What DNS Is Not

[oberman at es.net (Kevin Oberman)]

> From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick at ianai.net>
> Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:24:52 -0500
> 
> On Nov 9, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Paul Vixie wrote:
> 
> > i loved the henry ford analogy -- but i think henry ford would have  
> > said that
> > the automatic transmission was a huge step forward since he wanted  
> > everybody
> > to have a car.  i can't think of anything that's happened in the  
> > automobile
> > market that henry ford wouldn't've wished he'd thought of.
> >
> > i knew that the "incoherent DNS" market would rise up on its hind  
> > legs and
> > say all kinds of things in its defense against the ACM Queue  
> > article, and i'm
> > not going to engage with every such speaker.
> 
> Paul: I completely agree with you that putting wildcards into the  
> roots, GTLDs, CCTLDs, etc. is a Bad Idea and should be squashed.   
> Users have little (no?) choice on their TLDs.  Stopping those is a  
> Good Thing, IMHO.
> 
> However, I own a domain (or couple hundred :).  I have a wildcard on  
> my domain.  I point it where I want.  I feel not the slightest twinge  
> of guilt at this.  Do you think this is a Bad Thing, or should this be  
> allowed?
> 
> Also, why are you upset at OpenDNS.  People _intentionally_ select to  
> use OpenDNS, which is clear in its terms of service, and even allows  
> users to turn off the bits that annoy you.  Exactly what is the issue?
> 
> And lastly, DNS is not "truth".  DNS is the Domain Name System, it is  
> what people configure it to be.  You yourself have argued things like  
> responding with "192.0.2.1"  for DNSBLs that are being shut down.   
> That is clearly NOT "truth".

I find it mildly amusing that my first contact with Paul was about 25
years ago when he was at DEC and I objected to his use of a wildcard for
dec.com. The situations are not parallel and the Internet was a
very different animal in those days (and DEC was mostly DECnet), but
still I managed to maintain a full set of MX records for all of our
DECnet systems.

That said, I really, really get annoyed by the abuse of the DNS system.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751