The intertron may actually get an owner...

[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... :)