Domain names management is an interesting example of scarcity economy, since the resource itself, the fact of linking a domain name to a set of numbers, is virtually unlimited. Why are we still paying for the right to link a domain name to an IP address? This is what we will try to discover through this series of posts about the history of domain names.
Some institutions have returned, on a voluntary basis, unused address blocks.
As we see, in the deeper layers of the network, where the need is law and technique is the only viable political agent, solutions are found. We are far from the issue of peak oil (or peak gas, or peak gold…) and the depletion of natural resources.
Free, you say?
With the increase of Internet use (already one thousand domains in 1985), the manual procedure (mail application, adding the line in a text file, the famous /etc/hosts or hosts.txt, then manual copy on the servers) will get automatized thanks to the Domain Name System (DNS) in which the file replicates itself automatically from server to server. Indeed, symbolics.com was also the first domain name to be registered through this process.
The DDN-NIC (Defense Data Network-Network Information Center) still manages the process, under contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. In terms of being free, the allocation of domain names of that time was running on military budgets.
In 1992, a call for tender is created by the NSF during the creation of InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) and a private company, Network Solutions, takes all the registration services for the .com, .net and .org domain names, with 5.9 millions dollars of subsidy to administer them. The .mil goes to Boeing which subcontracts immediately its administration to Network Solutions. In 1995, the until then free domain names rise to $50 per year, of which 30% are donated to the NSF (those 30% will later be canceled as not approved by Congress).
In March 1995, 45,000 domain names are registered, 25% more than in February of the same year. Then speculation is in full swing, the domain names often purchased to be resold later, this is known therefore as domaining.
In practice, the ICANN subcontracts the domain names registers (what is called the right of delegation on sale) to third parties: VeriSign (for .com and .net), Neustar (.us and .biz), Nominet UK (.uk), AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération for .fr), DNS Belgium (.be), ESNIC (.es), FCCN (Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional, for .pt), Registro.br (.br)…
A controversy appears then, since the jurisdiction of ICANN is worldwide, while it's subject to California law.
This project, that answers the soft name of Golden Shield, is part of the Great Firewall of China, a complex monitoring system blocking IP addresses, and filtering URLs and DNS as we have just seen.
Major Internet players such as search engines have quickly adapted to the specific needs of China, limiting their results to the authorized internet, the tug-of-war between them and the Chinese authorities ending always to the advantage of the latter. This is the price they are willing to pay to enter the Chinese market.
A bit of technique
An IP address (for Internet Protocol) is a set of numbers separated by dots, for example 127.0.0.1 for localhost in the IPv4. IPv4, or the version 4 of the internet protocole, is historically the first version to have been widely deployed. It comprises 232 different adresses, or approximately 4.2 billion addresses. Officially saturated on February, 3 2011, the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) having distributed its last five blocks, it should be replaced by the IPv6 which takes a long time to implement. IPv6 will be able to handle 2128 different adresses, or 3,4x1038, or 340 undecillions, which is a billion of billion times the number of observable stars (3x1023). Meanwhile, ad hoc solutions help push the deadline.How did we get there?
Mainly by an improper use of resources. The addresses are grouped into classes, that is to say blocks of 16 million (Class A), 65,536 (Class B) and 256 adresses (Class C), and blocks were assigned a little beyond the actual needs, some organizations receiving 16 million addresses in a single block. We then adjusted the addresses allocation policy to stick a little closer to the real needs.Some institutions have returned, on a voluntary basis, unused address blocks.
As we see, in the deeper layers of the network, where the need is law and technique is the only viable political agent, solutions are found. We are far from the issue of peak oil (or peak gas, or peak gold…) and the depletion of natural resources.
A bit of history
The first domain names server dates from 1984, at the University of Wisconsin. One year later, appear the first top level domains (TLDs): .com, .net and .org, and the Sponsored Top-Level Domains, i.e. with conditions for access, .edu, .gov and .mil. The very first, created in January 1985 was nordu.net (used to identify the first root server nic.nordu.net), and the first .com, in March 1985, symbolics.com. These domain names were free, managed by the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and the NSF (National Science Foundation).Free, you say?
With the increase of Internet use (already one thousand domains in 1985), the manual procedure (mail application, adding the line in a text file, the famous /etc/hosts or hosts.txt, then manual copy on the servers) will get automatized thanks to the Domain Name System (DNS) in which the file replicates itself automatically from server to server. Indeed, symbolics.com was also the first domain name to be registered through this process.
The DDN-NIC (Defense Data Network-Network Information Center) still manages the process, under contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. In terms of being free, the allocation of domain names of that time was running on military budgets.
In 1992, a call for tender is created by the NSF during the creation of InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) and a private company, Network Solutions, takes all the registration services for the .com, .net and .org domain names, with 5.9 millions dollars of subsidy to administer them. The .mil goes to Boeing which subcontracts immediately its administration to Network Solutions. In 1995, the until then free domain names rise to $50 per year, of which 30% are donated to the NSF (those 30% will later be canceled as not approved by Congress).
In March 1995, 45,000 domain names are registered, 25% more than in February of the same year. Then speculation is in full swing, the domain names often purchased to be resold later, this is known therefore as domaining.
ICANN
The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a non-profit corporation created in 1998 which role is among other tasks to manage the generic Top-Level domain name system (gTLD) and country codes (ccTLD), as well as to ensure the management of root servers (overview of the types of domain names). It therefore takes the prerogatives of the IANA which becomes a component of it.In practice, the ICANN subcontracts the domain names registers (what is called the right of delegation on sale) to third parties: VeriSign (for .com and .net), Neustar (.us and .biz), Nominet UK (.uk), AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération for .fr), DNS Belgium (.be), ESNIC (.es), FCCN (Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional, for .pt), Registro.br (.br)…
A controversy appears then, since the jurisdiction of ICANN is worldwide, while it's subject to California law.
One internet, or many internets?
Let us recall that ICANN manages the root DNS servers: this means that for a site to be findable, its name must appear in those servers tables. On September, 1 2006, China established its own root server and no longer uses the ICANN servers. From that moment on, two internets coexist, one Chinese and the other global. For instance, .com.cn domain names are transformed into .com on the Chinese side, then redirected toward filtered copies cleaned of any unwanted content to Beijing authorities point of view. From the rest of the world, the visible Chinese sites had to be approved by Beijing to be published in the DNS tables visible from the outside.This project, that answers the soft name of Golden Shield, is part of the Great Firewall of China, a complex monitoring system blocking IP addresses, and filtering URLs and DNS as we have just seen.
Major Internet players such as search engines have quickly adapted to the specific needs of China, limiting their results to the authorized internet, the tug-of-war between them and the Chinese authorities ending always to the advantage of the latter. This is the price they are willing to pay to enter the Chinese market.
Une histoire des noms de domaine (in French)
Una historia de los nombres de dominio (in Spanish)
Uma história dos nomes de domínio (in Portuguese)
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