Re: RIPE Region Hostcount for September 2000

[Simon Leinen <]

>>>>> "dr" == Daniel Roesen noc@localhost writes:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2000 at 02:00:19PM +0200, RIPE Hostcount Maintainer wrote:
>> The overall decrease was largely attributable to a loss of
>> around 320,000 hosts from the fr TLD.

> Is this loss due to a technical problem or some general changes
> (named-based vhosting instead of IP-based vhosting)? Or just
> "fluctuation"?

In our region (CH & LI), when we "lose" large numbers of hosts this is
usually because some large sites or ISPs restrict access to their zone
data, either

(1) by removing AXFR privileges to the world (including our hostcount
    host, 130.59.1.30), or

(2) by moving to a "split" DNS scheme, in which only hosts with
    external services (in the "DMZ") are listed in the DNS, the
    internal hosts being in another version of the organisation's zone
    which is only visible from the inside.

The latter is proably difficult to work around.

The effect of (1) could be reduced by kindly asking people to allow
AXFR from 130.59.1.80 when setting up zones directly under .ch/.li.
Some cooperation from large hosting organisations, or ISPs which
operate large numbers of secondaries on behalf of their customers
would be valuable for keeping the hostcount realistic.

Asking for such cooperation would be easier if there was a strict
privacy policy for the intermediate data produced by the hostcount
software.
-- 
Simon.