> would it be easy to configure software so that it
> checked, say, 5 competing DNS providers, none of which was in any way
> official? Could we just ignore the government's attempt to control the
> internet and do something better, or is the ip of the InterNIC root
> server hard-coded into the kernel?
The kernel doesn't have anything to do with this, the kernel doesn't even
use networking (unless you boot over network).
The place for DNS definitions is usually /etc/resolv.conf.
You could theoretically create tons of TLDs with it, but the problem is
that only machines using your DNS server(s) could access them. You could
NEVER make the entire Internet accept your TLDs or un-registered domains.
LLaP
bero
-- bero@bero-online.ml.org - ICQ/UIN 6545964 - http://www.star-trek.ml.org/ --
"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!"
-- Bill Gates, 1981
"Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM."
-- Bill Gates, 1996
"Nobody will ever need Windows 95."
-- logical conclusion