Re: [DNSOP] [Ext] Lameness terminology (was: Status of draft-ietf-dnsop-terminology-bis)

[David Huberman <[e-mail]>]

Ed Lewis wrote:

> (Only if you like reading history:)
   
> The reason was a flaw in "certain old resolvers" that followed the "upwards referral" to the root that 
> the "predominate server code of the time" had decided to use for lameness.  The result was a lot of 
> resolver stuck in an infinite loop, hitting the root servers.  I.e., this was an operational issue.  The 
> solution was updating and redeploying the buggy code, not stamping out lame servers (which was 
> the goal of the task).  FWIW, the "upwards referrals" were discontinued when it became apparent 
> they were being used in noticeable amplification attacks.
  
I sat on the front lines of ARIN’s war against lame delegations for the entire war.  We spent quite a few
years testing delegations for our definition of lameness, and then notifying the listed tech-c and admin-c.
E-mail recipients would either ignore the email, not understand the email and move on to the next thing,
or would write-in or call-in and speak to either me or my co-worker Jon Worley. Very few lame delegations
were fixed, even among those who called-in or wrote-in for clarification.  rDNS worked for the user, and
they weren’t willing to change anything.

The war was unwinnable. 
    
/david