[81962] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: The whole alternate-root ${STATE}horse (was Re:
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brad Knowles)
Fri Jul 8 15:20:32 2005
In-Reply-To: <20050704223252.A29076@cgi.jachomes.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 10:08:35 +0200
To: NANOG <nanog@merit.edu>
From: Brad Knowles <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
At 10:32 PM -0400 2005-07-04, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> But the whole "there's a non-ICANN root: the sky is falling" thing is
> an argument cooked up to scare the unwashed; us old wallas don't buy
> it.
That's because you understand the underlying technology, and you
understand how to deal with the problem (including understanding that
you may just have to live with it).
Most people don't understand the underlying technology or the
true nature of the problem, nor are they capable of doing so. All
they know is that their e-mail doesn't work, or they can't get to the
web pages they want. And for them, this is a very real problem.
Since there's a lot more of them than there are of us, and we're
the ones who are likely to be operating the systems and networks
where these people are our customers, when they have a problem, that
creates a problem for us. Moreover, most of them are unlikely to be
willing to just live with the problem, if no other suitable technical
solution can be found. Instead, they'll believe the sales pitch of
someone else who says that they can fix the problem, even if that's
not technically possible.
Okay, the sky may not be falling. Maybe it's just the Cyclorama,
or the fly grid. But when the actors are on stage and one of these
things falls, there's not much practical difference. And us techies
are the ones that have to pick up the pieces and try to put them back
together again.
--
Brad Knowles, <brad@stop.mail-abuse.org>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755
SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.
