Fascinating interview with Verisign CEO

http://news.com.com/2008-7347-5092590.html

-Hank

This has to be the most unbelievable propaganda I have ever read. What needs to be done to take the GTLD service away from these crooks?

Voting with my dollar, I'm happy to say I never have, and now, never will get a SSL cert from verisign.
-P

Actually, if ISPs and engineering folks at ISPs are so pissed off at
VeriSign they can easily kill the entire Sitefinder scam by simply routing
its traffic to a bit bucket. And by rerouting the .COM and .NET to the
boxes having the sanitized versions of zones. It does not say anywhere
that providers are oblidged to carry all DNS traffic directly to the
original nameservers.

If VeriSign tries to do more of their monopolistic tricks, it may be
a very good idea to give them taste of their own medicine.

This can even be defensible from the legal point of view as protection of
business assets (i.e. working Internet connectivity) from being tampered
with by an unauthorized party. No different than shutting off a script
kiddie.

"Not doing business" with VeriSign can easily mean "not routing".

--vadim

Yes, but, part of what pissed off many folk was that someone was
messing about with data near the top of the DNS tree which they
thought were inviolable. Reconfiguring nameservers to ask for
.COM and .NET details from somewhere else or to give RCODE 3
when it wasn't what was received feels like joining the anarchy
rather than being the right solution.

Having said that, the right solution might be a while in coming.
A 'just good enough' solution should suffice for now.

Yes, but, part of what pissed off many folk was that someone was
messing about with data near the top of the DNS tree which they
thought were inviolable. Reconfiguring nameservers to ask for
.COM and .NET details from somewhere else or to give RCODE 3
when it wasn't what was received feels like joining the anarchy
rather than being the right solution.

It's not so much joining the anarchy for myself as it's that I'd have to start screwing with and kludging good, working production level systems into something that looks like a mona lisa with gaffer tape strapping it to the wall. It takes time to get it done, and it's just going to fall down every time you turn around. I hesitate to speak for anyone else on the list, but I'd be willing to bet that many of 'us' in the community don't have time for something like that having plates that are already much too full. VeriSign though is forcing this to happen with a unilateral decision they have no political and legal right to make.

Just my, possibly valueless, opinion.

"Sclavos also says it's time to transfer the responsibility for operating the root servers from volunteers to the commercial sector. "

No, it's time for ICANN to transfer the responsibility for operating the root servers away from a commercial company that is trying to profit off of this *public trust*, and entrust the responsibility to an entity that understands its rights and responsibilities on this matter. Verisign has clearly demonstrated that they DO NOT UNDERSTAND that the data in the root server is not theirs to use, change at will, or profit on.

When will ICANN demonstrate that they understand their responsibility to the Internet users who have entrusted them to manage these public resources and do their job to stop Verisign's power grab over these public records? Do we have to recall ICANN now?

jc - in California, where we will now have Governor Arnold because Governor Gray couldn't get his head wrapped around the idea that he was *entrusted* to run the state in a responsible manner.

Are you looking to monetize DNS lookups?
"No." ... "But it would be commercially unreasonable for anyone to suggest
that we shouldn't be allowed to build incremental services on top of that
if they deliver value."

Who is speaking out of both sides of the mouth?

Gerald

First reaction is that this guy *really* needs some schooling in the value
of having public-interest bodies facilitate and regulate interstate
commerce in a federated system. Second reaction is that "commercializing
the infrastructure" is a fairly dumb way to frame the debate, since we're
not talking about the entire infrastructure but instead are talking about
a couple of zones. Third reaction is that his opinion of what the Internet
"needs" is not only wrong, but even if it were correct it would not give
him the authority to usurp control over those zones. What next, all
domains below the root have to pay a tax to the new emporer?

A subtlety often lost in this discussion is that while we might want to get government out of the process, privatization does not necessarily mean commercialization. On one hand, privatization can go to a not-for-profit. Another alternative is to commercialize, but to treat the commercial enterprise as a regulated utility. Verisign is operating as a totally free entity.

Gerald wrote:

http://news.com.com/2008-7347-5092590.html
   
Are you looking to monetize DNS lookups?
"No." ... "But it would be commercially unreasonable for anyone to suggest
that we shouldn't be allowed to build incremental services on top of that
if they deliver value."

Who is speaking out of both sides of the mouth?

They would just like to load a wildcard to the root zone, nothing more, nothing less.

Pete

Regulated commercial activity is what we have now, and it has (mostly)
been working pretty well up to now.

What the interview illustrates (or rather, what the provided quotations
illustrate, which may be out-of-context or erroneously summarized), is
that he wants to eliminate the regulatory oversight part. He also seems
unapolegitic in the inference that the unilateral wildcarding of the
public zones are a natural first step down that path.