[B Knotts]

The U.N. cannot dictate which root DNS servers I use.

That's the funny thing about all this ICANN stuff. It only affects the DNS system that happens to be en vogue.

It's simple to switch to another system entirely, which is wholly unaffected by the decisions of ICANN, the U.N., or anyone else.

I guess my point is that you can never truly "own" a domain name. If I want to edit my /etc/hosts file, and point michaelcrichton.com at an IP address for a webserver that is actually serving up the weather for Timbuktu, there ain't nobody that can stop me.

Granted, it would only affect users on my network. :-)

[Question_Assumptions]

The U.N. cannot dictate which root DNS servers I use.

This is why I always thought that plans to tax or charge for email were pretty funny. Just recompile your sendmail to run on ports other than 25 and you could easily set up an alternate email network that would evade any basic tracking.