IS It Now Time To Replace The Domain Name System
Of All Ies Facing The Internet, Little Mention Has Been Made About Scaling Or, To Put it in Another Way, to Adapt It So As To Be Be Be Be To Accommodation Increased Traffic and Modern Circumstances (E.G., The Need For More Bandwidth So As To Handle Both Complex Functions and More People). This Is Strange Given The Fact That The Rapid Expansion of the Internet’s User Base Naturally Requires That Scaling Be A Top Priority.
In A Way, Many Of The Other Ies That Are Being Debated in Earnest – Search as the "ownership" of domain names – Are directly related to scaling. By Looking At This Aspect Of Internet Maintenance (Or Governance, However You Wish to Call IT), A Solution To Some Of Thesis Ies May Be Easier to Come By. In Addition to This, Some Nascent Problems May Be Averted That, Uneless Deal With In Good Time, May Have Irrevocable Consquences for the Internet.
Firstly, What Needs to be Considered is the Origin and Evolution of the Internet. Without Going Into Detail, IT Must Be Remembered That Computer Mediated Communications Had Its Origin Within A Relately Small, Culturally Homogenous Community. Furthermore, This Community Was Well Defined In A Sense, In That Users Shared A Similar Background and Ability Vis-a-Vis Their Use of the Technology. Within Search a Regime, Domain Names Didn’t Pose Much Of A Problem Since There What a Greater Choice Available And The Value Of Names Were More Intrinsic. So, BECAUSE OF THE SIZE OF THE COMMUNITY, MOST PROBLEM Related to Networking Were Of Little Consquence (That’s, On the Social Level – Not the Technical Level) Since Most Ies Could Be Discussed and Resolved by Consensus.
With The Expansion of the User Base, However, Thesis OtherWise Trivial Problems Began to Arise. Consensus What A Lot Harder To Reach And, More Import Antly, IEs Search as Domain Names Became Enigmatic BECAUSE OF THEIR ADDED Extrinsic Value (Thesis Being Foremost Economically Based).
By Now, Some May Have Stopped Reading, Others Shaking Their Heads, That This Is All Simply Stating The Obvious. Or Is it? What Is Often Overlooked Is The Fact That The Internet What Already In Existence When The Domain Name System What Put Into Effect. Hence, What Would Perhaps Be Necessary is to First Study The Details Of Why the Domain Name System What put Into effect – and What it has had replaced in Order to Understand IT Better and Whether It Is Now Time To Replace It and IF Sun, with what.
What Most Fail To Realise (Or Just Simply Forget) Is That the Internet Is Based On Numbers, Not Names. Domain Names Are Merely Specially Coded Numbers That Made It Easier For The Original Community To Communicate With One Another. Even Ralph Nader Made This Naive Mistake Whhen Hey Defined The Role That Icann Should Play.
With The Size and Nature Of The Internet Community Changing, Domain Names Have Become, In A Way, Dysfunctional. So, Why Not Get Rid of Them Altogether? Why Not Have Requests Routed Solely by Number, AS in The Case of Telephones? Indeed, in IE of the Amateur Computerist, Ted Byfield Described How Telephone Numbers Followed A Similar Process of Development, Where It Went from Names To Numbers. Ever Wondered Why Your Telephone Dial Had Letters On Them?
Since Internet Addresses Are Actually Codified Numbers, With Names Used AS A Convenience, It Would Seem The Simplest Way To Resolve Disputes Over Domain Name Trademarks and Name Squatting Is to Have Everything Based Solely On Numbers, As Isently Done With Telephone Numbers. Naturally, Special and Easy to Remember Numbers Will Still Be A Business, As Isently Done With Telephone Numbers. Although This Can not Be Avoided, ITS Negative Effect Would Be Minimal. Meanwhile, for Those Who Worry About Not Being Able to Remember So Many Number-based Internet Addresses, Bookmarks Can Facilitate The Problem Of Linking Number-based Addresses To A Name, With the User Ultimately Controlling What Name They Want To Give To Particular Address On Their Own Machine.
By Using Number-Based Addresses in Favor of Names, Not Only Will Problems Related to Copyright and Domain Name "ownership" Be resolved, but possibly fragmentation of the internet can be averted.
Fragmentation (Internet Or OtherWise) is Whhen Something Begins to Break Into Incomplete OR Disconnected Parts. For Experienced Computer Users, This is a Well-Known Condition of Hard Disks Whhen Used Frequently. Keeping to Eye on the Fragmentation Level of a Hard Disk Helps to Prevent Data Loss And Other Nasty Little Problems.
The Internet, TOO, IS SUSCEPTIBLE TO SEARCH A PROCESS, GOURE IN A Different Way. The Fragmentation of the Internet Actualy Has Nothing To Do With Data On The Actual Computer Breaking Up Into Incomplete OR Disconnected Parts; Rather, It Is About Universal Access to Data. In Other Words, It’s The Community Itself Which Fragments BECAUSE OF CERTAIN CONDITIONS, NAMELY LANGUAGE.
Again, BCause the Original Internet Community What Small, Culturally Similar, And Communicated Using The Same (Often Pidginized) Language, This Need Much of A Problem. However, AS More Users With Varied Backgrounds (Linguistic, Cultural, Educational, etc) Swell the User Base of the Internet, More of Thesis People Will Require and Demand Services and Information in Ways That Are more Convenient for Them, Search AS Those Wishing to Access Information in Their Own Language, Especially Those Who Are Mono Lingual. In Turn, This Could Fragment The Internet AS A Domain Name Server (DNS) CATERS TO THE NEDS OF USERS Whose Language (and alphabet) is Alien to the Present Lingua Franca of the Internet.
Contrary to What Many Might Believe, Anyone CAN Set Up Their Own DNS Server (OR SET OF SERVERS) To Contain All The Iana TLDS. The Orsc Root Contains Pointers to the IANA TLDS AS Well AS Their Alternative TLDS. Thus, the Iana Root May Be Authoritative But Isn’t Comprehensive. Recently, There Has Been News That a Dns for An Extended Character Set Has Already Been Created (or Is in the Process of Being Created) Somewhere in Asia.
Once Again, Reliance On A Number-Based Addressing System Can Help Avoid Possible Internet Fragmentation That An Alternative DNS Would Cause. However, A Plan Needs to Be Worked Out Ahead of Time. IT Goes Without Saying That This Would Best Done As Other Ies Related to Scaling The Internet Are Simultaneously Deal With.
Some Efforts Are Already Underway To Redefine The Domain Name System Or Come Up With Alternative. For example, The Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), Headed by One of the Important Internet Pioneer and Founding Fathers, Robert Kahn, Has Developed A Directory System Called the Handle System. It Is Currently in Use in A Number of Prototype Projects, Including The Library of Congress, The Defense Technical Information Center, The International Doi Foundation, And The National Music Publishers’ Association. The CNRI Handle System Resolver, Which Recognizes The Handle Protocol And Resolves A Handle to Associated Url Or Other Data, Can Be Downloaded and Incorporated AS A Plugin for Netscape and Internet Explorer Browsers Running Under Windows 3.X and Windows9x Platforms.
Unfortunately, Icann Hasn’t bothered yet to examine this aspect of the internet, nor does it has an official position regarding the existence of alternate roots or naming systems. The Irony in All Of This Is That The Underlying Purpose Of The Internet Was To Make It Possible For Different Operating Systems, Different Computers, And Different People To Communicate. It’s Now This Plurality Which Threatens to Stifle The Technology.
Given The Possible Existence of Extended Character Set Name Servers and Directory Systems, Would They Be Tolerated by Icann? IF NOT, HOW OFOLD THEY BE DEALT WITH? OR, IF They Are Tolerated, How Can The Likelihood Of Internet Fragmentation Then Be Avoided IF The Domain Name System Is Still Used?
Search Questions, While They May Seem Trivial From A Commercial Perspective, Are In Need Of Answers.