InterNIC
Encyclopedia
The Internet Network Information Center, known as InterNIC, was the Internet
governing body primarily responsible for domain name
and IP address
allocations from 1972 until September 18, 1998 when this role was assumed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). 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
.
of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The use of the term is licensed to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
's lab at the Stanford Research Institute
(SRI) in Menlo Park, California
. In 1972, Elizabeth J. Feinler
, better known as Jake, became principal investigator of the project.
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.
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 domain
s 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.
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. which subcontracted it to the small private-sector firm Network Solutions
, Inc.
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
.
Therefore, the US Department of Defense would no longer fund registration services outside of the mil domain. In 1993, the US National Science Foundation
, after a competitive bidding process in 1992, created the Internet Network Information Center, known as InterNIC, to manage the allocations of addresses and awarded the contract to three organizations: Network Solutions provided registration services, AT&T
provided directory and database services, and General Atomics
provided information services. Later, General Atomics was disqualified from the contract after a review found their services not conforming to the standards of its contract. General Atomics' InterNIC functions were assumed by AT&T. AT&T discontinued InterNIC services on March 31, 1998 after their cooperative agreement with NSF expired.
(ICANN), a California
non-profit corporation contracted by the US Department of Commerce to manage a number of Internet-related tasks. The role of operating the DNS system was privatized, and opened up to competition, while the central management of name allocations would be awarded on a contract tender basis.
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.
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.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
governing body primarily responsible for domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
and IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
allocations from 1972 until September 18, 1998 when this role was assumed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It was accessed through the domain name internic.net, with email, FTP and World Wide Web services run at various times by SRI
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
, Network Solutions, Inc
Network Solutions
Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company founded in 1979. The domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company. As of January 2009, Network Solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names.-History:...
and AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
.
Term
InterNIC is a registered service markService mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in some countries, notably the United States, to identify a service rather than a product. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off" may be used...
of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The use of the term is licensed to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
ARPANET and DDN NIC at SRI
The first central authority to coordinate the operation of the network was the Network Information Center (NIC) based in Doug EngelbartDouglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs...
's lab at the Stanford Research Institute
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
(SRI) in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
. In 1972, Elizabeth J. Feinler
Elizabeth J. Feinler
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...
, better known as Jake, became principal investigator of the project.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System , media types, and other Internet Protocol-related symbols and numbers...
(IANA) assigned the numbers, while the NIC published them to the rest of the network.
Jon Postel
Jon Postel
Jonathan Bruce Postel was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards...
fulfilled the role of manager of IANA, in addition to his role as the RFC Editor, until his death in 1998.
On the ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, 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
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
, designed by Paul Mockapetris
Paul Mockapetris
Dr. Paul V. Mockapetris is the inventor of the Domain Name System.In 1983, he proposed a Domain Name System architecture in RFCs 882 and 883 while at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California....
. The Defense Data Network Network Information Center (DDN-NIC) at SRI handled all registration services, including the top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. 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 label of a...
s mil
.mil
The domain name mil is the sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet for the United States Department of Defense and its subsidiary or affiliated organizations. The name is derived from military. It was one of the first top-level domains, created in January 1985.The...
, gov
.gov
The domain name gov is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from government, indicating its restricted use by government entities in the United States. The gov domain is administered by the General Services Administration , an independent...
, edu
.edu
The domain name edu is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The "domain is intended for accredited post-secondary educational U.S. institutions" and this intention is strictly enforced....
, org
.org
The domain name org is a generic top-level domain of the Domain Name System used in the Internet. The name is derived from organization....
, net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
, com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
and us
.us
.us is the Internet country code top-level domain for the United States and was established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States...
. DDN-NIC also performed root nameserver
Root nameserver
A root name server is a name server for the Domain Name System's root zone. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests returning a list of the designated authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain...
administration and Internet number assignments under a United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
contract starting in 1984.
DDN NIC at Network Solutions
In 1990 the Internet Activities Board proposed changes to the centralized NIC/IANA arrangement.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. which subcontracted it to the small private-sector firm Network Solutions
Network Solutions
Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company founded in 1979. The domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company. As of January 2009, Network Solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names.-History:...
, Inc.
On October 1, 1991, the NIC services were moved from a DECSYSTEM-20
DECSYSTEM-20
The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system.PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled DECsystem-10 as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11...
machine at SRI to a Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
SPARCserver running SunOS
SunOS
SunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS...
4.1 at GSI in Chantilly, Virginia
Chantilly, Virginia
Chantilly is an unincorporated community located in western Fairfax County and southeastern Loudoun County of Northern Virginia. Recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census designated place , the community population was 23,039 as of the 2010 census -- down from 41,041 in 2000, due to the...
.
InterNIC at Network Solutions, AT&T, and General Atomics
By the 1990s, most of the growth of the Internet was in the non-defense sector, and even outside the United States.Therefore, the US Department of Defense would no longer fund registration services outside of the mil domain. In 1993, the US National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, after a competitive bidding process in 1992, created the Internet Network Information Center, known as InterNIC, to manage the allocations of addresses and awarded the contract to three organizations: Network Solutions provided registration services, AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
provided directory and database services, and General Atomics
General Atomics
General Atomics is a nuclear physics and defense contractor headquartered in San Diego, California. General Atomics’ research into fission and fusion matured into competencies in related technologies, allowing the company to expand into other fields of research...
provided information services. Later, General Atomics was disqualified from the contract after a review found their services not conforming to the standards of its contract. General Atomics' InterNIC functions were assumed by AT&T. AT&T discontinued InterNIC services on March 31, 1998 after their cooperative agreement with NSF expired.
InterNIC at ICANN
In 1998 both IANA and InterNIC were reorganized under the control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and NumbersICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
(ICANN), a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
non-profit corporation contracted by the US Department of Commerce to manage a number of Internet-related tasks. The role of operating the DNS system was privatized, and opened up to competition, while the central management of name allocations would be awarded on a contract tender basis.
Domain name restrictions
Beginning in 1996, Network Solutions rejected domain names containing English languageEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
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.
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
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
when it took over governance of the distribution of domain names to the public.
External links
- Official InterNIC web site, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
- "About the InterNIC", archived web page from April 1996 Video of interview.