Signposts in Cyberspace The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation (2005) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Domain Name System: Emergence and Evolution
2 The Domain Name System: Emergence and Evolution
Pages 39-78
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Some of the initial design decisions have proven to be extraordinarily flexible in accommodating major changes in the scale and scope of the DNS. Other initial design decisions constrain technical and policy choices to the present day.
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at the Stanford Research Institute5 managed the registration of hosts and the distribution of the information needed to keep the HOSTS.TXT file current. The list of host names and their mapping to and from network addresses was maintained in the frequently updated HOSTS.TXT file, which was copied to and stored in each computer connected to the ARPANET.
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Popular host names such as Frodo were selected first, and so some people had to invent alternate names for their systems. 8It was the obligation of individual network and host operators to download the latest HOSTS.TXT file to their machines.
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and "Domain Names -- Implementation and Specification" (RFC 883) , which specified a set of protocols, called the Domain Name System, that implemented the hierarchical name space proposed by Su and Postel.
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All of the other tables serve as directories of directories, each one pointing to lower-level directories on a path to the one holding the desired address. Thus, the entries in a table at any given level of the tree can include pointers to lower-level tables as well as final network addresses.
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could point directly to a particular computer. Applications, such as Web browsers and e-mail software, use domain names as part of the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs; see Box 6.2)
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to the user's computer.12 2.2.1 Simple, Mnemonic, and Deeply Hierarchical Names As indicated above, domain names were intended to enable a more convenient and efficient way of referring to IP addresses and other information, using a simple taxonomy. The early DNS included eight generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
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18Each table within the domain name tree hierarchy contains resource records, which are composed of fields such as the type (i.e., does this record correspond to a host address, an authoritative name server, or something else) and time to live (i.e., for what period of time may this record be cached before the source of the information should be consulted again?
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These are local data storage or memory that can significantly reduce the amount of network traffic associated with repeated successful queries for the same data by providing access to the data in servers closer to the end user than the authoritative name server.20 The data in these caches need to be refreshed at regular intervals21 to ensure that the cached data are valid. In the initial version of the DNS specification, several timing parameters had time-to-live limits of approximately 18 hours.
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Rather, it was attributable to the fundamental change in the nature of the lookup mechanism. In the HOSTS.TXT world, any particular host lookup operation would either succeed or fail immediately -- the HOSTS.TXT file is located on the user's system; it is not dependent on Internet connectivity at the moment of lookup.
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%@: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks, O'Reilly and Associates, Sebastopol, Calif., 1991. 24For instance, relay.cs.net and seismo.css.gov, the e-mail gateways between the Internet and the Computer Science Network, and an important one of those between the Internet and the Unix-to-Unix network, respectively, were typically the top two hosts (in terms of traffic sent or received)
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The e-mail hub in South Africa would then distribute the e-mail to other hubs within the country, often using the originally specified domain as an indication of the appropriate domestic server. This model had the added advantage that, when permanent connectivity became available, user and institutional e-mail addresses and domain names did not have to change -- users just saw a dramatic improvement in service and turnaround time.
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Second, because almost all naming 29For convenience and as a transition strategy, many sites chose to treat, for example, "BITNET" and "UUCP" as if they were top-level domain names, mapping those names through the DNS or other facilities into gateway paths. So a generation of users believed that, for example, smith@mitvmb.bitnet was an Internet domain name when, in fact, it was mapped to smith%mitvmb.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu, where the latter was a gateway between the Internet and BITNET.
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of those with responsibility for the host or domain name; additional information could also be stored and accessed. From a technical design and operational viewpoint, the Whois database is independent of either the HOSTS.TXT file or the DNS.31 For a while, the Whois database, maintained by the Network Information Center (NIC)
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Given the decentralized nature of the Internet, network service providers, hardware and software vendors, end users, or others can inhibit worthwhile technical advances from being implemented through mere procrastination or a deliberate decision that the implementation of a particular software upgrade is simply not sufficiently beneficial to them. Given the much larger scale and scope of the DNS and the embedded base of software two decades later, successful implementation of any proposed new system or major changes to the existing DNS may prove difficult.34 32The history of the Whois database through the 1990s can be found in Section 2.5.3.
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provided the household infrastructure for supporting widespread dial-in access to the Internet by the mid-1990s in the United States.35 To function on the Internet, a computer needs to have some basic information, such as its IP address, the IP address of at least one router,36 and the IP addresses of a few critical services.37 In the world of a relatively small number of large mainframes or minicomputers, such information was entered manually on each new computer when installed and, once configured, rarely changed. In such a world, IP addresses functioned as de facto stable identifiers, with the DNS (or its HOSTS.TXT predecessor)
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The use of NATs distorts the one-to-one mapping between Internet hosts and IP addresses that many applications assumed in their design-thus, any application that depends on IP addresses is at risk when its traffic goes through a NAT.41 As a result of these changes, IP addresses have become much less useful as stable identifiers than they once were. In the case of most appli 39After the lease expires, ownership of the address reverts back to the server that issued the address.
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Another departure from transparent architecture42 came with the introduction of packet-filtering routers, one of the simplest kinds of firewalls.43 A number of organizations introduced such firewalls beginning in the late 1980s with the intent to defend their sites against various real and perceived threats. The much-publicized Morris worm44 further raised the profile of network security and provided network administrators with an additional motivation to install firewalls (thereby further inhibiting transparency in the network architecture)
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2.5.1 Demand for Domain Names and Emergence of a Market48 The rapid growth of the World Wide Web stimulated interest in and the demand for domain names because Web addresses (Uniform Resource Locators; URLs [see Box 6.2]
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In short, domain names began to refer to products or services rather than just network resources (e.g., host names) .51 Before the rise of the Web, the largest concentration of domain name registrations was under the .edu TLD (as of March 1993)
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The available statistics provide the basis for estimating that roughly 75 percent of the world's domain name registrations resided in .com at the end of 1996.54 Thus, the .com TLD became the dominant place for domain name registration worldwide in the mid-1990s, which by the late 1990s became reflected in popular culture through phrases such as a "dot-com company" (or simply a "dotcom") or "dot-com economy." Interest in domain names extended beyond the for-profit sector.
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A common practice was to register a domain name that included the name of interest followed by "sucks," or something similar, and to associate that domain name with a Web site that criticized the entity in question. In addition to motivating legal actions to try to prevent the use of domain names in this fashion, this practice caused many companies to pre-emptively register these types of domain names for themselves.57 Therefore, for various reasons, the demand for domain names increased tremendously during the 1990s.58 Further fueling the demand was aggressive marketing by companies that register domain names and provide related services, efforts by IT companies more generally that played up domain names (especially .com names)
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, which helped to solidify the dominance of the then-extant TLDs, especially of .com.62 2.5.2 The Rise of Conflicts Over Domain Names As the number of domain name registrations exploded, conflicts developed over the right to register particular names at the second level of many of the TLDs.63 The basis for most of these conflicts derived from the unique naming associated with the DNS. The DNS does not have the capability to incorporate context into domain names, so each domain name must be unique worldwide and then in turn, a Web site at that domain name can then be accessed throughout the world.64 The consequence is that it is significantly harder to pick a domain name that is both unused and memorable.
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They may possess economic value by virtue of their scarcity, but no one cares which particular identifier he or she gets. In the DNS, there are plenty of possible names (accepting that random strings of letters and digits can produce domain names (e.g., akwoeics8320dsdfa0867sdfad02c.org)
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The great emphasis placed on second-level domain names created a problem for some trademark holders, especially for those that held trademarks that were well known in the United States or worldwide. Trademark rights (which are traditionally accorded on a country by country basis)
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Accordingly, domain names may conflict with trademarks because of their similarity in function. If a trademark holder allows someone else to use the trademark or mark either in the same class of goods/services or in some other way that could create confusion in the marketplace, the other party may begin to acquire rights as a result of that use, and those rights reduce the value of the mark to its original owner.
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Cybersquatters are generally defined as domain name speculators who register a domain name that incorporates a trademark owned by another party, not in order to use the domain name, but with the intent of reselling the registered domain name to that party for an amount that far exceeded the cybersquatter's registration cost. The most contentious examples of cybersquatting were those in which domain names incorporating trademarks (or phonetic or typographical variants of them)
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Despite the creation of ACPA and other domain name dispute resolution mechanisms,76 the costs involved with pre-emptive registrations and the enforcement of trademarks ultimately led many representatives of trademark holder interests to resist efforts to create new TLDs, fearing that these costs would continue to increase substantially if new additional TLDs were created. In contrast, the protective efforts by trademark holders in some instances have also raised conflicts with other legally equivalent rights held by the individuals using the domain names.
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79See Heather McCabe, "Pokey Wins His Domain Name," Wired News, April 22, 1998, available at |
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. See The Recognition of Rights and the Use of Names in the Internet Domain Name System, Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process, September 3, 2001, available at |
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, invading an individual's right of publicity is similar to invading her privacy through unauthorized appropriation of her name or likeness.88 One of the primary motives behind passage of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in the United States, for example, was the widespread registration of the names of U.S. politicians as domain names and their linkage to Web sites that were satirical or critical.89 Communications technology can create new arenas for disputes over rights to names.
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The court held that "no reasonable consumer" was likely to confuse the defendant's domain name with the plaintiff's marks BALLY, BALLY TOTAL FITNESS, and BALLY'S TOTAL FITNESS, because, among other things, the defen 91See, for example, Joanna Glasner, "Typo-Loving Squatter Squashed," Wired, October 31, 2000, available at |
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and use it as his or her screen name and e-mail address. While it is clear that no exemption exists for Usenet groups and AOL screen-name aliases, it does appear that trademark holders have chosen not to pursue many of these uses in these naming spaces.96 Yet current law and policy regarding domain names erect major distinctions between the various parts of the domain name used in a URL.
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When a trademark holder discovered a potentially infringing domain name, the trademark holder could use the Whois database to identify, investigate, and contact the registrant of the domain name. At that time, the Whois database could also be used to determine if the same registrant had registered any similar domain names that the trademark holder did not know about or to search for further evidence of cybersquatting by the registrant.
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As discussed elsewhere in this section, "Beyond Second-Level Domain Names," the rise in value of .com names (whether for navigation or marketing functions) led to the registration of some domain names for speculative, abusive, or pre emptive purposes.
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2.7 ADMINISTRATION OF DOMAIN NAMES In the 1980s, the Network Information Center managed the registration of domain names, operating under the auspices of SRI International and funded by the Department of Defense (DOD) , by DARPA and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)
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, through InterNIC. At this time, NSF, preserving the practice that the registration of domain names would be free to registrants, subsidized the costs associated with domain name registration.
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. Thus, NSF engaged NSI to take over do main name registration services for most of the generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
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1998 The NTIA released "A Proposal to Improve Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses," also known as the Green Paper. This proposal called for a private, non-profit corporation, headquartered in the United States, to manage domain names and IP addresses, and for "the addition of up to five new registries."4 A final statement of policy, the "Management of Internet Names and Ad dresses," also known as the White Paper, was issued by NTIA.
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105 From Milton Mueller, "Internet Domain Names: Property Rights and Institutional Innovation," in Gary Libecap, editor, Entrepreneurship and Growth in the American Economy 12:93-131, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2000, p.
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