
Hello:

There have been some claims on some mailing list that USC and/or ISI
and/or IANA has declared it wants nothing to do with the DNS system
and/or the root zone and/or the management of the "dot" domain.

In these complicated times some topics require thoughtful statements
arrived at through consultation.  I hope this statement clarifies
things.  This is a public statement, feel free to foward it as you
think appropriate.

--jon.


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In the current dynamic Internet environment, resulting especially from
the potential for new top level domain names, it is important to
understand the role of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

The IANA activities include assigning the unique parameters for
protocols (such as TCP port numbers, or ARP hardware types), managing
the IP address space, and managing domain names.

Through the course of development of the Internet, IANA has
historically played a central role in the management of the Domain
Name System (DNS) to support and implement the community consensus
about the appropriate overall structure of the system.

The IANA has managed the root of the DNS to promote stability and
robustness.  This role is primarily one of making minor technical
decisions about the location of root nameservers, the qualifications
of applicants to manage country code top level domains, and evaluating
any additions to the established generic top level domains which are
proposed by the community.

This role is documented in various RFCs over time and in the working
relationships between the IANA, the US Government, the Internet
Society, and the Internic.  These relationships may be summarized as
follows:

	The IANA has been supported by the Defense Advanced Research
	Projects Agency (DARPA) for many years.  The National Science
	Foundation (NSF) recognized the role of the IANA in its
	Cooperative Agreement that established the Internic.  The
	Federal Networking Council (FNC) has also recognized the role
	of the IANA.

	The Internet Society (ISOC) recognizes the role of the IANA,
	and explicitly provides for the coordination of the IANA
	activities with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
	through the ex-officio participation of the IANA in the
	Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

	The Internic and the IANA have a well established pattern of
	consultation and cooperation on top level domain matters.

In particular, this role of the IANA and the cooperation between the
IANA and the Internic are described more specifically as follows:

	The IANA is the name for the function for the allocation and
	assignment of various identifiers needed for the operation of
	the Internet, which function was assigned by DARPA to the
	Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of the University of
	Southern California pursuant to contracts between DARPA and
	ISI.  Under the DARPA contracts, ISI (through the IANA
	function) has the discretionary authority to delegate portions
	of this function, and has delegated that portion of the
	responsibility concerning some aspects of numeric network and
	autonomous system identifiers to an Internet Numbers Registry
	(IR), previously performed by SRI International and currently
	performed by NSI.  See RFC 1174 and Section H.1., NSF
	Solicitation for Network Information Services Manager for
	NSFnet and the NREN ("ISI (as the IANA) ha[s] delegated to the
	DISA NIC (currently NSI) the registration of users for the
	Internet").

	ISI and NSI have cooperated to develop the Internet
	infrastructure through a system of "root servers" whose
	network routing functions are dependent upon central
	coordination at the IANA/IR level.  See RFC 1174, Section 1.3
	("It is proposed to retain the centralized IANA and IR
	functions").

Thus, while some appear to have attempted to confuse the issue of DNS
management by focusing on who has "authority" over operation of the
root zone, this issue is a red herring and ultimately contributes
nothing to the development of the Internet.  Simply stated, IANA and
NSI (as operator of the Internic) have maintained a consultative and
cooperative relationship in the management of the DNS, as was expected
and indeed required under the NSF/NSI Cooperative Agreement.  IANA
fully expects this cooperation to continue and would be astounded if
NSI were to adopt any policy or take any action inconsistent with this
principle.

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