The intertron may actually get an owner...

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=34892

Not a good idea. It's working just fine for now. Let it alone. If in the future countries start getting upset that the domain naming is done in the US, and new WWWs emerge, then what must be must be. Natural selection will weed out the inferior. I'm sure the process will be confusing and messy, but that's no reason for the law to get involved. As companies start making web sites for the multiple WWWs, at some point people will all conglomerate onto a few of those, which are what site makers will focus on. That sort of thing will pretty much catch 22 whatever wasn't selected out of existance. And, it should narrow down even further until there is just a single WWW again. Sure, a single group does the actual naming, but the IP addressing is managed on a much more global scale and is done via agreement. Should people get angry at the domain naming company, whatever one ends up in charge of that, then either that too will be done by agreement among ISPs (hard to do, probably impossible) or we may end up ditching that convenience altogether in favor of root IP addresses, with no controlling single company.

Honestly, the domain naming company in charge now doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong. All they do is provide a convenience for a fee, and you can ignore them and go by IP if you want (though that is awkward). If they pull some sort of malicious abuse, then if the system is "let alone", they will eventually be dropped in favor of a domain namer that goes back to the basics. I certainly hope they just stick with exactly what they are doing now. I don't see why some companies that are already rich feel the need to cheat people just to get richER, what exactly is the point? It just hurts them in the long run anyway. It's bad business to ignore business ethics. So far at least, the domain naming company realizes that.

[Great Rumbler]

The internet is fine the way it is.

[Dark Jaguar]

Indeed. Any other gems of wisdom? I was actually thinking along the lines of how do we convince governments and various authoritative bodies that they should stay out of the internet's affairs.

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11...index.html

Latest news.

[Dark Jaguar]

All very interesting... Now, I must say that my understanding of the nature of the internet led me to believe there was no "central directory" of IP addresses, just a central housing for domain names assigned to said IP addresses. I was basically informed that IP addresses are assigned by individual IP providers. These, in turn, are traded with other IP providers around the globe VERY quickly to have an up to date index that is copied from major company to major company, which in turn have an agreement with each other in which it is seen as mutually beneficial to do just that without charging any additional fees. The IP addresses of each of these major players, the "backbone" of the internet, is decided by concensus among them, which to go back where we came from determines the starting sets of digits in our own personal IP addresses. It was explained with pretty much that level of detail, as well as the nature of how routers work to manage all these IP addresses without data collisions.

To find out that in reality there really IS a central computer somewhere managing all the IP addresses of the world, that's a surprise and doesn't really seem entirely accurate...

At any rate, you can find out most of what I was told by checking out howthingswork.com .

If I am wrong, then no matter. If I am correct, it makes me wonder why domain names too aren't handled by the private sector. Surely an agreement of "first come first serve" would work between the major companies so that one simply need call an IP provider to buy an address and, assuming it isn't already taken, they assing it, pass this along to the other companies, and they mark it off their own lists due to said agreement. Then again, unlike an IP address where no one will ever really have a particular attachment to one random number over another, with domain names there may be some corporate shenanigans over the whole thing... Yeah, it's possible that may be best left to a single all consuming computer box.

It is also interesting to note that the US is setting up a group mostly independant of the US, to appease others in the world, to decide on things like naming conventions for domain names. I certainly hope the majority of the decisions made are on technical merits derived from heavy consulting of experts in the field. A lot less pure politics and a lot more technical know-how being in control of such standardizing decisions would be very much a critical thing. Further, no censorship. I'm pretty sure that won't happen anyway, with their limited control, but you know, just have to say it.

Anyway, with additional character support in address naming conventions, it will be tough browsing Japanese video game sites... At least, I won't be able to just type in nintendo.co.jp any more... (or was that .jp.co?) At least I have trusty copy-paste.

[A Black Falcon]

There isn't one computer that converts the names to numbers, but there are a network of them, spread around the country and perhaps world at various companies or institutions or stuff... but yes, from what I know the internet does indeed have central servers, and ICANN manages them in some fashion, as well as choosing what kinds of domain names are possible, which endings (.com, etc), and all that...

The main change the conference agreed on is to create a new international body that has no 'direct power' supposedly but which certainly will end up with some amount of influence... but ICANN isn't being changed, which is probably good given that it seems to be doing a good job. I can understand the international community's point about worrying about the US, but while theoretically we COULD do something not nice like disabling a country's internet or something, we haven't, and couldn't without changing some things (given how right now ICANN has the authority, via the Commerce Commitee)... and I don't think we would. It's more fear than anything else, on some cases, and anti-Americanism, in others (like Mugabe... horrible, horrible person...).

Anyway, with additional character support in address naming conventions, it will be tough browsing Japanese video game sites... At least, I won't be able to just type in nintendo.co.jp any more... (or was that .jp.co?) At least I have trusty copy-paste.

Yes, I would consider this to be a major concern. Sure, I can see how each language would want to be able to have their domain names in their language, but for international access, leaving them as English-alphabet-only really is what should be stuck with. Anything else would mess with interconnectedness of websites -- and not just for Asian sites -- do you have accent keys on your keyboard? No? Good luck getting to French sites then if they changed the current rules... :)