Discuss mailing list

[Richard Lyons <richard AT the-place.net>]

On Sun, Mar 06, 2011 at 12:39:59AM -0700, Jeff Taylor wrote:

> There has been some periodic talk, initially regarding domains such
> as wikileaks, but more recently about entire zones in conflict areas
> such as Libya and Egypt... Is there a way that OpenNic can help
> against hostile government take-overs of the internet traffic to
> these areas?
> 
> The short answer: maybe
[...]
> Since I am regenerating a full root zone every hour, I could use
> that same window to run comparative tests against the TLDs or
> domains we are monitoring.  I can look for large changes between the
> information we have on file and the information being reported by
> ICANN.  And since we maintain our own root, we can essentially
> 'hijack' the information presented by ICANN and substitute our own
> zone which mirrors what the true owners of the TLD or domain
> originally had (and thus continuing to provide access to the
> original sites).

What a great idea! And certainly a means to bring opennic more into the
mainstream. 

But surely this risks massive attack for example from governments.
Could there be a defence mode in which T2 layer spawns multiple
temporary roots?  Should opennic even risk getting into a cyberwar?

richard