> Behalf Of John C Klensin > Ultimately someone has to operate the keyboard that puts > lines/ records into what ultimately becomes the root zone > file. And someone has to supervise that person/ entity. This has to happen. But ultimately backbone carriers have to decide to route IP packets in certain directions. The 'root' is a consenusal construct. > Now, for better or worse, that evaluation process, > particularly for ccTLDs, has been the source of an immense > amount of controversy. Those who get most excited about the > status quo don't acknowledge that ICANN is a legitimate, > international, multi-stakeholder, private-sector organization > but, instead, > refer to it simply as "the US Government Contractor". They > point out that the US Government has asserted responsibility > for, and control of, the root zone and that it clearly has > the ability to overrule ICANN in determinations about root > zone entries. This is certainly true in theory. In practice any attempt to do this would lead to the root being fractured. It would lead to a monumental diplomatic incident. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf