Re: Resolution of internal reserved addresses

["Spurlock, Danny" <Danny.Spurlock@voicestream.com>]

I agree with the comments of Mr. Scott Wegner regarding the change in
reverse name resolution of private IP addresses.  Although in making this
change, you essentially direct the world to the iana.net web site, once we
get here, not only do we not find RFC 1918, we find no documentation or
explanation of the change.  In fact, many IT professionals might be hard
pressed to prove to skeptical management that this change was indeed in the
public sector and not an error that was made on a private network.
I personally have a good understanding of the private networking schema
described in RFC 1918 and have used it extensively over the years.  I can
only guess that this change was made to reduce reverse name resolution
traffic of RFC 1918 addresses.  I have no problem with this goal and with
the change made.  I am concerned however with the way in which it has been
done.  If the IANA is indeed "Dedicated to preserving the central
coordinating functions of the global Internet for the public good" then it
would seem to me that they would have taken greater steps to inform the
public of such a major change in the way name resolution is carried out.
Having not bothered to inform the public beforehand, IANA further fails to
provide any information after the fact.  I can find absolutely *NOTHING* on
your web site regarding this change.  I would guess that a large number of
people have come looking since this change took place.  You had to know that
this change would affect a large number of people or there would not have
been any point in doing it.  You also had to know that a large number of
users of private IP addressing were corporate, not ISPs.  Yet you seem to
have made no attempt whatsoever to communicate to those users that a change
was coming that could potentially cause their local DNS systems to fail.
Admittedly, a properly configured system would not fail but again, you had
to know there were a lot of improperly configured systems out there or you
would not have seen a need to make this change.
This was a badly managed change.  I hope you will learn from this experience
and perform better in the near future.  If you do not, I hope that you are
replaced in the near future.

Danny Spurlock