Weekend Reads
* Building a BGP map
https://kmcd.dev/posts/live-internet-map/
* Measuring DNS over IPv6
https://www.potaroo.net/ispcol/2026-02/v6dns.html
* ICANN root system governance
https://circleid.com/posts/icanns-ultimate-demise
* India DNS censorship examined
https://dnsblocks.in/assets/report.pdf
* Charting traceroute through subsea cables
https://aqualab.cs.northwestern.edu/publication/2026/cwang-imc26/CWang-IMC26.pdf
all sorts of tried tropes in the article and comments... also lots of optimistic but naive faith in DNS extensions to make the 512 packet size no longer necessary. geoff huston and others have all sorts of actual data and research that shows that there is still a measurable portion of the internet that won't get DNS answers above that size reliably. software root caches, local root instance, etc. have made the root less fragile than the rest of the DNS in that regard and DNSSEC signing has made those other means mostly reliable.
while the RSSAC recommendation aren't perfect, i think it's the right group to decide what is most operationally robust. the USG/WH and ICANN board definitely are *NOT* who i want making these kinds of decisions.
@paul_ipv6 In case any bystanders need to hear it, links to reads are not endorsements, just something I felt worth considering and discussing.
There have been and continue to be many critics of anything related ICANN.
Full disclosure: I was once a paid student research fellow for ICANN and continue to participate in at least one work group.
I, probably like you, am very skeptical of the author's central claim as suggested in the title. I'm also unconvinced alt roots (as mentioned by Karl in the comments) are anything but a bad idea at best, a racket at worst.
We should also point out the RSSAC is advisory only, they don't really decide anything other than what goes into the documents and guidance they produce. They are influential of course, but even what they are tasked to do is largely at the direction of ICANN leadership.
yup. root ops takes cues from rssac and there are lots of overlaps of people.
personally, i think most of the folks saying bad things have their own agendas, rather than really being concerned with the stability and operation of the root servers.
have been involved with a lot of this at previous jobs but very happy to be an outside observer these days. i definitely don't miss participation in ICANN.
John Kristoff
Paul_IPv6