On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 Michael.Dillon@radianz.com wrote:
I don't claim that ARIN or ICANN or DENIC are not special, or are not important for the functioning of the Internet as a whole.
ICANN isn't special. They don't offer any infrastructure services.
However, ARIN and RIPE maintain resgistry databases which are published in the form of a whois directory. This is part of the Internet infrastructure. DENIC hosts the .de top level domain and provides an authoritative DNS service. That is also part of the infrastructure.
Agreed. Forgot to mention APNIC and LACNIC. RIR's databases are crucial for us "Internet wrench-guys"...
If an organization wants special treatment, first they have to show us that they operate a service that is a part of the Internet infrastructure. Then they have to show that this service is special enough to be called "critical".
Globally critical or Regionally critical? I think the scope of the "critical" part is an important issue...
You are right that everyone forwards packets and that is not special enough. But what if someone operates a SIP network to carry VoIP calls for 112 (999) calls? Maybe that would make a part of their network into critical infrastructure. When making policy it is best to think ahead into the future a bit and make sure that they new policy will work for a few years, at least.
--Michael Dillon
Regards, ./Carlos -------------- IPv6 -> http://www.ip6.fccn.pt Wide Area Network Workgroup, CMF8-RIPE, CF596-ARIN FCCN - Fundacao para a Computacao Cientifica Nacional http://www.fccn.pt "Internet is just routes (131586/456), naming (millions) and... people!"