information - A World Without ICANN - Part 2: A Bigger Domain Universe

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The root nameservers only delegate authority: they don’t actually provide hostname to IP address lookups, with a few exceptions. For example, the root nameservers assign the com and net TLDs to Verisign’s nameservers. Verisign’s servers do the same thing, but with second-level domains--the ones in which domainers are interested.

Normally, any DNS lookup would have to follow this chain of authority, which can take some time. To avoid this, it’s common for routers, ISPs, and businesses to run their own “caching” DNS servers. These nameservers remember who’s in charge of what and forward queries accordingly. Often, they’ll even remember commonly queried hostnames, such as google.com.

Traditionally, caching nameservers don’t have any authority: they just remember who’s in charge of what and make queries appropriately. Consumer devices are instructed to consult these servers instead of performing full, authoritative queries.

But who’s to say the caching servers have to listen to ICANN? Often, they don’t. Home routers and similar caching DNS servers have developed a habit of declaring themselves authoritative for specific TLDs that ICANN hasn’t claimed, such as home and local, then using these custom zones for devices on the local network. For example, my router might assign paul-laptop.home to my laptop.

OpenNIC is a new project that does the same thing, but on a much larger scale. They’re not the first to attempt such a feat, but they seem to be the first to do so collaboratively.

In OpenNIC’s DNS universe, authority is delegated from Network Information Centers (NICs) to registries, and then on to registrars, who finally hand off to end users. In the traditional DNS universe, there is only one NIC: ICANN. OpenNIC utilizes caching nameservers to introduce additional NICs, each of whom is in charge of several TLDs that ICANN hasn’t delegated, similar to how my home router is in charge of home.

Expanding your DNS universe to include alternative NICs is surprisingly easy. OpenNIC provides quite a few caching nameservers; all you have to do is set your device to use a few of them. They have a long list ordered by distance, as well as a detailed table. There are also detailed guides for configuring DNS servers on several platforms.

As a NIC, OpenNIC sponsors quite a few TLDs: