🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1gh3nnINNk1c@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley) writes:
>So? I haven't claimed otherwise. All I am trying to do is counter the
>silly claim that anyone can be in charge of their part of the DNS.

	You're confusing being "in charge" with having direct access.
That's what heirarchies are for.  If you register a domain of addresses,
(say widget.com, with the nameserver at coyote.acme.edu) you are in charge
of what goes on within widget.com.  It is up to the hostmaster at
coyote.acme.edu to say how much access you have to the database.

	The case may be that you own one Internet-connected machine,
and are in charge of dozens of UUCP-only machines.  Then you can have
direct access of all parts of the database.  The individual needs of
the administrator can be changed to fit the situation.  (Hey, was
thinking a few hours ago about writing up a little program that could
be used to make DNS updates via mail.  It'd actually be pretty easy and
safe if combined with something like PGP.

	In reality only a small percentage would actually need such a
system.  MX records are set up once and promptly forgotten for years.)
Pathalias, on the other hand, by design forces a central authority for
database updates.  Also, since the central authority is in no way
familar with the hosts it registers, there's lots of hosts in the maps
that have disappeared, but were fortten to be taken out of the maps.
(although this is probably just as true with the .US domain)

--Dave
-- 
System Administrator, Population Research Institute    barr@pop.psu.edu
  "An analogy is like instant coffee: it can wake you up, but it's
  not the real thing"  -- Peter da Silva