By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

What's in a Name?

Part 2: some new developments in the organization of the internet

In my last Internet Connections column (October, 1998), I provided an overview of Internet addresses and how address names relate to address numbers. From that article, it should be apparent how important addresses are to the operation of the Internet. The orderly and unique application of addresses lays at the basis of what makes the Internet such a universal and useful medium for communication.

Most people just take the Internet for granted, without realizing that there is quite a bit of work which goes on to preserve as well as extend the standards developed for Internet communication and to keep the Internet's underlying technical operations running smoothly. For most of the life of the Internet, those functions have been supported by the U.S. Government in the form of grants and contracts with non- and for-profit entities. This is about to change, marking a big step in the life of the Internet -- a step in the maturation process of the Internet as it becomes more and more integrated with our everyday lives.

A New Authority

Hardly noticed amongst the current appetite in Washington for political scandal was the fact that in October, the Clinton administration gave the go-ahead for the transfer of the Internet's technical management to a new non-profit corporation, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN, see www.icann.org). Previously, most of this function was done by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), run out of a non-profit center at UCLA. The ICANN is a non-profit corporation, with a board of trustees that is supposed to be representative of its constituent users, namely, Internet Service Providers, Educational Institutions, Corporations, and end-users. It is supposed to be free from the undue influence of any one of its constituencies, allowing it to operate for the good of the Internet.

Currently, this authority is spread amongst a number of organizations. The IANA served as the "root" addressing authority (see, www.iana.org). Several other organizations provided name registration services, such as Network Solutions Inc., who runs the site, internic.net, serving the top-level domains .com, .net, .org, and .edu. Registration services for other top-level domains (like .us and .ca) are provided by the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN, www.arin.org). This organization serves all of the Americas, including both continents. Similar organizations exist for Europe and Asia.

The Internic will continue its services at least until its contract runs out in 2002. The impact of the privatization of the Internet plumbing on other registration services is yet to be seen. The development of the ICANN will be watched closely by those who follow the Internet's development. If it succeeds, the Internet will have grown far beyond an interesting experiment requiring governmental support to survive. How it succeeds may determine the future of the Internet. If it succeeds in being free from the influence of any one constituency, then an easily accessible Internet which supports education and public action as well as it does commerce may be the end result.

The Passing of a Pioneer

A sad irony within this story of Internet technical workings is the passing of Jonathan Postel. As final plans were being made to create the ICANN, in early October, National Public Radio broadcast and interview with Dr. Postel, a professor at UCLA and founder of the IANA referenced above. It was quite shocking, therefore, to hear of his death on October 16, 1998, after undergoing emergency surgery to repair an artificial valve in his heart.

Not many can claim to be a true pioneer of the Internet.* Many have contributed along the way, but Jonathan Postel was there at the very beginning, when the ARPANet was a research project starting at UCLA. ICANN can trace its routes to the very first batch of addresses that Postel wrote down on paper in order to keep track of them. His involvement continued and as an expert in Internet addressing and editor for the collection of Internet Request for Comment articles (RFCs), his influence on the development of the Internet never waned (see http://www.iana.org/postel/postel-tribute.html).

It's ironic that but for the passing of Jonathan Postel, the story of the creation of the ICANN would have remained even more obscure than it is. In spite of the importance of this action, most outside the Internet technical community are probably not aware of it. It shows how much we can take something for granted as an important part of our lives, without knowing in the least how it works or what forces might be at work which could take it away from us. When a 55 year old Internet genius is suddenly taken from us, it should remind us of something else: this life we are given is a precious gift which never should be taken for granted.n

* Another computing pioneer has recently been in the news. Douglas Engelbart, often called the father of the mouse, was honored at a day-long tribute at Stanford University. See "Upgrading the Human OS" for further information about Engelbart and the tribute.