4 ms·

Here.[1] Most of them are not single-box servers, but cluster with multisite redundancy. That's why all attacks were unsuccessful in the past. 1. http://en.wik

Here.[1] Most of them are not single-box servers, but cluster with multisite redundancy. That's why all attacks were unsuccessful in the past. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server

jason_slack 15y ago
So could organizations build their own Root NS cluster and be added to the 13 that already exist? Do I misunderstand something as to why there are only 13, who controls them, etc?
- tptacek 15y ago
  * Verisign, because they inherited MCI and thus UUNet. * USC, one of the headquarters of academic network research. * Cogent (no idea why, but they're a sort-of tier 1 NSP).† * UMD, another headquarters of academic network research. * NASA, because space. * ISC, because they organized the authorship of BIND. * DISA, because of DARPA. * Army Research Lab, because of .MIL. * Whoever owns NORDU.NET, which was is a consortium of Nordic network academics. * Verisign because they stole it from Thráin II during their final captivity in Dol Guldur. * RIPE, because they number Europe. * ICANN, because they ostensibly oversee the whole DNS. * WIDE because they're like the NORDU or MERIT of Japan. Most of this, if you can't tell, is an artifact of which organizations built the instance of the Internet that caught on in the '90s (I was going to say "that built the commercial Internet", but they didn't mostly didn't realize that was what they were doing when they did it). Fun fact: in the early '90s, there were actual Internet netsplits, like you see on IRC, but across the Internet. Ripco, my ISP at the time, lost access to NSFNet and all of .EDU. No, you can't add your company to this list. † Aha, it's Cogent because they bought PSI, and it was PSI because they helped build NSFNet and CIX.
  - gabaix 15y ago
    wow thanks for the list. So mostly US organizations. Could the design be better if we had to rewrite it today? Any plans to include other countries (China etc.)?
- jason_slack 15y ago
  And so Google Public DNS is not really related to these Root NS then. They just simply offer it as a service for those that want to use it.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Google's DNS offering has nothing to do with the root servers.

jason_slack 15y ago

So could organizations build their own Root NS cluster and be added to the 13 that already exist? Do I misunderstand something as to why there are only 13, who controls them, etc?

tptacek 15y ago
* Verisign, because they inherited MCI and thus UUNet. * USC, one of the headquarters of academic network research. * Cogent (no idea why, but they're a sort-of tier 1 NSP).† * UMD, another headquarters of academic network research. * NASA, because space. * ISC, because they organized the authorship of BIND. * DISA, because of DARPA. * Army Research Lab, because of .MIL. * Whoever owns NORDU.NET, which was is a consortium of Nordic network academics. * Verisign because they stole it from Thráin II during their final captivity in Dol Guldur. * RIPE, because they number Europe. * ICANN, because they ostensibly oversee the whole DNS. * WIDE because they're like the NORDU or MERIT of Japan. Most of this, if you can't tell, is an artifact of which organizations built the instance of the Internet that caught on in the '90s (I was going to say "that built the commercial Internet", but they didn't mostly didn't realize that was what they were doing when they did it). Fun fact: in the early '90s, there were actual Internet netsplits, like you see on IRC, but across the Internet. Ripco, my ISP at the time, lost access to NSFNet and all of .EDU. No, you can't add your company to this list. † Aha, it's Cogent because they bought PSI, and it was PSI because they helped build NSFNet and CIX.
- gabaix 15y ago
  wow thanks for the list. So mostly US organizations. Could the design be better if we had to rewrite it today? Any plans to include other countries (China etc.)?
jason_slack 15y ago
And so Google Public DNS is not really related to these Root NS then. They just simply offer it as a service for those that want to use it.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Google's DNS offering has nothing to do with the root servers.