The root zone of the DNS has been the focal point of many DNS conversations for decades. One set of conversations, which is a major preoccupation of ICANN meetings, concerns what labels are contained in the root zone. A separate set of conversations concern how this root zone is served in the context of the DNS resolution protocol. In this article I'd like to look at the second topic, and, in particular, look at two proposals to augment the way the root zone is served to the DNS.
DOH is not going away. It seems that the previous article on DOH has generated some reaction, and also there is some further development that should be reported, all of which I'll cover here.
From time to time the IETF seriously grapples with its role with respect to technology relating to users' privacy. Should the IETF publish standard specifications of technologies that facilitate third party eavesdropping on communications or should it refrain from working on such technologies? Should the IETF take further steps and publish standard specifications of technologies that directly impede various forms of third party eavesdropping on communications? Is a consistent position from the IETF on personal privacy preferred? Or should the IETF be as agnostic as possible and publish protocol specifications based solely on technical coherency and interoperability without particular regard to issues of personal privacy? This issue surfaced at IETF 104 in the context of discussions of DNS over HTTPS, or DOH.
Many aspects of technology adoption in the Internet over time show simple "up and to the right" curves. What lies behind these curves is the assumption that once a decision is made to deploy a technology the decision is not subsequently "unmade." When we observe an adoption curve fall rather than rise, then it’s reasonable to ask what is going on.
Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC) is a network protocol initially developed and deployed by Google, and now being standardized in the Internet Engineering Task Force. In this article we’ll take a quick tour of QUIC, looking at what goals influenced its design, and what implications QUIC might have on the overall architecture of the Internet Protocol.
Time for another annual roundup from the world of IP addresses. Let's see what has changed in the past 12 months in addressing the Internet and look at how IP address allocation information can inform us of the changing nature of the network itself.
The scalability of BGP as the Internet’s routing protocol is not just dependant on the number of prefixes carried in the routing table. Dynamic routing updates are also part of this story. If the update rate of BGP is growing faster than we can deploy processing capability to match then the routing system will lose data, and at that point the routing system will head into turgid instability. This second part of the report of BGP across 2018 will look at the profile of BGP updates across 2018 to assess whether the stability of the routing system, as measured by the level of BGP update activity, is changing.
It has become either a tradition, or a habit, each January for me to report on the experience with the inter-domain routing system over the past year, looking in some detail at some metrics from the routing system that can show the essential shape and behaviour of the underlying interconnection fabric of the Internet.
China has an estimated Internet user population of 741 million, out of a total population of 1.4 billion people. If there was extensive deployment of IPv6 services in China, then the case that IPv6 has already achieved critical mass of deployment would be easy to make. On the other hand, if such a significant user population had no IPv6 service and no visible plans for IPv6 services, then the entire conversation about the times and certainties about the future of IPv6 takes on a different direction. Which means that China matters in the world of IPv6. It matters a lot.
The way in which we communicate, and the manner, richness and reach of our communications has a profound impact on the shape and function of our economy and our society, so its perhaps entirely proper that considerations of the manner in which we develop and tune public policies in this industry take place in open forums. One way is to bring together the various facets of how we build, operate and use the Internet and look at these activities from a perspective of economics and public policy.
Computers have always had clocks. Knowing the time is important to many computer functions. In a networked world its not only important to know the time, but its equally important to know the right time. But how accurate are all these computer clocks? Lets find out.
It's been more than two weeks since the roll of the Key Signing Key (KSK) of the root zone on October 11 2018, and it's time to look at the data to see what we can learn from the first roll of the root zone's KSK.
A panel session has been scheduled at the forthcoming Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris in November that speaks to the topic that Internet Governance is on a path to irrelevance. What's this all about?
DNS OARC organizes two meetings a year. They are two-day meetings with a concentrated dose of DNS esoterica. Here’s what I took away from the recent 29th meeting of OARC, held in Amsterdam in mid-October 2018.
The level of interest in the general topic of routing security seems to come in waves in our community. At times it seems like the interest from network operators, researchers, security folk and vendors climbs to an intense level, while at other times the topic appears to be moribund. If the attention on this topic at NANOG 74 is anything to go by we seem to be experiencing a local peak.
If you had the opportunity to re-imagine the DNS, what might it look like? Normally this would be an idle topic of speculation over a beer or two, but maybe there’s a little more to the question these days. We are walking into an entirely new world of the DNS when we start to think about exactly might be possible when we look at DNS over HTTPS, or DOH.
It has been a trade-off between waiting long enough to have the key sentinel mechanism deployed in sufficient volume in resolvers to generate statistically valid outcomes and yet start this measurement prior to the planned roll of the KSK on 11th October 2018. These are early results, and reflect less than one week of measurement, but some strong signals are evident in the data.
There is a saying, attributed to Abraham Maslow, that when all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. A variation is that when all you have is a hammer, then all you can do it hit things! For a legislative body, when all you can do is enact legislation, then that’s all you do! Even when it’s pretty clear that the underlying issues do not appear to be all that amenable to legislative measures, some legislatures will boldly step forward into the uncertain morass and legislate where wiser heads may have taken a more cautious and considered stance.