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[ga-full] Re: i-dns.net (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:44:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: !Dr. Joe Baptista <baptista@pccf.net>
To: James Love <love@cptech.org>
Cc: YJ Park <yjpark@aptld.org>, ncdnhc-discuss@lyris.isoc.org
Subject: Re: i-dns.net


I think it's time for a history lesson on i-dns.  i-dns is an alternate
root server operator.  If you subscribe to i-dns you are no longer using
the United States Government / ICANN root servers.  i-dns runs thier own.

Now - i-dns has an entertaining history.  They were provided with a $4
million US$ venture capital investment from General Atlantic Partners,
LLC, which see their portfolio page (search for i-dns to find details);

http://www.gapartners.com/currentportfolio.htm

IDNS was first initiated as an academic project to explore multilingual
and multiscript functionality for the current DNS. In April 1998, it was
implemented as a pilot project at the Center for Internet Research,
National University of Singapore.

	http://www.cir.nus.edu.sg/

In July 1998, the Asia Pacific Networking Group set up a commission to 
develop the IDNS multilingual domain name server and implement the
I-Domain multilingual domain name space as an international test bed. 

In fact YJ is not an employee - she's a principle with a direct interest
in i-dns.

Now the unfortunate part is that i-dns started off it's press history with
the big lie syndrome.  They announced in their PR that they picked up
90,000 customers in the first four days of operation of operation and
that statement was a lie;

	http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=195880

I immediately suspected the information.  I have a long history in domain
information and am the only one who polls the dns regularly for answers to
questions and I know the domain name industry is never that
profitable.  dot com achives those daily stats - but not some hicks from
sigapore aremed with PR and a few newsgroup postings.  So I investigated
and obtained the i-dns root file on Sun Jan  9 01:23:05 2000 - which see:

	http://dns.pccf.net/reports/i-dns/root.i-dns

What I found was a badly structured root file, the file was not divided
into top level domain sones for each of the languages.  It was simple a
full domain name parred to a IP number - or alternatively a full domain
name record CNAME's to another domain file.  And instead of finding 90,000
(customers) or the equivalent thereof in domains - I found only a few
hundred names (less then 300 i think)  - feel free to confirm my finding
by reviewing the root file yourself.  I picked up another i-dns root file
on January 26th 2000 and found that not much had changed.

	http://dns.pccf.net/reports/i-dns/root.i-dns-2000-01-26

Today I again reviewed the i-dns root and found they now have some 59,000
domains and they have finally begun fixing up their root file and have
placed international tld's into zones.  So in four months they have
managed to grow by a modest amount.  I guess bogus PR does work to a
degree.

At this time I estimate based on a recent poll PCCF has been conducting of
which nameservers use who's root servers I have found that 99.7% are using
the USG/ICANN roots and the remaining 0.3% are either legacy roots or
alternate root server confederations.  i-dns accounts for 0.04%.

Regards
Joe Baptista

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, James Love wrote:

> This is perhaps a naive question, from someone who is not knowledgable
> about these issues.  If the new i-dns.net technology permits companies
> to register domains in non-latin characters, what would be the
> correspondence between existing ICANN TLD structure, or would it permit,
> in practical terms to the Internet users, an independent TLD structure?  
> 
>   Jamie
> 
> 
> YJ Park wrote:
> > 
> > Dear Jamie,
> > 
> > > I would appreciate some additional information about this for the list,
> > 
> > Additional Info on an effort to the Internationalized DNS
> > has been initiated by APNG, Asia Pacific Networking Group,
> > iname working group since 1997,
> > which I am representing in this constituency
> > in order to promote more Internet use for those who
> > can NOT read and write English, the young and the old
> > who haven't been exposed to English in their life time,
> > which is quite normal in many places in Asia.
> > 
> > > and also some information about i-dsn.net and i-dsn.org,
> > > and how these organization's efforts relate to the current ICANN disputes
> > > over (a) new TLDS and (b) trademark rights on newly created TLDs.
> > 
> > If you want me to present my company, i-dns.net International
> > both technologically and politically, I would like you to contact
> > those who are in charge of these respectively,
> > James Seng(james@i-dns.net) and Jerry Yap(jerry@i-dns.net).
> > 
> > I have been trying not to mix up the interests
> > between my company, i-dns.net and APNG which I am representing,
> > two of which might have different positions regarding some issues
> > which you listed-up below.
> > 
> > Efforts relate to (a) new TLDs
> > Efforts relate to (b) trademark rights on newly created TLDs
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > YJ
> > 
> > [PS] I hope we can have more constructive discussions from now on.:-)
> > 
> > ---
> > You are currently subscribed to ncdnhc-discuss as: love@cptech.org
> > To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-ncdnhc-discuss-2645B@lyris.isoc.org
> 
> -- 
> =======================================================
> James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
> Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org 
> P.O. Box 19367                 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
> Washington, DC 20036           | fax:   1.202.234.5176
> =======================================================
> 
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to ncdnhc-discuss as: baptista@pccf.net
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-ncdnhc-discuss-2645B@lyris.isoc.org
> 





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