DNS Considered Harmful

[Bob Ellis <netmailellis@netscape.net>]

I believe ICANN could do the world a great service by presiding over the
orderly shut down of the domain name service.  Recent events have shown that
we are wasting a great deal of time on political, legal and even technical
issues.  Besides domain names have lost their meaning.  Quickly, what's the
domain name for Gateway Computers: gateway, gatewaycomputers,
gateway-computers?  Actually it's gateway2000.

What should replace it?  How about plain old numerical IP addresses?  Too
primitive you say?  Well every day we make significant use a a system which
relies on strictly numerical addressing: the telephone.  You remember a few
critical numbers and use speed dials and address books for the rest.  Why
can't we do the same thing with IP addresses?  Most of us who access a large
number of web sites and email addresses already store them in bookmark and
address book files.

The shut down process should be simple.  Pick a date in the near future. 
After that date, don't register any more domain names.  Pick another date, say
one year from the first one.  On that date all the domain name servers go away
and we've changed to a purely numerical addressing scheme.

Why won't it work?

Bob Ellis


____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.