I might add that this was discussed in the academic networking community
at the time and I do recall strong support for Robert assuming this
role, so it was not an act undertaken in isolation to 
the contect of the time.


  regards,

     Geoff



At 11:55 AM 7/3/97 +1000, George Michaelson wrote:
>  
>  A fairly basic question I suppose, but who actually assigned
>  original control of AU-DOM to kre?  Where do the top level
>  domain holders derive their authority from?
>
>THE IANA. Jon Postel delegated immediately below "."
>
>because ACSnet existed, and .oz existed as the first widely dispersed
>network, and because munnari was functioning as a the global interconnect
>to talk to uunet, and eventually (immediately pre-AARNET) had the first
>IP connectivity to the USA with wider reach (csiro-dit had access for instance)
>the delegation made sense. 
>
>	Kre would have been the first DNS-on-global-internet active node
>	of any size and repute
>
>	Kre already acted as mail mail forwarder for most of australia
>
>	there was no ISOC or other chain of command, it was IAB/IANA and
>	thats about it.
>
>My view. Could be wrong.
>
>-George
>
>
>
>