uthority (IANA), while domain names were assigned by the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC), which had overall responsibility for name dissemination, while regional NICs handled non-U.S. domains. The InterNIC was also responsible for the management of the Domain Name System (DNS), the massive, dis- tributed database that reconciles host names and IP addresses through- out the Internet. The InterNIC and its overall role have gone through a series of sig- nificant changes in the last decade. In 1993, Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) was given the responsibility of operating the InterNIC registry by the NSF and had exclusive authority for the assignment of such domains as .com, .org, .net, and .edu. NSI's contract expired in April 1998 but was extended several times because no alternate agency existed to perform the task. In October 1998 NSI became the sole administrator for those domains, but a plan was created to allow users to register names in those domains with other companies. At roughly the same time, responsibility for IP address assignments was migrated to a newly created organiza- tion called the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). Shortly thereafter, in March 2000, NSI was acquired by VeriSign. The most recent addition to the domain management process is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Established in late 1998, ICANN was appointed by the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to man- age the DNS. Of course, it makes sense that sooner or later the most common top- level domains, which include such well-known suffixes as .com, .gov, .net, .org, and .net, would be deemed inadequate. And sure enough, in Novem- 2There is an island in Franz Josef Land, near the Arctic Circle, called Zemlya (Russian for "land") Alexander Graham Bell. I would love to know why-if anyone knows, I'd appreciate an e-mail! Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Com