Subject: automated "disambiguation" is resolution in this case

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 00:43:35 -0700

> And, all of this can be automated.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ed Gerck

Really?!

How does my credit card company's billing system know which harris.com 
to transmit my bill to?  What unique attributes does it use to choose 
between the two domains?

Eliot

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From: Joe Baptista <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 05:52:03 -0400 (EDT)

> to transmit my bill to?  What unique attributes does it use to choose

I think i agree with you that the duplication of namespace across roots is
a bit silly.  At least i think thats the point your making.  But your
argument in support is jibberish.  Your credit card company does not use
domain names to facilitate it's accounting functions.

Cheers
Joe Baptista

--
Planet Communications & Computing Facility
a division of The dot.GOD Registry, Limited

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 08:35:00 -0700

> domain names to facilitate it's accounting functions.

Really??!!  Check out www.juniper.com (the bank, not the router 
company).  Also, my phone companies *also* do something similar for 
billing notices.

Eliot

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From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 08:26:36 -0700

> to transmit my bill to?  What unique attributes does it use to choose

Eliot,

that's easy.  Your credit card company has a previous relationship with
you and knows which harris.com to transmit to.  Possibly, to the harris.com
defined at your root.  In pretty much the same way, btw, that the credit card
company can disambiguate between you and any other Eliot Lear.

Cheers,
Ed Gerck

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 08:55:34 -0700

Ed,

Forgive me, but you didn't answer my question.  How do I tell my credit 
card company's billing system which harris.com to use?  What keeps my 
data entry from becoming ambiguous over time?

Eliot

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From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 09:11:30 -0700

Eliot Lear wrote:

> Ed,
>
> Forgive me, but you didn't answer my question.

I honestly think I did.

> How do I tell my credit
> card company's billing system which harris.com to use?

You tell them -- you have a previous relationship (when you
credit was approved).  As I exemplified, you tell them to use
the harris.com that is resolved from your root -- an IP number.
Richard or Stef can tell you how this works for them.

>  What keeps my

Your actions, just like today -- what happens if you drop
your domain name today?

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Ed Gerck

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 09:44:25 -0700

Ed,

> Richard or Stef can tell you how this works for them.

In other words, make the root server address part of the name.  So, just 
to be clear, you're no longer suggesting an interactive resolution 
process.  That's what pushed my button.  Okay.  While I don't think what 
you're proposing is particularly reliable or advisable, it should be 
technically possible.  The way things work today, there isn't one single 
address for the IANA root.

> Your actions, just like today -- what happens if you drop

The question is "what happens if I maintain my domain and someone else 
adds one with the same name?"

Eliot

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From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:15:03 -0700

Eliot Lear wrote:

> process.

An interactive process can be the first step, see below.

> That's what pushed my button.  Okay.

If that's what you want.  An interactive process could also be applied
by your credit card company, specially on the first contact. But after
that, you have a "cache hit" and the same root server that connected
to you can be used witthout interactivity, until it fails or until the setting
is changed.

> While I don't think what
> technically possible.

Reliability would actually increase if the credit card company would
have an automatic way to choose alternate paths to reach you.  Also,
reliability of your own root server may be better than the composed reliability
of the "other" root server and another name server for the domain.

>  The way things work today, there isn't one single

which supports my point.

> adds one with the same name?"

That would be in another root, not yours. And we would no longer be
overloading domain names with trademark functions. A domain name has
planetary validity but a trademark, by law, does not. It is a travesty IMO to
create a dispute resolution policy to dispute that which should not be
disputable in the first place.  The travesty is, however, IMO justifiable
because the DNS does not allow domain names to be decoupled from
business identifiers.  By adding a meta-system (as I have been exemplifying,
not by changing the DNS), there is no need for dispute resolution policies
because there are no disputes to begin with.

Cheers,
Ed Gerck

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:28:55 -0700

Having dipped my toe in, I'm going to bow out of this debate after two 
comments:

First, by making the IP address of the root server part of the name, you 
have merely moved the problem, and not created "multiple roots".  The 
root is now the routing system, with all of its assorted warts.  Worse...

>>address for the IANA root.

One IP address, one point of failure within the topology, unless you can 
play games with anycast.  Is that what you're proposing?

Eliot

---

From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:46:47 -0700

Eliot Lear wrote:

> have merely moved the problem, and not created "multiple roots".

The IP address of the root server is part of any name today, and it resides
in your browser.  To contrast, what I said does not have the IP address
of the root server as part of the name, since a name can now be tied to any
root server a posteriori. Which root server to choose is decidable by the
sender, and this decision can be rather easily automated as I mentioned
yesterday, including cache.

Late binding versus early binding.

>  The

The root is part of the routing in a hierarchical tree.

> play games with anycast.  Is that what you're proposing?

I don't understand your question. I was merely referring to the fact that
we prefer to use multiple IP#s for the root servers even though there is
no perfect answer to synchronize them (race conditions set in, for
example).

Cheers,
Ed Gerck

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:28:49 -0400

>the harris.com that is resolved from your root -- an IP number.
That's *insane*.  Aside from the difficulty issue, IP numbers are not
stable over time.  Why not just throw out DNS while you're at it?

-- 
/===========================================================\
|John Stracke      [email-masked]                  |
|Principal Engineer|http://www.centivinc.com                |
|Centiv            |My opinions are my own.                 |
|===========================================================|
|Anyone who has a conditioned response immediately thinks of|
|Pavlov.                                                    |
\===========================================================/

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:37:54 -0400

> in your browser.  To contrast, what I said does not have the IP address

Odd.. There's no mention of the root server in my copy of Mozilla. There's no
mention of the root server in my /etc/resolv.conf. Given my firewall rules, if
a packet arrived from a root server, it would be thrown on the floor.

Obviously Ed's understanding of DNS as it actually works, and my machine's
understanding of it, are wildly divergent.  Fortunately for my productivity,
one of them actually works.

There *is* a mention in resolv.conf of 3 or 4 IP addresses that are willing
to do recursive DNS lookups for me if I ask nicely.  This implies that in
normal day-to-day operation, I' stuck with whatever THEIR concept of 'root'
is.

Fortunately for myself, if those IP addresses get confused, I have the
technical skill to work around it, and the political clout to go down
the hall and say "Umm... Laurie?  Phil?  Carl? What are you guys up to?"

Of course, 99.998% of users are NOT in that position, and we need to
keep that in mind.
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

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From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:42:27 -0700

Cheers,
Ed Gerck

---

From: Ed Gerck <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:10:23 -0700

> one of them actually works.

First, thank you for the opportunity to correct myself. I should have written:

"The IP address of the root server is part of any name today, and it resides
in your computer. "

Now, when your browser takes a DNS name and sends it for resolution, the
result actually depends on your browser.  If you use NS 4.7, for example,
and try www.valdis.klet you most probably will NOT get a PAGE NOT FOUND.
You will get a page that has to with some of your internal browser settings,
with no warning whatosoever.  Now, if you type www.valdis.klet/page.htm
you will probably get 404 PAGE NOT FOUND.  The choices are all made
for you, nice no?  It may be relevant, though, that they are actually the wrong
choices.

> normal day-to-day operation, I' stuck with whatever THEIR concept of 'root'

Yes. The choice has been made for you -- just like that Netscape choice above.

> Of course, 99.998% of users are NOT in that position, and we need to

Yes, that is why my suggestion was for a meta-system to the DNS, which
can be chosen by the user (unlike NS and your root server hints in the
resolver) and that automatically disambiguates names -- or asks the
user to do so (if and how the user so desires).

Cheers,
Ed Gerck