Re:Pot, Kettle (Score 1)

Every nation should be represented in a fair and democratic Internet administration, not just the people we like.

That's silly. The best government is a wise, benevolent despot, everyone sensible agrees about that. (The problem is how to ensure that the despot stays benevolent and wise, which they never are over the long term...) As long as ICANN is behaving wisely and benevolently in their despot role, what exactly is the problem? They're administering the phone book, and they're doing a fine job. Let 'em, even if folks in other countries have pulled the issue of internet administration into the "USA is evil" fad.

If other nations do set up their own root servers, the Internet will be fractured and cease to be the useful network it is today.

So it's inconceivable to you that there could be multiple sets of root servers, disambiguated by smart client software? If the political environment changes, so will the software. Have a little faith, man.

You can't deny other nations a voice and still expect them to participate on your terms,

Sure, if "denying other nations a voice" consists of telling them they can't screw up the phone book, it sounds like a swell plan. And they'll keep playing ICANN's game because this is about giving the USA a black eye in the press, it's not about actually running the internet.

The fastest way to create client DNS software that handles multiple root servers is to give control of . to the UN. The people who care about the smooth functioning of the net would go mildly bananas, and multiroot dns would be fully implemented and deployed in 2 years. (Pro: http://public-root.com/, con: http://www.circleid.com/posts/putting_multiple_roo t_nameserver_issue_to_rest/; and naturally I think Vixie's more likely to be right about the naiive implementation, but I also suspect that the UN jerking around with DNS entries would be enough to motivate the right people (including the inestimable Mr. Vixie, I would hope) to get the work done.)

it's an international resource that only has the value it has because it is singular.

It's not "national", intra- or inter-. It's a resource that connects individuals and businesses, created and maintained by individuals and businesses, and it interacts with the various governments only as much as they require it with threat of force. The vast majority of the businesses and individuals that make up the internet are nearly as hostile to US government interference as they are to interference from China or Myanmar. That many local and national governments subsidise or create ISPs is of no consequence to backbone routing policies, or administration of the root domain.

And again, its singularity is the result of a simplifying assumption in the design, as a result of being sheltered under the hands-off protection of that nasty US government. But simplifying assumptions can be discarded, the software can become more complex, if the political situation demands it.

Cheers,

Flumph