Signposts in Cyberspace The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation (2005) / Chapter Skim
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1 Navigating the Internet: Concepts and Context
1 Navigating the Internet: Concepts and Context
Pages 19-38
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From page 19... ...
addresses -- that define the specific location of every device on the Internet. And also like the physical world, the virtual world has names -- called domain names, which are generally more easily remembered and informative than the addresses that are attached to most devices -- that serve as unchanging identifiers of those devices even when their specific addresses are changed.
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The report's specific objectives and how it is organized to address them are spelled out in this chapter, which begins with an introduction to the Internet, the Domain Name System, and Internet navigation, and with an examination of the forces affecting them. Four basic concepts that are used throughout this report -- names, navigation, technical system, and institutional framework -- are defined and briefly described in Box 1.1.
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From page 21... ...
that handles the necessary technical and administrative arrangements. A distinctive feature of the Internet is that all the user services (such as e-mail or the World Wide Web)
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From page 22... ...
Navigation, Navigation Aids, and Navigation Services Navigation is the process of following a course from one place to an other. In the narrow sense, the term is used to refer to a person or entity (e.g., a vehicle)
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The single technical system that is the Domain Name System is de scribed and discussed in detail in Chapters 2, 3, and 4; the technical sys tems that support Internet navigation services are characterized more broadly in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. Institutional Framework An institutional framework is a collection of organizations and policies whose decisions and actions enable a technical system to be constructed, operated, controlled, regulated, and improved.
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From page 24... ...
So in Figure 1.1, the domain name www.cstb.nas.edu designates the www leaf lying on the .cstb branch, which lies on the .nas branch, which lies on the .edu branch. A number of factors, including the introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, have transformed the Internet community from a small town into a great and rapidly expanding metropolis with an extremely large, highly diverse body of users, relatively few of whom are computer specialists.
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INTERNET FIGURE 1.1 The Domain Name System and Internet navigation for the Web-navigating to www.cstb.nas.edu. The Web site and IP address used are fictional.
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The result was an aftermarket for domain names, generally in the .com toplevel domain, in which some have been resold for prices far greater than the nominal registration fee paid by the original registrant. Furthermore, in an effort to protect their rights and prevent others from abusing them, trademark holders have sought to acquire many of the domain names incorporating their trademarks and, given the likelihood of entry errors, words that are typographically close to them in all of the relevant toplevel domains.
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From page 27... ...
As a consequence, its simple original institutional framework, managed essentially by one person,13 has been replaced with a complex network of institutions comprising numerous public and private, commercial and non-commercial organizations that register domain names and operate name servers; and one non-governmental organization with international scope that, with the authority and oversight of the U.S. government, provides technical coordination and establishes some elements of global policy -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
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From page 28... ...
In contrast, among aids to navigation on the Web there are numerous specialized navigation services, each operated by different providers that compete openly without any comprehensive institutional framework for their operation and control. Principal among these navigation services are search engines, which at the possible cost of a few more keystrokes open up a far wider range of possibilities on the Web than simple domain name guessing; and directories, which provide a yellow pages or white pages guide to locations, principally on the Web.
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Concerns about the practices of the providers of navigation services are likely to grow as Internet users rely increasingly on these services as a principal means of navigation. 1.4 THE DYNAMICS OF CHANGE Since the early 1980s, when the DNS was developed, five forces have inexorably driven the transformation of the Internet from its origins as a small, primarily North American research network, which was run by a tight-knit group of specialists for use within their research and industrial communities, into its current state as a diffusely managed and increasingly critical part of the global information and communication infrastruc 17 These destinations might be derived from guesses about domain names as discussed above or references provided by others (e.g., in an e-mail)
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In addition to having a profound impact on the Internet (and the World Wide Web) as a whole, these forces have simultaneously transformed the DNS and Internet navigation to subjects of substantial commercial, legal, political, and social importance.
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1.4.4 Increasing Social Value When the DNS was developed, there was a modest level of social, political, or cultural value associated with specific domain names. As the Internet grew in size and evolved in use, it became a primary medium for
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Until or unless the DNS is replaced, the signs designating the location of information, art, entertainment, viewpoints, and services will continue to depend on domain names. For that reason, it will be essential to sustain the DNS as the reliable signposting infrastructure of the Internet, facilitating the Internet's use as a medium of free expression openly communicated to all corners of the globe, while balancing that freedom of expression against privacy rights, property rights, cultural mores, and national laws.
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From page 33... ...
That concern may increase as the economic and social value of the DNS as the critical signposting infrastructure of the Internet continues to grow.22 Although the DNS is only now moving toward presentation of nonASCII scripts in domain names, Internet content in most important applications, including e-mail and the Web, has been internationalized for well over a decade. Most Internet navigation services have incorporated the capability to search in multiple languages.
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From page 34... ...
The DNS interrelates with navigation across the Internet in five ways. · First, the DNS plays a direct navigational role by providing the IP address of a World Wide Web site, an e-mail server, or another network host or resource whose domain name is known, or can be guessed.
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From page 35... ...
· Fourth, navigation services relieve some of the pressure on the Domain Name System by reducing the need for a site to have a short memorable name in order to be found. It appears that efforts and funds spent in previous years to obtain desirable domain names are now being diverted to some degree to efforts and expenditures to ensure a presence and high ranking in the results of search engines or directories.
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To provide a thorough and objective description and assessment of the Domain Name System -- both its technology and the institu tional framework within which that technology operates; 2. To describe and analyze alternative approaches to the principal technology prospects and institutional issues that are likely to af fect the future of the DNS; 3.
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From page 37... ...
The current state of navigation aids and services and the framework of commercial institutions within which they operate are presented in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 addresses some prospective technologies whose introduction, and a number of the institutional issues whose resolution, can have a major influence on the future development of Internet navigation and its relationship to the DNS.
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From page 38... ...
The goal of this report is to clarify the sometimes controversial, often arcane, and frequently uncertain issues concerning the signposting and navigational infrastructure of the Internet. The committee hopes that by providing such clarification, this report will itself serve as a navigational aid to the policy and technology communities as they find their way to decisions that will enable the Internet to remain an efficient and reliable channel of global communication and commerce.
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