From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 12:41:16 +0100

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A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Internet Architecture Board Working Group of the IETF.

	Title		: IAB Technical Comment on the Unique DNS Root
	Author(s)	: IAB
	Filename	: draft-ietf-iab-unique-dns-root-00.txt
	Pages		: 5
	Date		: 07-Feb-00
	
To remain a global network, the Internet requires the existence of a
globally unique public name space.  The DNS name space is a
hierarchical name space derived from a single, globally unique root.
This is a technical constraint inherent in the design of the DNS
system.  Therefore it is not technically feasible for there to be
more than one root in the public DNS system.  That one root must be
supported by a small number of coordinated root servers, and
administered by a unique naming authority.
Put simply, deploying multiple public DNS roots would raise a very
strong possibility that users of different ISPs who click on the same
link on a web page could end up at different destinations, against
the will of the web page designers.
This does not preclude private networks from operating their own
private name spaces, but if they wish to make use of names uniquely
defined for the global Internet, they have to fetch that information
from the global DNS naming hierarchy, and in particular from the
coordinated root servers of the global DNS naming hierarchy.

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