Is ICANN losing control over their single DNS Root?

[Alphamale]

An "old" article from April 7

i don't remember reading this before - and i certainly don't remember reading about the Arabic split root...

While ICANN dithered, groups in China and in Arabic speaking countries went ahead with experiments in IDNs for Chinese and Arabic, and set up experimental parallel root zones with names in the local character sets. These experiments worked (no surprise, Unicode and punycode are technically sound) and now those roots are the roots that everyone in those countries use.

http://www.domainnews.com/icann/1020...root/#more-459

[markits]

A splitted internet...
Who to blame?

[Rubber Duck]

Yes, technically there have been splits in the root.

The importance though is not whether anyone has been tinkering with the Internet Root system, whilst ICANN is attempting to get its finger out of its arse. The real question is, whether there is political will to either break away or wait interminably whilst ICANN gets its act together.

I think as long as ICANN shows some reasonable progress on delivering on its promises with in a realistic time frame, then the Chinese and others will stay the course with the single root, which is ultmately in everyones interest.

There is nothing to stop people now using totally parallel internet channels, which is what some of the Cowboy outfit do. Its just you are then outside the WWW of the World Wide Web, so there is little or no benefit being there. Of course countries can actually go one step further if they wish and block access to the WWW channel, which means that people would then have no alternative but to go down that route. It is even possible to filter some traffic away, whilst allowing other traffic to pass provided you have a meaningful logical test for doing such routing.

[domainguru]

Which Arabic country? One of them, all of them?

Of course the article highlights the reasons why "split roots" are a horrendous thing i.e. that labels lose their reason for being, which is their "uniqueness". If countries start inventing their own roots, one domain can point to one place in one country, or ISP within that country, and a completely separate place in a different country. If a label cannot be relied on to identify one location, it loses its value as a label.

The same is true for email ... who wants an email address that will only get you emails if the sender happens to be within a "compatible ISP" - what a load of bull.

ICANN have made many mistakes, but their central message, that of a "consistent and reliable DNS" is incredibly important. Fragmenting the Internet will just serve to destroy it.

[Alphamale]

so whats going on ?

is there some dodgy reigstrar somewhere in "arabic land" selling domains that only work "over there"

[Rubber Duck]

Not exactly sure but there has been some experimental work on separate roots and I believe the Saudis have worked on this. I also believe that in Egypt at least ISPs are facilitating the resolution of IDN names for users with IE6 browsers.

[Alphamale]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

Not exactly sure but there has been some experimental work on separate roots and I believe the Saudis have worked on this. I also believe that in Egypt at least ISPs are facilitating the resolution of IDN names for users with IE6 browsers.

jeez.

if i was cynical i would say that IDN's are in danger of destroying the internet apposed to being it's saviour for non-English users

and still ICANNt sit with their thumbs up their ass.

*amazing*

[Rubber Duck]

That would be to miss the point.

What is required is a communications system that serves the needs of a global community.

For those needs to be met, we need an electronic network such as Internet, that is accessible through a coherent addressing system, that is comprehensible to its users.

The need for such a system is not going to go away, therefore the Internet will not just disappear. Nobody is going to produce an addressing system that is anywhere near as coherent as the ICANN system in the forseeable future. All that is needed is for ICANN to deliver on the comprehensible to its users part, which they will do, within a fairly short time framework now. Hell, if push came to show they could stick the punycode in for several important mappings tomorrow.

The Internet is not going away. ICANN needs to change, but is not going away, and IDN need further work, but they aren't going away either.

Originally Posted by Alphamale

jeez.

if i was cynical i would say that IDN's are in danger of destroying the internet apposed to being it's saviour for non-English users

and still ICANNt sit with their thumbs up their ass.

*amazing*

[Alphamale]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

..The Internet is not going away. ICANN needs to change, but is not going away, and IDN need to further work, but they aren't going away either.

agreed.

but we're in danger of having language speaking communities like the Chinese creating their very own massive intranet.

it's not unrealistic to forsee a 2 root system running side by side. 1 "internal" root for native names aka IDN, and a 2nd for everything else aka the www as we know and love - if things don't change sharpish, this is where we could end up

look at it from their perspective, they get the best of both worlds, IDN's that they can use, with an extension, and only accessible within their own "intranet" - so what, who else would want to/need to access them?

and then the www for outside the country.

i don't agree for one moment, but you can see the warped logic

[Giant]

Spliiting the Root is an old topic and not a concern any more. As long as US gives up the ambition of remaining the dictator of the internet, no splitting is possible.

It's foolish to be a dictator, US knows it very well.

[Alphamale]

Originally Posted by Giant

Spliiting the Root is an old topic and not a concern any more.

thanks for putting our minds at rest.

[Rubber Duck]

But effectively, this has already happened, however it has been done so seemlessly behind the scenes that to a large degree the user really cannot detect the differences. He types his name in and he gets to where he wants to go.

It is not a good solution, but everyone understands why it has been implemented and why it is only temporary.

Originally Posted by Alphamale

agreed.

but we're in danger of having language speaking communities like the Chinese creating their very own massive intranet.

it's not unrealistic to forsee a 2 root system running side by side. 1 "internal" root for native names aka IDN, and a 2nd for everything else aka the www as we know and love - if things don't change sharpish, this is where we could end up

look at it from their perspective, they get the best of both worlds, IDN's that they can use, with an extension, and only accessible within their own "intranet" - so what, who else would want to/need to access them?

and then the www for outside the country.

i don't agree for one moment, but you can see the warped logic

[Fka200]

There's always been an Arabic split root. I had a conversation with the registry not to long ago. IDN.IDN already exists there, but I have not been able to manipulate it being in the United States (only ME countries allowed to access it).

[Giant]

Originally Posted by Rubber Duck

But effectively, this has already happened, however it has been done so seemlessly behind the scenes that to a large degree the user really cannot detect the differences. He types his name in and he gets to where he wants to go.

It is not a good solution, but everyone understands why it has been implemented and why it is only temporary.

Correct!

Every country is developing their own weapons, but it doesn't mean WW3 is going to happen soon.

[mulligan]

Having your own 'root' is not that far-fetched and is something I think we will see at some point .. specially in those countries that like to treat their citizens like mushrooms

[Rubber Duck]

Well in that case you can definitely chalk the UK in!

[mdw]

Some of you are just world-class worriers. A far more fractious Internet in the future is a certainty in my thinking, but should not scare anyone. There are parallels throughout the history of the development of various technologies that suggest we'll find our way through it.

[Rubber Duck]

The Little Red Hen paranoia certainly creeps through in places.

The more choice and confusion there is on the Internet, the more people will stick to what they know and trust. These short of problems will definitely tend to make people cling to the Verisign dot Com registry.

[Drewbert]

I'm pretty sure I posted a link about the Arabic IDN TLD experiments quite some time ago.

Yep - here it is...

http://www.idnforums.com/forums/11136-post9.html (The future of IDNs: my perception)

Here's the PDF posted at ICANN's website in 2005 telling people all about it (originally posted here by Dabsi)...

http://www.icann.org/announcements/a...02-12dec05.pdf

http://www.arabic-domains.org.sa/too...ns-checker.php now appears to be down, or blocked for me.

More here...

http://www.arabic-domains.org/main-en.php

[Rubber Duck]

Thanks Drew.

I think what is becoming increasingly apparent is there is going to be no rush to NS before Puerto Rico.

The development of DNAME presumably is progressing unhindered as a consequence of Lisbon, but the political process seems to have been temporarily stalled at Lisbon. The outcome of the Workshop there points to DNAME being what is required longterm. It would seem the way things are panning that IDN.IDN may just be implemented via DNAME, as the how to do it is likely to catch up with the what to do!