Re: Domain name to use on home networks
On Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 4:17 AM Michael Kjörling <2695bd53d63c@ewoof.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
> >
> > It's just such a shame that they chose a name which refers to "arpa" in
> > it, which is not only US-centric but even belongs to the US's war
> > department, which I find rather unpalatable.
> > I understand ARPA was closely related to the beginnings of the Internet,
> > but... couldn't they choose something a bit more neutral?
>
> As already mentioned, it has been backronymed. Also, "arpa." already
> existed, and is well established for infrastructure names in DNS. For
> example both IPv4 and IPv6 reverse DNS are served under the arpa zone;
> in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa respectively. To "choose something a bit
> more neutral", assuming such a name could be found (it seems likely
> that almost anything reasonable could match _some_ government agency
> _somewhere_ and therefore be, to borrow your phrasing, "unpalatable"
> to some) would mean having to register and maintain (or at the very
> least reserve) a new TLD just for the purpose, which was the problem
> from RFC 7788 that RFC 8375 aimed to solve...
I think the real unpalatable part of DNS is, most of the operators are
US-based: <https://www.iana.org/domains/root/servers>. Most fall under
US jurisdiction, and the system is mostly homogeneous and subject to
political whims. Imagine if the US government denied service to Iran
or Russia by fiat. Do you think Verisign or NASA would contravene a
whitehouse order?
Jon Postel was trying to fix that before he died. He wanted DNS to be
truly global and outside the government's control. It's unfortunate he
passed away before he accomplished that.
Jeff
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