August 29, 2003

What is ICANN's job, tell me again?

An item on NANOG (The North American Network Operator's Group)  just landed in my e-mail box.

Now, what is interesting about this item is that it announced the deployment of a new DNS root server.  This is a good thing and the folks who did it should be thanked.

However, this is not a trivial change in the Internet and it is most definitely related to the stability of DNS operation on the Internet.

Was ICANN involved in this?  There is no sign of it.

Did ICANN provide any funds for this out of its nearly $10,000,000 yearly budget?  Not that I can find.

Was ICANN even notified of this significant change?  There is no indication that ICANN knew this change was being considered much less that it was being put into effect.

So tell me again, what is ICANN's job?  Isn't ICANN supposed to have at least something to do with the technical stability of DNS?  Apparently not.

Posted by karl at August 29, 2003 9:26 AM