I setup bind on my debian box, and have setup my zone files to have my nameserver defined.

When I dig, using for example:

dig @123.456.789.123 ns1.mynameserver.com

where 123.456.789.123 is the defined IP of my nameserver, it resolves 100% fine with no errors. When I go to my sites which are using this nameserver on the internet, the site is not available - but I presume this is because DNS has not propogated yet.

However, my question is, I did this all on my server only. **Is there somewhere I should register my nameserver publically**? I.e. why couldn't someone else just setup a nameserver called ns1.mynameserver.com based on their IP address?

How then would a client know which nameserver is the real authority?