Alternative DNS root
Encyclopedia
The Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 uses the Domain Name System
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

 (DNS) to associate the names of computers with their numeric IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

es and with other information. The top level of the domain name hierarchy, the DNS root, contains the top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...

s that appear as the suffixes of all Internet domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....

s. The official DNS root is administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In addition, several organizations operate alternative DNS roots (often referred to as alt roots). These alternative domain name systems operate their own root nameservers and administer their own specific name spaces consisting of custom top-level domains.

The Internet Architecture Board
Internet Architecture Board
The Internet Architecture Board is the committee charged with oversight of the technical and engineering development of the Internet by the Internet Society ....

 has spoken out strongly against alternate roots in RFC 2826.

Description

The DNS root zone consists of pointers to the authoritative domain name servers for all TLDs (top-level domains). The root zone is hosted on a collection of root servers operated by several organizations around the world that all use a specific, approved list of domains that is managed by ICANN.

Alternative roots typically include pointers to all of the TLD servers for domains delegated by ICANN, as well as name servers for other, custom top-level domains that are not sanctioned by ICANN. Some alternate roots are operated by the organizations that manage these alternative TLDs.

Alternative DNS roots may be characterized as three groups: those run for idealistic or ideological reasons, those run as profit-making enterprises, and those run internally by an organization for its own use.

While technically trivial to set up, the maintenance of a reliable root server network is a serious undertaking. In order for the system to be effective, multiple servers must be run continuously without interruption in geographically diverse locations.

During the dot-com boom, some alternate root providers believed that there were substantial profits to be made from providing alternative top-level domains.

Only a small portion of Internet service providers actually use any of the domains served by alternate root operators, generally supporting only ICANN-sanctioned root servers. This has led to the commercial failure of several alternative DNS root providers.

A biz TLD created by Pacific Root was in operation before ICANN approved the official .biz
.biz
biz is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for registration of domains to be used by businesses...

domain, operated by Neulevel. For some time after the creation of the official domain, several alternate roots continued to resolve .biz domains to Pacific Root's servers rather than Neulevel's. Therefore, some domain names existed in different roots and pointed to different IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...

es. The possibility of such conflicts, and their potential for destabilizing the Internet, is the main source of controversy surrounding alternate roots. Many of the alternate roots try to coordinate with each other, but many do not, and no conflict resolution processes exist between them.

List of alternative roots and their domains

This section lists the known alternate DNS roots, and for each root, lists the TLDs carried in addition to the ICANN-sanctioned gTLDs and ccTLDs.

Public-Root

  • Public-Root resolves multiple kinds of TLDs globally. It is created to offer an alternative, open DNS infrastructure with its own 13 root servers around the world.
  • Administrated by INAIC
  • Open for registration of new TLDs through an approved registrar, such as GQNET

42registry

42registry
  • Domains like .42

This TLD server will probably start to work with OpenNIC soon.

NewNations

  • .uu Internet for Uyghur People
  • .ti Internet for Tibet
  • .te Internet for Tamil Eelam
  • .ku Internet for Kurdish People

New.net
New.net
New.net is an alternate DNS root system which is enabled via NewDotNet, a DNS hijacker application, which is usually bundled with legitimate software...

New.net
  • agent
  • art
  • auction
  • chat
  • shop
  • free
  • golf
  • llc
  • llp
  • love
  • ltd
  • school
  • scifi
  • soc
  • video
  • travel — conflicts with ICANN-sanctioned TLD travel
    .travel
    The domain name travel is a top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name suggests the intended and restricted use by travel agents, airlines, bed and breakfast operators, tourism bureaus, and others in the travel industry....

  • tech
  • kids
  • church
  • game
  • mp3
  • med
  • mail
  • xxx — conflicts with ICANN-sanctioned TLD xxx
    .xxx
    .xxx is a sponsored top-level domain intended as a voluntary option for pornographic sites on the Internet. The sponsoring organization is the International Foundation for Online Responsibility . The registry is operated by ICM Registry LLC. The ICANN Board voted to approve the sTLD on March 18,...

    (in operation since April 2011)
  • club
  • inc
  • law
  • family
  • sport

UnifiedRoot

UnifiedRoot
  • UnifiedRoot enables all existing TLDs and allows new TLDs to be registered at a cost of €50,000 each (plus annual maintenance fees of €12,500).

UnifiedRoot offers a downloadable tool to modify the name server configuration on Windows. UnifiedRoot have also made agreements with ISPs and telcos to enable access to the provided TLDs. UnifiedRoot supports internationalized domain names (IDN) for top level domains (TLDs).

MobileTLD

MobileTLD
  • MobileTLD claims to resolve domains for mobile devices.

OpenNIC
OpenNIC
OpenNIC is an alternate network information center/alternative DNS root which lists itself as an alternative to ICANN and its registries. users of the OpenNIC DNS servers are able to resolve all existing ICANN top-level domains as well as their own....

The OpenNIC Project
  • bbs — aimed toward ( Telnet
    TELNET
    Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

     style ) bulletin board system servers, and affiliated/related/owned Websites
  • dyn — Approved by the OpenNIC Community, and will be introduced in the future. Used to resolve dynamic DNS.
  • free — non-commercial use of the Internet
  • fur — Furry and Furry Fandom
    Furry fandom
    Furry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes...

     related sites
  • geek — anything geeky
  • glue — Sites related to infrastructure
  • gopher — sites using the Gopher protocol
  • indy — Independent news and media
  • ing — fun TLD. Further details to be confirmed
  • micro — micronations and their entities
  • null — miscellaneous non-commercial individual sites
  • oss — Open source software
  • parody — Parodies

NameCoin P2P DNS

NameCoin TLDs are not managed by any single organization. Every NameCoin peer has a database copy. Forced work is used to prevent squatting and other kinds of abuse. NameCoin software allows domain registration under any TLD, but only .bit TLD is currently supported. Users may either use alternative DNS, DNS suffix, gateway, browser plugin or install NameCoin software and gain independent authentic view of namespace. In the latter case NameCoin domains can't be disabled or transferred by an authority.

.bit NameCoin project wiki

AlterNIC

AlterNIC
AlterNIC
AlterNIC was an unofficial, controversial Internet domain name registry that relied on an alternative DNS root. The primary purpose of the project was to challenge the monopoly of InterNIC, the official governing body for generic top-level domains until the creation of the ICANN in 1998...

 ceased operation in 1997.
  • exp
  • llc
  • lnx
  • ltd
  • med
  • nic
  • noc
  • porn
  • xxx

eDNS

eDNS stopped in 1998.
  • biz — General business use
  • corp — For use by corporations
  • fam — For and about Family
  • k12 — For and about Kids
  • npo — Non-profit organizations
  • per — Personal Domain Name services
  • web — Web-based sites (i.e.: web pages)

Iperdome

Iperdome stopped in 1999.
  • per — Personal Domain Name services
  • see the announcement
  • later the TLDs changed to:
    • biz — General business use
    • corp — For use by corporations
    • gay — For and about the Gay Community
    • k12 — For and about Kids
    • npo — Non-profit organizations
    • pol — Related to Poland and Polish organizations
    • web — Web-based sites (i.e.: web pages)

Open Root Server Network
Open Root Server Network
Open Root Server Network was a network of root nameservers for the Internet, operating from February 2002 until the end of 2008. Its root zone information was normally kept in synchronization with that of the network coordinated by ICANN. The networks were thus compatible, although ORSN was...

ORSN was shutdown 31 December 2008
  • Used to be a mirror of the ICANN root.

Open RSC

Open RSC

One of the notable challengers to ICANN's control of the DNS namespace was Open RSC, a group which grew out of private discussions and morphed into a public mailing list
LISTSERV
LISTSERV was the first electronic mailing list software application, consisting of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one email and it will reach a variety of people...

 which grew large enough the group decided to submit an application to the US government to run the DNS.

Bylaws and articles of incorporation were posted outlining ORSC's position following extensive public discussion regarding the manner in which DNS was being run.

ICANN chairwoman Esther Dyson acknowledged adopting features such as membership from ORSC in her response to the US Department of Commerce.

ORSC publishes a root zone containing additional top level domains not found in the official root zone.
  • per — personal pages
  • etc — anything
  • web — for the web
  • shop — online shops
  • pickle — just a general funny name
  • sco — for Scottish culture
  • mail - a tld for email - to reduce spam and clearly identify email servers.

Active private root zones

A number of organizations have alternative top-level domains configured on their internal DNS infrastructures, accessible only from within the enterprise. For instance, the National Security Agency
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

 operates the nsa domain; many NSA internal email addresses are of the form username@r21.r.nsa, mirroring the NSA organizational group structure.

Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 uses the domain phx.gbl for Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...

, and MSN Messenger along with some other services. It is still visible in the headers of emails from Hotmail
Hotmail
Windows Live Hotmail, formerly known as MSN Hotmail and commonly referred to simply as Hotmail, is a free web-based email service operated by Microsoft as part of its Windows Live group. It was founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and launched in July 1996 as "HoTMaiL". It was one of the first...

.

See also

  • RealNames
    RealNames
    RealNames was a company founded in 1997 by Keith Teare. Its goal was to create a multilingual keyword-based naming system for the Internet that would translate keywords typed into the address bar of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser to Uniform Resource Identifiers, based on the existing...

  • Namecoin - a distributed domain name system based on the Bitcoin
    Bitcoin
    Bitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer network over which users make transactions that are tracked and verified through this network. The word Bitcoin also refers to the digital currency implemented as the currency medium for user transactions over this network...

    technology

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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