[dns-operations] root server address in whois

[Florian Weimer]

* Paul Vixie:

D> but i accept DRC's position, which is that this is all well and good, but it
> does not go far enough.  the world has no recourse if ISC, or any rootop,
> "goes insane."  all of the agreements are non-binding.

I don't think it's as bleak as you put it.  Thanks to the DDoS attacks a
couple of years ago, we know that we can null-route a couple of
misbehaving roots without causing any operational impact.  Several root
operators have to conspire before this becomes infeasible.

So while there's no formal regulatory oversight, the root is still not
operating in a vacuum, and there are regulative constraints beyond mere
peer pressure (or potential legal adventures).

> the recent ep.net debacle around old-L ought to be a wake-up call to
> anyone who thought that the root name server operators can be entirely
> self-governing in perpetuity.

Hasn't self-governance has worked here?  Someone has made a
controversial change, and peer pressure (or whatever) has resolved it.
Furthermore, it looks to me as if ep.net has effectively been
dispossessed of the prefix.  They have to take the traffic, but can't do
anything with it.  I'm sure that if there was a regulatory framework,
they could to *something* with it.

Not that I pity ep.net--it should have been obvious from the start that
that netblock would be tainted for ages.