On Sat, 20 Sep 2003, Masataka Ohta wrote: > Dean; > > > The "set" is the set of *registered* names. The proper and only way to > > query this set is through whois. > > The only reason to have domain names registered is to use it > through DNS. The only reason we have DNS is to associate information such as IP addresses with names. Registration is far more important than the protocol. > Whois may be a useful tool for registration convenience but is of > secondary importance. This is the tail wagging the dog. > If you disagree, let me control DNS reply of your domain "av8.com", > while keeping whois response to "av8.com" as is. I also say that power is of secondary importance to computing. What we are interested in is the result of computing. We do not care about power, unless I give you control over the power switch. > > DNS has nothing to > > do with registration > > If you are arguing that verisign registration has nothing to do > with DNS, I have no reason to disagree. I think you missed this: Registration -> DNS DNS !-> Registration The symbol '->' is read to mean "implies something about". You are correct that Registration has a lot to do with DNS. But DNS has nothing to do with Registration, as I said. You cannot check a registration via DNS. This is what abusers of reverse DNS are doing, or rather, were attempting to do. > Then, for DNS use, we need another registration which has much > to do with DNS. > > Verisign can still continue to operate their current registry > for "com" and "net" for their whois query, though it has nothing > to do with "com" and "net" TLDs in DNS reply. > > Masataka Ohta >