On Mon, Jun 12, 2023 at 1:14 PM, Edward Lewis <edward.le...@icann.org> wrote:
> On 6/8/23, 11:23 PM, "DNSOP on behalf of Bob Bownes -Seiri" < > dnsop-boun...@ietf.org on behalf of bow...@seiri.com> wrote: > > I would posit that the potential to view the word as offensive has > increased as language usage has changed in the intervening years since it > was first used in this context. > > Researching a now-abandoned draft on the origin of domain names, I > struggled to find dictionary definition of 'resolve' that matched what we > now call DNS resolution. In the early IEN and RFC (Internet Engineering > Notes and Request for Comments), the first uses of 'resolve' were in the > context of a group of people deciding on a path forward. As in "the > committee resolved to investigate..." > > It wasn't until I asked the authors of one of the old RFCs (I now forget > which one) where the term 'resolve' began to mean mapping a name to a > network address. The answer was 'from the field of compiler design.' As in > resolving a variable name to a memory location. In hindsight, this was > obvious but trying to go from dictionary definitions and common use then > and now, I didn't see the link. > > As far as 'lame' - besides the term sliding from being an objective > assessment to a derogatory term as time goes by, it's meaning in the DNS > context is not clear. The use I am familiar with covers a server's response > to a query for a name for which the server has absolutely no information, > as opposed to looking at a delegation set which has 'issues.' > I have always pictured this sort of like a horse, with the zone being the "body" of the horse, and various nameservers as being hooves at the end of the legs. Basically, the horse is balancing on 4 nameservers. If one of the legs is "lame", trying to use it doesn't work and the horse/zone is less stable. If enough nameservers stop working, the horse topples over. When I say: "I have always pictured this …" I mean the one time that I spent a few milliseconds going: "Oh, I wonder where that term came from? Oh, horses get lame, makes sense, look a squirrel!" W Both of those deserve terms and different ones as they are different > situations. > > I'm not sure the case of a server receiving a query for which it has no > information is very important anymore. Servers now will return either > SERVFAIL or REFUSED for it and the operationally impacting situation I was > working has been mitigated by this. However, I have seen a situation when > earnest traffic (not DDoS flood) has been sent to a server that was not > (yet) configured for a zone. But this happened once and was taken care of > locally once the sender of the traffic realized what they were doing (or > hadn't done). Perhaps the use of 'lame' for this can be left in the > dustbin, like so many other objects we no longer use in life. Perhaps the > queries are just 'out of bailiwick' queries relative to the server. > > As far as assessing the health of a parent to child delegation, I'll leave > terminology about that to those who work that area. Broken, damaged, etc., > but I bet that just about any descriptive term today may drift into other > meanings as languages evolve. > > _______________________________________________ > DNSOP mailing list > DNSOP@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop >
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