Root servers question

[Cricket Liu]

> > I think what he meant was "why can't I type 'dig @a.root-servers.net
> > somedomain.com' and get a useful response anymore?"
> > To which I would reply "start typing 'dig @a.gtld-servers.net
> > somedomain.com' instead."
> 
> Exactly!  But... why?

Up until recently, a.root-servers.net was authoritative for the
root zone as well as the com, net, and org zones.  Now it's
just authoritative for the root zone.  So if you want delegation
information from the com zone, you need to query a different
name server.

cricket