[Yeti DNS Discuss] Media inquiry from TechNode

[Lars-Johan Liman]

Hi!

shengwei at technode.com 2019-12-20 01:46 [+0800]:
> My name is Wei Sheng. I'm a reporter at China-based technology news
> outlet TechNode.

> I'm writing to you to confirm a report by Chinese newspaper Global
> Times' report last week, which said the Yeti DNS Project had
> "established 25 root name servers in 16 countries in 2016." Is this
> true? If so, could you please provide more details?

Please carefully note that the Yeti project is a _testbed_ for DNS
experiments. It has the attention of many DNS experts from all over the
world, but Yeti is not intended to be a public service for the global
public internet. The global DNS root service for the unique DNS name
space, which is crucial for the function of the global internet, is
carried out by the 12 traditional root server operators, which are
listed here:

https://www.root-servers.org/

These operators service the unique root from 26 distinct service
identities (addresses), and the system has more than 1,000 actual root
server instances today. They are spread all over the word, and in many
many countries - China well included. The service capacity of the system
(obviously) _widely_ exceeds that of the Yeti testbed, and its operators
provide the true and exact data as received from the IANA. This data is
cryptographically signed, to ensure that no party - root server
operator, resolver operator, ISP, government, or other - can modify the
DNS data to mislead the end users without them detecting it. By
validating the crypto signatures, using the public international "trust
anchor", any user has the tools to detect DNS data that has been
tampered with in the root zone and the top-level domains that have
chosen to make use of these security extensions (DNSSEC).

But we (the root server operators) cannot carry out experiments on "the
real thing". Therefore the Yeti testbed has a value.

				Best regards,
				  /Lars-Johan Liman
                                   Responsible for i.root-servers.net
-- 
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Lars-Johan Liman, M.Sc.               !  E-mail: liman at netnod.se
# Senior Systems Specialist             !  Tel: +46 8 - 562 860 12
# Netnod Internet Exchange, Stockholm   !  http://www.netnod.se/
#----------------------------------------------------------------------