InterNIC

Last updated
InterNIC
Successor ICANN
ARIN
Formation1972
Founder Elizabeth J. Feinler
DissolvedSeptember 18, 1998
FocusManage Internet protocol numbers and Domain Name System root
Parent organization
 Stanford Research Institute (until 1991)
Network Solutions (from 1991)
Website internic.net
Formerly called
Network Information Center (NIC)

InterNIC, known as the Network Information Center (NIC) until 1993, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until October 1, 1991, it was run by the Stanford Research Institute, now known as SRI International, and led by Jake Feinler. From October 1991 until September 18, 1998, it was run by Network Solutions. Thereafter, the responsibility was assumed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Contents

It was accessed through the domain name internic.net, with email, FTP and World Wide Web services run at various times by SRI, Network Solutions, Inc., and AT&T. This website is still active today, operated by ICANN, and currently provides reference documents and information related to domain registration. The InterNIC also coordinated the IP address space, including performing IP address management for North America prior to the formation of ARIN. InterNIC is a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The use of the term is licensed to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). [1]

SRI

The first central authority to coordinate the operation of the network was the Network Information Center (NIC). The NIC was based in Doug Engelbart's lab, the Augmentation Research Center, at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in Menlo Park, California. [2]

In 1972, Elizabeth J. Feinler, better known as Jake, became principal investigator of the project. [3] [4]

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigned the numbers, while the NIC published them to the rest of the network. Jon Postel fulfilled the role of manager of IANA, in addition to his role as the RFC Editor, until his death in 1998.

The NIC provided reference service to users (initially over the phone and by physical mail), maintained and published a directory of people (the "white pages"), a resource handbook (the "yellow pages", a list of services) and the protocol handbook. After the Network Operations Center at Bolt, Bernek and Newman brought new hosts onto the network, the NIC registered names, provided access control for terminals, audit trail and billing information, and distributed Request for Comments (RFCs). [5] Feinler, working with Steve Crocker, Jon Postel, Joyce Reynolds and other members of the Network Working Group (NWG), developed RFCs into the official set of technical notes for the ARPANET and later the Internet. The NIC provided the first links to online documents using the NLS Journal system developed at SRI's Augmentation Research Center. [3]

On the ARPANET, hosts were given names to be used in place of numeric addresses. Owners of new hosts sent email to HOSTSMASTER@SRI-NIC.ARPA to request an address. A file named HOSTS.TXT was distributed by the NIC and manually installed on each host on the network to provide a mapping between these names and their corresponding network address. As the network grew, this became increasingly cumbersome. A technical solution came in the form of the Domain Name System, designed by Paul Mockapetris.

The Defense Data Network Network Information Center (DDN-NIC) at SRI handled all registration services, including the top-level domains mil , gov , edu , org , net , com and us . DDN-NIC also performed root nameserver administration and Internet number assignments under a United States Department of Defense contract starting in 1984. [6]

Network Solutions

In 1990, the Internet Activities Board proposed changes to the centralized NIC/IANA arrangement. [7] The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded the administration and maintenance of DDN-NIC, which had been managed by SRI since 1972, to Government Systems, Inc (GSI), which subcontracted it to the small private-sector firm Network Solutions.

On October 1, 1991, the NIC services were moved from a DECSYSTEM-20 machine at SRI to a Sun Microsystems SPARCserver running SunOS 4.1 at GSI in Chantilly, Virginia. [8]

By the 1990s, most of the growth of the Internet was in the non-defense sector, and even outside the United States. [7] Therefore, the US Department of Defense would no longer fund registration services outside of the mil domain.

The National Science Foundation started a competitive bidding process in 1992; subsequently, in 1993, NSF created the Internet Network Information Center, known as InterNIC, to extend and coordinate directory and database services and information services for the NSFNET; and provide registration services for non-military Internet participants. [9] NSF awarded the contract to manage InterNIC to three organizations; Network Solutions provided registration services, AT&T provided directory and database services, and General Atomics provided information services. [10] General Atomics was disqualified from the contract in December 1994 after a review found their services not conforming to the standards of its contract. [11] General Atomics' InterNIC functions were assumed by AT&T.

Inappropriate domain names

Beginning in 1996, Network Solutions rejected domain names containing English language words on a "restricted list" through an automated filter. Applicants whose domain names were rejected received an email containing the notice: "Network Solutions has a right founded in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to refuse to register, and thereby publish, on the Internet registry of domain names words that it deems to be inappropriate." Domain names such as "shitakemushrooms.com" would be rejected, but the domain name "shit.com" was active since it had been registered before 1996. [12]

Network Solutions eventually allowed domain names containing the words on a case-by-case basis, after manually reviewing the names for obscene intent. This profanity filter was never enforced by the government and its use was not continued by ICANN when it took over governance of the distribution of domain names to the public. [13]

Transfer to ARIN and ICANN

The InterNIC project included Internet IP number assignment, ASN assignment, and reverse DNS zone (in-addr.arpa) management tasks until December 1997 when the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) came into operation. At that time, responsibility for these tasks was transferred by the National Science Foundation from the InterNIC project to ARIN via modification of the cooperative agreement with Network Solutions. [14]

The InterNIC Directory and Database services provided by AT&T were discontinued on March 31, 1998, after their cooperative agreement with NSF expired. [15]

In 1998, both IANA and InterNIC project were reorganized under the control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California non-profit corporation contracted by the US Department of Commerce to manage a number of Internet-related tasks. [16] The role of operating the DNS was privatized, and opened up to competition, while the central management of name allocations would be awarded on a contract tender basis. [17] In July 2010, the IAB and Number Resource Organization agreed that ICANN should perform the in-addr.arpa zone technical management tasks, [18] and this transition to ICANN was completed in February 2011. [19]

In Uplink: Hacker Elite a database of InterNIC is featured. It can also be hacked in-game and it ironically has no security.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is the regional Internet registry for the United States, Canada, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands. ARIN manages the distribution of Internet number resources, including IPv4 and IPv6 address space and AS numbers. ARIN opened for business on December 22, 1997 after incorporating on April 18, 1997. ARIN is a nonprofit corporation with headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia, United States.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the associated entities. Most prominently, it translates readily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for locating and identifying computer services and devices with the underlying network protocols. The Domain Name System has been an essential component of the functionality of the Internet since 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ICANN</span> American nonprofit organization that coordinates several Internet address databases

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization head-quartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the Internet's stable and secure operation. ICANN performs the actual technical maintenance work of the Central Internet Address pools and DNS root zone registries pursuant to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) function contract. The contract regarding the IANA stewardship functions between ICANN and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce ended on October 1, 2016, formally transitioning the functions to the global multistakeholder community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Postel</span> American computer scientist (1943–1998)

Jonathan Bruce Postel was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards. He is known principally for being the Editor of the Request for Comment (RFC) document series, for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and for administering the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) until his death.

A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Assigned Numbers Authority</span> Standards organization overseeing IP addresses

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet Protocol–related symbols and Internet numbers.

A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a domain name. Most registries operate on the top-level and second-level of the DNS.

The domain com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Created in the first group of Internet domains at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for subdomains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes.

The domain name arpa is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It is used predominantly for the management of technical network infrastructure. Prominent among such functions are the subdomains in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa, which provide namespaces for reverse DNS lookup of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, respectively.

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.

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In computer networking, a port or port number is a number assigned to uniquely identify a connection endpoint and to direct data to a specific service. At the software level, within an operating system, a port is a logical construct that identifies a specific process or a type of network service. A port at the software level is identified for each transport protocol and address combination by the port number assigned to it. The most common transport protocols that use port numbers are the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP); those port numbers are 16-bit unsigned numbers.

Einar A. Stefferud (Stef) was a computer researcher and entrepreneur, who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly in the areas of IETF RFCs and standards, secure online payment systems, DNS, and secure email. Stefferud was one of the original designers of the MIME protocol for sending multimedia Internet electronic mail.

Blackhole DNS servers are Domain Name System (DNS) servers that return a "nonexistent address" answer to reverse DNS lookups for addresses reserved for private use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth J. Feinler</span> American information scientist (born 1931)

Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute. Her group operated the Network Information Center (NIC) for the ARPANET as it evolved into the Defense Data Network (DDN) and the Internet.

The Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) is a computer network communications protocol standardized by a working group at the Internet Engineering Task Force in 2015, after experimental developments and thorough discussions. It is a successor to the WHOIS protocol, used to look up relevant registration data from such Internet resources as domain names, IP addresses, and autonomous system numbers.

References

  1. ↑ "InterNIC service mark registration, U.S. Registration No. 1,874,125". U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  2. ↑ Elizabeth J. Feinler (July–September 2010). "The Network Information Center and its Archives". Annals of the History of Computing. 32 (3). IEEE: 83–89. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2010.54. S2CID   206443021.
  3. 1 2 "Elizabeth J. Feinler". SRI Alumni Hall of Fame. 2000. Archived from the original on 2013-02-01. Retrieved 2012-11-18.
  4. ↑ Interviewed by Marc Weber (2009-09-10). "Oral History of Elizabeth (Jake) Feinler" (PDF). Reference no: X5378.2009. Computer History Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2011-04-08.
  5. ↑ Crocker, Steve (April 1969). Documentation Conventions. IETF. doi: 10.17487/RFC0003 . RFC 3.
  6. ↑ Jon Postel and Joyce Reynolds (October 1984). "Domain Requirements". RFC 920 . Retrieved 2011-04-08.
  7. 1 2 Vint Cerf (August 1990). "IAB Recommended Policy on Distributing Internet Identifier Assignment". RFC 1174 . Retrieved 2011-04-08.
  8. ↑ Scott Williamson and Leslie Nobile (September 1991). "Transition of NIC Services". RFC 1261 . Retrieved 2011-04-08.
  9. ↑ "NSF9224--Network Information Services Manager(s) for NSFNET and NREN". Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure. National Science Foundation. 1992-03-19.
  10. ↑ "NSF Network Information Services Awards (InterNIC)" (Press release). 1993-01-05.
  11. ↑ "InterNIC Midterm Evaluation and Recommendations: A Panel Report to the National Science Foundation" (PDF). December 1994.
  12. ↑ Festa, Paul (1998-04-27). "Food domain found "obscene"". CNET . Archived from the original on 2012-07-16.
  13. ↑ "Internet Domain Names and Intellectual Property Rights". United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. 1999-07-28.
  14. ↑ NSF (3 December 1997). "Cooperative Agreement No. NCR-9218742 Amendment No. 07".
  15. ↑ "E-mail from Chuck Gomes of the InterNIC announcing that AT&T would discontinue its Directory and Database Services on March 31, 1998". IETF Mail Archive. December 1997.
  16. ↑ "Domain Names: Management of Internet Names and Addresses". National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.
  17. ↑ "Registrar Accreditation: History of the Shared Registry System". ICANN.
  18. ↑ "Transition of IN-ADDR.ARPA generation". Internet Architecture Board. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  19. ↑ "IN-ADDR.ARPA Zone Transfer Completed". American Registry For Internet Numbers. Retrieved 16 March 2013.

Further reading

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