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Evolution of the domain name system
07/11/2002
First, a warning: Ruling the Root isn't what you'd normally describe as beach reading. The book is dense, packed with acronyms and technical jargon.
Its author, Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller, admits as much in this study of how the Internet's domain name system became an institution — and hence the object of intense lobbying and maneuvering by corporations and other powerful interests.
"Admittedly, institutionalization is an ugly and seemingly unexciting word," Mueller writes. "How much more interesting to talk about the vast amounts of money that can be made from e-commerce or the exciting new capabilities of information technology."
But as Mueller points out, the domain name system is the root of the Internet. Without it, there would be no e-commerce or web sites.
So while intimate knowledge of the root won't make you a hit at a cocktail party, its importance cannot be overstated. And that is what makes Ruling the Root
a worthwhile read.
In a nutshell, the domain name system is a set of computers that translate an Internet address such as "wire.ap.org" into a series of numbers that identify a specific machine. That translation is key for finding web sites and sending e-mail.
Thousands of domain name computers exist but the most important are the 13 "root" servers that list the Net's 258 domain suffixes, such as ".com."
Of those 13, one is the master of the masters, the "A" root. The other 12 make copies from it. So whoever controls the "A" root essentially controls the Internet.
I initially thought the book was going to be about the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the group selected by the U.S. Commerce Department in 1998 to assume oversight of the domain name system, including what goes into the "A" root.
More at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/07/11/domain-name.htm
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