On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 1:14 AM, Milton L Mueller <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > ________________________________________ >>The main takeaway from the root scaling study report for me was that >>the proposed changes to the root are multiplicative in nature, and not >>simply additive, so do the big one first: > > One problem with that position, McTim, is that it is by no means a foregone > conclusion that the root should (or will) be signed. The root must be signed. Lets talk for a min about priorities, and I'll try to resist the temptation to inject my personal opinion about the necessity of new gTLDs. There are two clocks that are ticking. One, the latest "patch" to DNS to deal with the exploit reported by Kaminski but many years ago made public by Bellovin, it's just a temporary measure to make attacks of that nature to the DNS infrastructure more difficult, it is not a fix. While DNSSEC is not perfect and there has been a lot of discussion in the technical community about its merits, issues, yada, yada, it's the only tool we have right now ready to deploy. It wont take too long as technology and techniques catch up with the current patch and the only means we have to increase the security and stability of DNS is DNSSEC, even when it's not a perfect solution. The other clock that is ticking is the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space, latest studies indicate that IANA will run out of IPv4 space for assignment some time in 2011, while regional registries may still have some space "in stock", DNS is ready to support IPv6 and addition of IPv6 RRs will increase dramatically in the next few years. Now gTLDs, the Internet has been running and will still run without them, there are no limits within the current technology and architecture to have the name space growing within the existing xTLDs, but if we don't tackle DNSSEC and IPv6, the new gTLDs will have no Internet to get money from. I understand the pressure/anxiety and many other arguments in favor of gTLDs, unfortunately IHMO the whole gTLD program started upside down and we should have done all these studies and preparatory work way before we wrote the first line of the applicant guide. My .02 Jorge