[ga] Some interesting notes from the US Congress Subcommittee on Technology

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

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From:
http://www.house.gov/science/charter_br_10-07.htm
October 7, 1998

APPENDIX

INTERNET BACKGROUND--How the Domain Name System Works:

Computers on the Internet are identified through a numbering scheme that
designates their location on the network. To provide users with an easy-to-use
addressing convention that
corresponds to the specific location numbers, the Domain Name System (DNS) was
created. Domain names are broken into layers. Top level domains (TLDs)
represent either an
individual country (e.g. jp = Japan) or a generic grouping (gTLDs), (i.e.,
.com, .gov, .edu, .net, .org, and .mil). The second level domain name that
appears to the left of the gTLD in the
address provides the specific name of the entity (e.g., cnn.com).

Initially, the Department of Defense was responsible for the early versions of
the Internet and the Defense Information Systems Agency?s Network Information
Center (DISA NIC)
registered domain names. Subsequently, non-military registration was supported
by NSF because of their role in the civilian NSFNET and related Internet
activities. In 1992, NSF put
out a solicitation for network information services managers for the NSFNET,
including provision of registration services. The result was a five year
cooperative agreement between
NSF and Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), a Herndon, Virginia-based engineering and
management consulting firm. The cooperative agreement between NSF and NSI was
to expire at
the end of March 1998, but was extended up to the end of September of 1998.

NSI registers all the second level domain names under .com, .edu, .org, and
.net. It does this by matching each domain name to a specific IP number. The IP
numbers are provided by
the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which currently is funded by
DARPA through a contract with the University of Southern California's
Information Science Institute.

IANA controls the allocation of all of the Internet?s IP numbers. The IP number
and the domain name are maintained in nameserver computers located at various
points throughout the
Internet. A set of nine master root servers provide daily updates to the data
base and serve as the pointers to nameserver computers in seeking the location
of an address contained in
the data base.

IANA?s duties also include coordinating the assignment and use of various
Internet protocol parameters, managing the IP address space, and managing
specific domain names issues.
Its specific role in domain names involves making technical decisions on the
location of root servers, assessing the qualifications of applicants to manage
country code top level
domains, and evaluating additions to established top level domains that may be
proposed.

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Another interesting note:
The Proposals: A consensus that the U.S. Government should no longer manage the
day-to-day management functions of the DNS has existed for a few years, and a
series of
unsuccessful proposals on how to transfer the DNS to the private sector have
been circulated. Initially, a group of private sector Internet professionals,
known as the Internet Ad Hoc
Committee, presented a proposal. After this proposal failed to gain the
widespread approval of the Internet community, the Clinton Administration, in
February of 1998, published a
proposal--known as the "Green Paper"
- -------------

Interesting reading. 

- --
William X. Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
http://userfriendly.com/
GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg
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