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History
the internet is a spinoff of the coldwar
military / industrial / educational computer networks
built in the us in the 70's. the idea of giving the
complex network numbers (i.p. addresses) names
to make them easy to remember was introduced early on
as the size and number of networks increased.
the system of dividing the networks into "domains"
was devised to create a method of administering and
identifying hosts on a network and their affiliations or
purpose. for example, the .mil domain is for military
computers and the .edu domain is for the universities.
in order for any name to work as an ip (internet protocol)
lookup, it must be unique. this unique name is attached
to a unique number (i.p. address) which actually makes
the connection. (the name itself does not make the connection).
in order to assure the uniqueness of names, the NIC (network
information center) was formed as the central repository
of names and network addresses.
during the time of us government ownership of the internet,
the NIC, managed by the NSF (national science foundation)
became known as interNIC (internet network information center).
during the nsf's custodianship of the internic,
the names, known as "domain names" were issued at no
charge, given that the networks were financed by us tax
revenues.
in 1995, as part of the governments privatization initiative,
the task of registering and managing the database of
names was granted to Network Solutions, Inc., a privately
held (inside the beltway) company. beginning in late 95
network solutions began charging $100 for registration
and the first two years service with a $50 annual renewal
fee starting on the third year and continuing.....
the demand for names increased dramatically since the
advent of the graphical world wide web and the commercial
-ization and popularization of the internet. in 1994 the
average monthly number of new name registrations was
around 4000. by the end of 1995 that number grew to
25,000 new requests monthly and had recently hit a high
of nearly 50,000 new requests in one month
this monopoly has rewarded network solutions enormously
and stranded internet users with an expensive, arcane and
outmoded method of completing internet connections.
during the "Next5Minutes, conference on Tactical Media"
held in amsterdam in january 1996, paul garrin announced
an initiative to provide an alternative, free, or at best
inexpensive and flexible, means for naming internet hosts
and allowing others to connect using those names.
a consortium was formed with system administrators from
networks spanning from scandanavia to eastern europe, to
the usa, creating a multinational service with a wide
geographic presence. ( the number and geography of
the nameservers is important to cut down on excessive
traffic over long distances and to insure redundancy
in the event of a failure on any of the networks.
with the cooperation of these networks,
a working rootserver network was initiated in
which server names not included in the database
of network solutions, answered requests with accurate
information leading to successful connections to hosts
using their newly created names.
it enabled us to serve the name.space database plus
the internic database to anyone who configured
their home computer's settings, with the addresses
of the name.space. servers, with no adverse effects on
their general internet use.
this opened up the possibility to challenge the
existing, bureaucratic system, and provide a
desirable change to the cost and sensibility
of internet names.
this process is similar to the way that phonecalls
had to be placed to the MCI network in the days when ATT
was the u.s. monopoly for long distance telephone service:
the caller needed to dial a number which was an
access code, then enter an account number to complete
a long distance call as opposed to direct dialing.
since the anti-trust case which forced the breakup of
att, the need to dial the access code to be switched
to mci long distance network was eliminated along with
att's long distance service monopoly.
the emergence of local providers and agreements
to route traffic via their networks completed the change.
the emergence of name.space into the service of creating
providing and managing internet names is a long awaited
change to the arcane traditional methods of naming internet
hosts.
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