On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 22:10:30 +0200, "Elisabeth Porteneuve" <elisabeth.porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr> wrote:
Contrary to Antony, you misunderand my questions.
a misbehaving ccTLD operator is damaging for a country's image
Many governments are happy with misbehaving Internet Service Providers, because it gives them power. It allows them to divert traffic, analyse content, put in place tracability, and to blame others.
Dear Elisabeth, While I certainly do not disagree with you there are misbehaving ISPs, I would like to point out that ISPs and content are beyond the scope of ICANN. At the TLD level, the possible actions are quite limited. A TLD operator could purposely place wrong NS records in their zone file, perhaps pointing to some government controlled DNS server. If this had happened on a large scale, we would know by now. As for traceability: the DNS servers of a TLD operator are generally queried by resolvers, operated by companies or ISPs. It is the IP address of the resolvers that the TLD servers gets to see, not the one of the final user. The average Internet user does not run his/her own DNS resolver, unless he/she is a geek. Traceability down to the individual is thus unlikely, and further mitigated by the fact the resolvers cache the most common queries. In short, interception, diversion, censorship, etc are more efficient when done at the edge, not at the core. Patrick Vande Walle