Writing the history of DNS is akin to writing a comprehensive American history, or the history of the English language. Variables galore, involved parties pushing this way and that — some acting out of a desire for progress, others out of self-interest. Philosophies clash, government talks and monopolists pull strings. Sadly, like most protocols, the history of DNS is about 10 percent technical and 90 percent political. As is usually the case, no one tends to realize this until it's too late to make change. And the average person, the one generally the most affected, has little or no opportunity to participate in the process.

The one certain piece of the puzzle is that all involved parties realize the significance of owning even a piece of DNS — Vanna's the prize, and eager hands from all sectors are reaching for her bosom. This story will look into the dynamics that shaped the DNS system. Why is ICANN important to everyone who ever logs on to the Internet? What role does the United States government actually play behind the scenes? How the hell did Network Solutions find its way into the catbird's seat?

The answers to these questions have, and will continue to, determine what the Internet looks like today and what it will look like tomorrow. It's a long, strange and sometimes convoluted tale, and it's one worth knowing. As George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The Early Years

The evolution of DNS has been long governed by technicians and politicians — and often the same people assumed both roles — making it difficult at times to look back at events that critically shaped the protocol and determine exactly what happened. Anthony Rutkowski, vice president of Internet strategy for Network Solutions Inc., states, "The evolution of the Internet's method for names and number assignment is one of the Internet's most enduring and difficult transitions."

When Doug Engelbart created the ARPAnet NIC (Network Information Center) at the Stanford Research Institute in 1967, DNS did not exist. The network was small enough that the users and servers generally knew how to get around from service to service and interact with each other without the benefit of a global directory structure. As the network grew in size, it became apparent that such a service would be important, but due to scale reasons it was never quite taken to its conclusion. Instead, in 1971, Peggy Karp conceived of "host mnemonics," or more simply, Internet names.

The Internet Request for Comments (or RFC) documents are the written definitions of the protocols and policies of the Internet. Building on the concepts contained in RFC 226, Karp created a lookup table that mapped all of the network resources in one text-formatted file. Called HOSTS.TXT, the table contained all of the hostnames and their related IP addresses. Operators would install this file on their local server, which would then gain the capability to perform the requisite lookups locally and enable the computer to find resources out on the larger network without a lot of overhead. Whenever an operator added a new machine to the network, he or she would complete an email template with the appropriate information and send it off to the appropriate people at Stanford Research Institute. They would then compile all of the changes, include them in the next release of HOSTS.TXT and store the new file on a globally available FTP server. Operators would retrieve the updated versions on a regular basis and install them on their local servers. The first version of this table was distributed in 1972. This arrangement worked well for a number of years, but it suffered from one systemic problem — it wasn't scalable. Ultimately, ARPAnet's success was the lookup service's undoing, and engineers concluded that a new structure would have to replace HOSTS.TXT.

DNS, Baby