep in mind not everyone may agree with US laws regarding Internet usage and there should be an international governing body to reach a consensus with what is acceptable.

That makes common sense to me.

Surely other countries could create and develop other Internets, but would users really benefit from having multiple Internets?
#4.2 mr_da3m0n on 04 Jul 2005 - 15:01
To be quite honest about it, it was a Brit that came up with the DNS server implementation.

But I think it should be worldwide. I mean, good principle says that a primary and secondary DNS server should not be placed in the same building, they should be in separate buildings at least, better if separate cities, even better if separate countries. (According to the design documents I have read so far in my oh so recent career, at least). What happens if tommorow someone trips on something bad and makes the US blow up out of the water? (Worst case scenario). It would make sense if they scattered the root servers around. It would also allow for better performance, maybe, even though you (this is you reading this at home, or at your college) almost never interact with root servers at all -- your ISP probably doesn't either, more often than not they all maintain cache from their upstream providers who often fetch their cache hits from higher upstream providers, and so on, until the last one queries the root servers.

Or whenever an uncaring (either lazy or incompetent, I don't know) server admin installs a DNS servers without forwarders.

Since the root servers content are distributed around already, sort of, into caching servers... I then wonder if it would change anything at all... hmmm....
#4.3 leTus on 04 Jul 2005 - 15:45
Ely internet was inveted by U.S but Word wide web was inveted by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN research laboratory in Europe. So even now the web is used the most so there should be international organization to watch other WWW.

Last edited by 53313 on 04 Jul 2005 - 15:51
#4.4 FloatingFatMan on 04 Jul 2005 - 15:56
The WWW is NOT the internet!!! WWW is a part of it yes, but it is NOT the only part. Internet = Interconnected Network (or is that International Network.. Hmm, never been sure of that!). Either way, it's a collection of computers connected to each other. The various protocols which run on it don't define what it is.

The Internet itself was created in (I think) the 70's by a mixture of US universities and the US military...

If you're gonna get all stroppy about something, it helps when you actually know what you're talking about...

EDIT: Hmm, where'd that stroppy post I was replying to get to?
#4.5 rhianntp on 05 Jul 2005 - 04:14
ok.. first off... AL GORE invented the internet... and he clearly is of United States loins hehe
#4.6 kirk26 on 05 Jul 2005 - 13:57
Could be worse. He could be of UK loins <shutters>.
#5 neufuse on 04 Jul 2005 - 16:18
I like the idea of the US holding them, but (i dont know if there is already or not anywhere) but why not have a couple backups in countries like Japan, the UK, maybe a couple EU countries, australia? places we know wont try to hijack the root DNS system... for that "just incase" scenerio
#6 mrbester on 04 Jul 2005 - 16:35
<obligatoryrant>Would this be in any way similar to this story which I contributed last Friday and has even had responses at The Register in their Letters pages here?</obligatoryrant>
#7 nw_raptor on 04 Jul 2005 - 16:49
Strange... Not all root servers are in the US... only 10/13

Last edited by 10533 on 04 Jul 2005 - 16:54
#8 macster on 04 Jul 2005 - 17:34
Its better to have backups in other physical locations...
safer and faster.. too
(2 replies) #9 bsharp on 04 Jul 2005 - 18:52
I think that governments should stay out of it completely and it should be a corporate handled entity. Once you add any government into anything it normally all goes to hell.

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

#9.1 Octol on 05 Jul 2005 - 00:21
Bumper Sticker:

QUOTE
Crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it!

Or how about Robert Heinlein's definition of a committee:

QUOTE
An organism with six or more legs and no brain.
#9.2 bsharp on 05 Jul 2005 - 23:55
LOL
#10 mr_demilord on 04 Jul 2005 - 19:06
There ain't no privacy becos there are terrorists,
There is a virus and everyone has to be killed,

We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile

I'll almost think that bush already has been assimilated
#11 dragon2611 on 04 Jul 2005 - 19:47
keep the existing ones where they are but add a couple more elsewhere for safty

if the root dns servers all went down there will be hell!
#12 tiwaris on 04 Jul 2005 - 20:04
Inter-networking was "invented" by ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency). It was not called internet at that time. I guess, it was called ARPANET. In 1969 (or even earlier 1962), for the first time, two independent computers communicated and after few bits of data transfer, the system crashed. Anyway, you may google for it for more info.

Just wanted to clarify that root dns servers physically being in U.S. does not mean that there aren't copies of data at other physical locations, but it just means that, these servers will perhaps be the last ones to be queried and that all other servers will abide by the data stored on these servers.
#13 SquareSoft0 on 04 Jul 2005 - 20:46
QUOTE
Gallagher told The Associated Press on Thursday.


#14 TheSarge on 05 Jul 2005 - 01:50
Thank goodness the DSN root serves are in private hands, not the US gubnerment's hands. (The way those guys run things, they'd screw it up faster that you or I could say "'dubya".) At least it's being looked after by someone who knows what they're doing.
#15 Yazoo on 05 Jul 2005 - 07:44
The bigger they get the harder they fall
#16 mocax on 05 Jul 2005 - 09:49
so they're afraid terrorists will hijack microsoft.com or something?
#17 kirk26 on 05 Jul 2005 - 13:54
Good. Don't need those terrorists in the UK, I mean, other part of the world messing our internet.
(4 replies) #18 Adequate on 05 Jul 2005 - 15:13
Good thing! Other countries have no business screwing up with our internet.

And besides, what have other countries done for the internet? Nothing! You kids can reply whatever you want, but it won't count anyways, because the fact remains that the USA made the internet, not Canada, not Japan, not the UK, only the USA made the internet. Saying otherwise is a lie and will be treated as such.

So all your responses are null & void already!
#18.1 zaber on 05 Jul 2005 - 17:28
QUOTE
Good thing! Other countries have no business screwing up with our internet.


The internet does not belong to the US government. Since my computer is currently part of the internet, that suddenly does not make it US property - no I didn’t think so, nor for that matter, are all the internet backbones laid down throughout the rest of the world.

The US may created the original internet but it doesn’t own it.


QUOTE
And besides, what have other countries done for the internet? Nothing!


As some people have pointed out already, the World Wide Web was not an American invention – I would have thought that that’s a very important part of the internet - so how can you say that no one else has done anything for the internet???

QUOTE
Saying otherwise is a lie and will be treated as such.


I think you need to get your facts right before posting
#18.2 bsharp on 06 Jul 2005 - 00:01
What has government gave to the "people of the worlds" internet?
#18.3 Adequate on 06 Jul 2005 - 00:06
To 18.1: Point-by-point rebuttal is a sign of hidden geekiness and Lunix-zealoting!

You are a nerd!
#18.4 zaber on 06 Jul 2005 - 15:16
Actually I’m using Windows. I did try Linux once before and didn’t like it - I do however use Firefox - Mainly because of the tabbed web browsing.

I just hate it when some fascist American makes comments about how the US is better than everywhere else.

Thankfully not all Americans think the same as you.
(1 reply) #19 Tech001101 on 05 Jul 2005 - 15:41
I should be an international body that governs the internet.
#19.1 sphbecker on 06 Jul 2005 - 13:33
I wish I was one too

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