hints file size - priming - adding more root servers

[Patrick Vande Walle <patrick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There has been a long standing political issue with the historical requirement 
of having only 13 name servers in the hints file, most of which are under the 
direct or indirect control of the US government. It has been a subject of 
discussions both inside the ICANN community and outside (WSIS/IGF).

Since the research of this study will examine among others what would happen if 
the hints file grows larger due to DNSSEC signing (and more IPv6 records), it 
may be useful to see if adding more root servers would be possible without 
destabilizing the DNS as a whole.

I do agree there may be no technical need to increase the number of root 
servers. Still, if we could address the political issue at the same time, this 
would be welcomed by some parts of the Internet community. 

Best regards,

Patrick Vande Walle
ALAC and SSAC member, speaking in personal capacity