Re: [projectvrm] The role of DNS in VRM

[Don Marti < >]

Interesting idea.  What are the advantages and
disadvantages compared to well-known URLs?  You can
pack more info into a resource with a well-known
URL than into a TXT record, and take advantage of
HTTP caching:

http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5785.txt

begin J Clark quotation of Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 07:46:20AM -0700:
> 
> Welcome Mark,
> 
> Interesting thinking. I suggest that all thoughts DNS are still in a box 
> (see GoDaddy for a delightful example, and nods to those of us who were 
> affected). Think chokepoints.
> 
> Not sure if this is the solution, but it's interesting: Internet 
> Distributed Open Name System (IDONS) and related efforts to distribute the 
> "name" space (really routing). Here's a link to the IDONS forums: 
> http://forums.gctip.org/forum-34.html Not a new or very lively (at this 
> point) discussion, but like many of our projects and companies, it's 
> thoughtful, forwarding-looking work that models good ideas and needs to be 
> shared and moved forward. IMHO.
> 
>   judi
> 
> 
> On Sep 10, 2012, at 6:56 PM, Mark Jeftovic wrote:
> 
> > I'm new to the list and this is a first post, I hope I don't embarrass
> > myself...
> > 
> > I became very excited when I started reading The Intention Economy
> > because it put words around the direction I think we've been trying to
> > go for awhile now. (In fact our mission statement since 1998 has been
> > "to drive a stake through the heart of 'lock-in' in all it's forms")
> > 
> > It probably started in earnest for us when Amazon entered our market
> > with their Route53 DNS offering and for some reason our instinctive
> > reaction was to make friends with it rather than compete.  We built
> > full-on integration with it so that people could use our UI to manage
> > their zones on Route53 (at the time there was no Amazon UI) - and to
> > distribute their DNS zones across both systems, using either side as the
> > "primary" and the other side as the "secondary" or "mirror".
> > 
> > That got us starting to think about facilitating access to more third
> > party systems, so instead of locking people in to our own DNS cloud,
> > we'd encourage people to spread their DNS across multiple providers
> > (like the root servers do).
> > 
> > I am thinking of this as very baby steps in a "proto-VRM" system for DNS.
> > 
> > Now I'm about 2/3 through the book (and very early into the Live Web
> > book) and it occurs to me that the DNS protocol itself could be a
> > natural enabler for VRM itself - because it has many of the attributes
> > of VRM tools.
> > 
> > In much the same way DNS was extended without the addition of additional
> > RR's to facilitate Sender Policy Framework (SPF) (done via creating
> > specially designed TXT records) - VRM information can be conveyed via
> > the DNS:
> > 
> > TXT records could be defined which transmit personal intentions such as:
> > 
> > - an RFP for services. It could contain stub data about the
> > service/product required and a pointer to an XML document with further
> > details
> > 
> > - identity references (already closely tied to DNS via protocols like
> > openid) but you could use DNS pointers to allow vendors to differentiate
> > between various roles you assume (CTO, dad, chess partner, bass player,
> > etc) and where that data is served from.
> > 
> > - setting terms / policies / preferences: again with stub data to denote
> > what it pertains to with pointers to external documents
> > 
> > The list goes on.
> > 
> > In fact......(sorry, at this point of thinking it through I got really
> > excited)
> > 
> > Many of you are probably aware of the "new Top Level Domain" craze
> > originating out of ICANN. I have been a skeptic of this initiative from
> > the beginning - not because I'm against opening up the namespace, I'm
> > not - but because of the myopic approach to every new TLD application
> > I've seen, which fits in one of the following silos:
> > 
> > - competing with .com (*yawn*)
> > - .brand (*yawn*)
> > - .vertical (because every lawyer will sign up for a .law
> > domain...simply by virtue that it is called ".law")
> > 
> > I've blogged about this at length in various places, and what I usually
> > lament is the absence of any real innovation of raison d'etre for any
> > new TLD. Somebody think outside the box please!
> > 
> > Well VRM could be that case. You could create an entire namespace that
> > exists to transmit personal preferences, intentions and requests.
> > (When I try to think of a "good reason" for a new TLD to exist, I try to
> > think of cases where typing the new domain into a web browser is
> > essentially pointless, this may be it).
> > 
> > So I would use say, markjr.vrm to broadcast my RFPs, openid's, public
> > keys. etc and I could manage it all from any DNS server in the world (of
> > course there are many choices already to manage DNS - if something like
> > this happened, we would see more).
> > 
> > Granted, it wouldn't *have* to be a TLD like .vrm, you could use
> > anything: vrm.markjr.net, or markjr.easydns.com - and broadcast the
> > presence of VRM data with a specifically crafted TXT or SRV record.
> > 
> > If it evolved, additional RR's may be added to the DNS spec (as with the
> > aforementioned SPF data, when the SPF RR type was added).
> > 
> > Then if it *really* evolved, to the point where not only additional RR's
> > were proposed and added, but that nameservers themselves were enhanced
> > to modify the way they query RR's with VRM data present *then* having a
> > .vrm TLD may make even more sense.
> > 
> > Ok, that's probably enough for now. Sorry if this has been a long first
> > post, but I'm pretty enthused to come across the whole VRM movement.
> > 
> > I think I've been waiting / looking for this for a long time.
> > 
> > respecfully,
> > 
> > -mark
> > 
> > -- 
> > Mark Jeftovic, Founder & CEO, easyDNS Technologies Inc.
> > Company Website: http://easydns.com
> > Read My Blog:    http://markable.com
> > +1-416-535-8672 ext 225
> 

-- 
Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/