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Happy Birthday, Dear DNS

Shloka writes with a snippet from Wired News: "Twenty years ago Monday, two computer scientists at the University of Southern California created a key component essential to the modern Internet. Jon Postel and Paul Mockapetris ran the first successful test of the automated domain name system, or DNS..."

45 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. i never know what to post in celebration threads by Neophytus · · Score: 3, Funny

    So all I'm gonna say is happy birthday. Thats the point, no? ;-)

  2. but....but...but... by tha_mink · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought Al Gore invented DNS. No?

    --
    You'll have that sometimes...
    1. Re:but....but...but... by dema · · Score: 3, Funny

      Al Gore DID invent DNS. But he would've felt bad taking all the credit, so he let the USC guys do the testing for him. I mean, Al Gore wouldn't lie, would he?

    2. Re:but....but...but... by gilleyj · · Score: 3, Funny

      Al Gore is often plagued with the unfortunate quote about him inventing the internet. According to an interview after that incident he did explain that while he didn't invent the internet and he regrets making that comment, in his own defense "I was jet lagged and tired because we were up late the night before inventing the camcorder"


      actual quote. look it up :)

      --
      feh
  3. [OT] idea for a 'new? domain naming concep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This would be kind of like palm graffiti where each "shape", that you
    draw in the silkscreen, is registered as a character.

    You would have a little panel like a "silkscreen" in the navigation bar
    on your web browser.

    To get to a particular website you would only need a input device to
    draw symbol on the "silkscreen". If you wanted to go to the website for
    Target (http://www.target.com.au/) you just draw a picture of a circle
    with a solid dot in the middle. To get to the main website for the
    Debian project (http://www.debian.org/) you draw the Debian Swirl
    (http://www.debian.org/logos/openlogo-nd-50 .png)

    Get this. There is a DNS-like naming system for these and there are
    central registries.

    When you want to use a particular "shape" for your IP you must register
    just like you would a domain name.

    You could also use this in corporate LANs' where users could use a input
    device to draw a character on the silkscreen when they needed to access
    a particular machine. This could speed-up and and simplify choosing
    which domain to log into if they need to choose from a significant
    number of them.

    The advantages for this as "domain name like" usage are ten fold when
    you consider globalisation, continued international technical
    development and last but not least the introduction of IPv6.

    People all around the world, regardless of language, will be able to
    access a website by just drawing its symbol.Businesses will love this
    and race to register their logos and trademarks.

    I do not recommend allowing people to define their own symbols or even
    have them predefined by local software as I have seen already.
    (http://www.sensiva.com/symbolcommander/ )

    This will ensure that you can go to any computer and draw the same
    symbol to access the same website.

    Please tell me if this exists already!

    regards,

    Chris Caston
    This e-mail is released under terms of the design science license:
    (http://www.dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt)

    1. Re:[OT] idea for a 'new? domain naming concep by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This would be kind of like palm graffiti where each "shape", that you draw in the silkscreen, is registered as a character.

      In Asian languages, that "new" concept is called "ideograms".

      100.000 concepts, 100.000 ideograms. That may work for educated chinese or japanese people, but for internet websites, you're talking about gazillions of "URL graphitis", not just tens of thousands. Considering the difficulty standard computers still have translating handwritten latin alphabet, which is only 26 letters, I think this is a crackpot idea. And even if it worked, did you think about handicapped people, or blind people, who might just like to type URLs in plaintext ?

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:[OT] idea for a 'new? domain naming concep by blogan · · Score: 2, Funny

      OK, so if you want Debian, you draw a swirl. If you want Dreamcast, then draw a swirl. But if I want to go to the Crusoe website, then I would draw a swirl, right?

      Just imagine all the problems with squatting then. "I wanted to go to the White House website, but when I forgot one of the columns when drawing the little house, I went to a porn site."

  4. Security Patch by SEWilco · · Score: 5, Funny

    And real soon now they are expected to have a DNS which is ready for use in the enterprise.

  5. So much for that idea by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny
    I was going to check to see if anyone had the domain happy.birthday.to.me (using DNS to check), but the TLD .me hasn't been handed out to anyone from what I can tell.

    Amazing, well fsck.me!

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  6. You know... by Faust7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "The system was built to expand but not necessarily to be secure,"

    Holy tapdancing Christ, really?

  7. Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Back when these guys were creating early Internet technologies, they were called geeks. Now, they're recognized as pioneers of the Internet. Too bad there're getting to old for the girls to notice.

    1. Re:Finally by Ella+the+Cat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Too bad they're getting too old for the girls to notice

      Now they get noticed by women ...

  8. Celebrate... by Hogwash+McFly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but don't sing Happy Birthday or you'll get screwed for copyright infringement.

    --
    Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
    1. Re:Celebrate... by tvm662 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      According to this page the copyright is owned by a company that is now part of AOL Time Warner and it brings in two million dollars every year in royalties.

      Tom.

  9. Time to celebrate, everyone! by Saint+Aardvark · · Score: 3, Funny
    #!/usr/local/bin/bash

    for i in a b c d e f g h i j k m
    do
    dig @${i}.root-servers.net *.com axfr
    done

    1. Re:Time to celebrate, everyone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Parent is advocating a Rude thing to do, namely to query each of the root servers for all of the names they know about.

      dig ("domain internet gropre") is a tool for interrogating DNS servers about the various named objects they can identify - hosts, networks, mailservers, etc.

    2. Re:Time to celebrate, everyone! by moonbender · · Score: 2, Informative
      Done:
      NAME

      dig - send domain name query packets to name servers

      SYNOPSIS

      dig [@server] domain [<query-type>] [<query-class>] [<query-option>]
      [-<dig-option>] [%comment]

      DESCRIPTION

      Dig (domain information groper) is a flexible command line tool which can
      be used to gather information from the Domain Name System servers. Dig
      has two modes: simple interactive mode for a single query, and batch mode
      which executes a query for each in a list of several query lines. All
      query options are accessible from the command line.

      ...
      Full manpage.
      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  10. Awh, so cute! by rosewood · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its funny because I just setup my first authoritive DNS server ever this week. It was fun stuff.

    I used safari.oreilly.com to get me the DNS and BIND book + other helpful things all for (well free for 2 weeks) $15. Thats just friggen awesome.

    Ill just add this little tidbit: SBC has its in-addr.arpa. shiz setup as IN-ADDR.ARPA. Aparently this makes a big fucking difference. So, if tomorrow you decide to celebrate 20 years of DNS by setting up a new authoritive server with SBC, make sure you setup your zone file to be authoritive for IN-ADDR.ARPA. not in-addr.arpa. like the books say :)

  11. Modern world by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't it weird that people take automated name resolving for granted in the internet world, and yet don't find it odd to have to look up other people up themselves manually in another, older, even bigger world wide network called the "telephone system", using an regionalized locally-cached database called the "phone directory" that's updated only once a year ? In the 21st century, I find it really surprising that phones still feature a 10 key touchpad and cheapo dialtones to talk to you.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Modern world by cperciva · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Servers move far more frequently than people do. I've had the same phone number for 22 years now; if slashdot.org used the same IP address for 22 years, I might start to access it without using DNS.

    2. Re:Modern world by Zarhan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know, but I would assume that even in the US you can get the same things as here in Finland - electronic phonebooks, available online in the web, on CD-ROM, or accessible via SMS (Just type in FIND [address] [hometown] and send it to number 15400, you'll get the number in reply. When using my company phone and need something (such as a taxi when I'm on business trip), I usually just dial to a phonebook service and ask them to connect me directly.

      So, we're hardly limited to a once-a-year updated books...

    3. Re:Modern world by d3faultus3r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's the qwerty phenomenom. People have used it so many times it's ingrained in them. Plus, just about everyone has a phone in the industrialized world and even in the developing world most people have access to a phone. Imagine trying to reassign phone numbers based on some other system to all of those people while keeping the network up. It's a system that works quite well, so why spend massive amounts to change it?

      --
      read my blog
      musings on politics and technol
  12. Now they tell me! by The+Spelling+Nazi · · Score: 5, Funny

    the automated domain name system, or DNS...

    AUTOMATED domain name system? So I DON'T have to manually add every host on the Internet to my HOSTS file?

    Someone could have told me this a lot sooner!

  13. Happy Birthday! by citizenc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Happy birthday, DNS! I wasn't sure how else to celebrate, so:

    -bash-2.05b$ nslookup happy.com
    Server: dnsr01-eth0.nyc01.dsl.net
    Address: 216.175.203.50

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name: happy.com
    Address: 64.45.128.45

    -bash-2.05b$ nslookup birthday.com
    Server: dnsr01-eth0.nyc01.dsl.net
    Address: 216.175.203.50

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name: birthday.com
    Address: 207.5.97.78

    -bash-2.05b$ nslookup dns.com
    Server: dnsr01-eth0.nyc01.dsl.net
    Address: 216.175.203.50

    Non-authoritative answer:
    Name: dns.com
    Address: 127.0.0.1

    *Shrug* =)

    1. Re:Happy Birthday! by kasperd · · Score: 2, Funny

      I didn't know that dns.com points towards my (or your) own computer, but in effect, yes, it does!

      Now it is about time to tell all those kidies who are the gratest wannabe crackers, that now they have the chance to become famous. Just DDoS dns.com, caus' they as all us others know how important dns is to the internet.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
  14. Typo-squatting happened one day later by Kickstart70 · · Score: 4, Funny

    when some ham-fingered PFY typed in 'sxe.com'

  15. Using the Internet before DNS by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I remember the old days, when you had to download the HOSTS.TXT file from SRI-NIC, using anonymous FTP. Adding a host required talking to people at SRI. Name propagation took months, because many sites didn't update their HOSTS.TXT site frequently. (Parts of the MILNET still work that way, for security reasons.)

    ARPANET IMP addresses were orignally 8 bits. They were expanded from 8 to 16 bits in the late 1970s, but some sites didn't upgrade their software and only talked to host numbers below 256. So having a low host number (1..255) meant something.

    I got the fifth Class B IP block (128.5.xxx.xxx) for Ford, and that was being nice - we probably could have gotten a class A. BBN had four class A blocks back then.

    And there was no spam. Not ever.

    1. Re:Using the Internet before DNS by HiKarma · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No spam ever? That even predates DNS.

      See This Slashdot story

    2. Re:Using the Internet before DNS by edhall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As you imply, back in the really old days, there was effectively only one class C (later an effective class B) for the entire ARPANET (although they didn't actually have such a thing as "class A," "class B," and so on back then). Everyone was on net 10, e.g. 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, and so on. The place I worked at then (RAND) had 10.0.0.7. I'm sure that at the time some folks thought that using four address bytes was gross overkill, but in retrospect it was amazingly far-sighted.

      It's not a coincidence that when the Great Split of the ARPANET into MILNET and the public Internet happened, net 10 was declared dead (and thus unrouted). That's why the entire class A net 10 is now used only for private networks (along with net 192.168), since these addresses will never be used on the public network (and aren't likely to get anywhere should they "escape").

      -Ed
    3. Re:Using the Internet before DNS by stanwirth · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well I used to update our /etc/hosts (in Unix, we don't use the suffix -- you must have been on one of them VMS machines, calling it HOSTS.TXT!) every friday without fail-- but then, campus networking would do the (long, slow) download from sri.nic.arpa for the benefit for the rest of the sysadmins, plus you could get just a patch and apply the diffs -- so it wasn't that big a deal to get it over the network, no hours of babysitting an FTP link back to the mothership SRI. Sort of like the way DNS actually works now -- like a phone tree.

      I figured they got the idea of how to set up the DNS distributed hierarchical database bits by studying the pattern of how people actually distributed their hosts files -- and wouldn't it be nice if they'd only have to distribute the changes: just like sending out weekly patches. Plus ca change, plus ca change pas.

      When we got ahold of the first alpha and beta versions of BIND in the mid-80's, downloading the hosts table was still preferable because there were just too many bugs in BIND at that stage. It's kind of annoying that so little stuff is set up to fall back to the hosts tables properly anymore.

    4. Re:Using the Internet before DNS by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ford did get a class A - 19.0.0.0/8:

      $ whois NET-19-0-0-0-1
      OrgName: Ford Motor Company
      OrgID: FORDMO
      Address: P.O. Box 2053, RM E-1121
      City: Dearborn
      StateProv: MI
      PostalCode: 48121-2053
      Country: US

      NetRange: 19.0.0.0 - 19.255.255.255
      CIDR: 19.0.0.0/8
      NetName: FINET
      NetHandle: NET-19-0-0-0-1
      Parent:
      NetType: Direct Assignment
      NameServer: DNS004.FORD.COM
      NameServer: DNS003.FORD.COM
      Comment:
      RegDate: 1988-06-15
      Updated: 1999-12-07

      TechHandle: ZF4-ARIN
      TechName: Ford Motor Company
      TechPhone: +1-313-390-7095
      TechEmail: dnsadmin@ford.com

      # ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2003-06-22 21:05
      # Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
  16. Success? by Alomex · · Score: 4, Funny

    first successful test of the automated domain name system, or DNS...

    Conventional wisdom is that we have yet to witness such a thing.

  17. In related news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    SCO says it owns DNS and will sue everyone on the internet for using it because it violates their intellectual property rights. They have detected what appears to be similar code spread across any damn computer connected to the internet.

    More fake news at 11...

  18. Cease & Desist by Tokerat · · Score: 5, Funny


    Re: Infringements of HAPPY BIRTHDAY Copyrights and Trademarks

    I write as attorney for the Recording Industry Association of America ("RIAA").

    As you are, no doubt, aware, RIAA owns all of the rights to the musical composition entitled HAPPY BIRTHDAY and all derivatives, including HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW, and the YOU SMELL LIKE A MONKEY remix (collectively the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY Properties"). These rights are protected by numerous copyrights trademarks in both the compositions themselves and the lyrics, sheet music, and other elements appearing in those compositions.

    We have recently learned that you have posted various elements of the HAPPY BIRTHDAY Properties on your site at slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/22/172247. For example, we refer to your posting entitled "Happy Birthday, Dear DNS" (the "Synopsis"). Your posting of these items is an infringement of RIAA's rights in the HAPPY BIRTHDAY Properties.

    Based upon the foregoing, we hereby demand that your confirm to us in writing within ten days of receipt of this letter that: (i) you have removed all infringing materials from your site, including the aforementioned Synopsis and all HAPPY BIRTHDAY references; and (ii) you will refrain from posting any similar infringing material on the Internet or any other on-line service in the future.

    The foregoing is without waiver of any and all rights of the Recording Industry Association of America, all of which are expressly reserved herein.

    Very truly yours,
    Troll.
    [Attorney]

    --
    CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
  19. it's called LDAP by axxackall · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I know, LDAP is designed to host and distribute personal user acount info, while you want LDAP for everyone, not only computer users. But the problem is that outside of computer industry itself computer information services are either expensive or useless.

    Twenty years is not really a long time interval to change our social life revolutionary. Although, it was in last 20 years that Internet have become a part of our life. Or have it?

    Most of information services in Internet are about other Internet informational services or about Internet technologies. No wonder: when it is growing on shoulders of Internet enthusiasts they publish what they know. And the best they know is Internet itself.

    The picture was going to change with B2C, but the boom has collapsed saddenly, and then all investors have frozen their money waiting when Mr. President will finally all his wars he's planned. I guess once he's doneand investors are back then B2C will take it's second chance and then we'll finally see more and more infomration services about resources directly not related to internet nor to computer industry.

    Another factor is that ma-bells in their core services are far from being "internetized". They might still afraid Internet after ATT was hacked famously in eary 1980s. I worked in ATT. I remember that Internet is prohibitted for all workstations (exception: http proxy for some of them). It's just an illustration of paranoid anti-internet environment there.

    Another factor is the modern anti-spam trend - people afraid spam and telemarketing and they don't want to publish their personal info like phone numbers and email addresses. I guess until there will be a law (international, as domestic laws do not protect such international thing as Internet) protecting from spam and from telemarketing, until then people will not let their info being published.

    Conclusion: let Mr. Bush finish his wars and investors to re-animate B2C, let ma-bells leave their paranoid fears of Internet, let the law protect people from the spam - and you'll be able to use LDAP to find you friends even if they are not connected to Internet.

    --

    Less is more !
    1. Re:it's called LDAP by Surak · · Score: 2, Informative

      The picture was going to change with B2C, but the boom has collapsed saddenly, and then all investors have frozen their money waiting when Mr. President will finally all his wars he's planned. I guess once he's doneand investors are back then B2C will take it's second chance and then we'll finally see more and more infomration services about resources directly not related to internet nor to computer industry.

      You're kidding, right? You don't *really* think that the dot-com crash had something to do with Bush do you?

      Now, I'm no big Bush supported (well, a different kind of big bush, but that's a different story ;), but I also can say with absolute certainty that the dot-com crash had little, if anything, to do with the Bush administration. It was already well on it's way to crashing before Bush took the White House.

      The dot-com crash came about mostly because people were being disingenious about an Internet-based economy. Various people in these dot-com startups were going around thinking they could run a business by selling a product for less than it cost them to produce. Any 1st year business school student (heck, any 1st grader even!) could tell you that you can't make money doing that. It's ludricrous! So the venture capital dried up, the companies went bust, and *big surprise* Wall Street investors pulled all their money out of dot-com stocks.

      Little, if anything, had to do with Bush and his wars. Bush and his wars *did* cause a freeze in economic markets, and *did*contribute to an *already* unstable economy (due mostly to the dot-com crash) but it didn't in any sense of the word create the dot-com crash.

  20. Re:I'm sorry by Electrum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well provided you keep yourself patched, then there isnt a problem is there.

    But why patch at all when you can use secure software in the first place?

  21. celebrate DNS by anwyn · · Score: 2, Funny

    In order to celebrate, somebody create a hosts file for the Internet, then everybody download it!

  22. Let's not forget Dr. Vinton Cerf by dmehus · · Score: 4, Informative

    On this anniversary, let us not forgot one of the other fathers of the Internet, Dr. Vinton Cerf who co-created the TCP/IP protocol and was a major contributor to the invention of DNS. Dr. Cerf is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors at ICANN and Senior Vice President for Architecture and Technology at MCI®. So, Dr. Cerf, combined with Dr. Postel and Mr. Mockapetris, are the three fathers (or, father, mother, and uncle) of the Internet.

    Best,
    Doug

  23. You're 100% wrong! SCO owns DNS! by Newer+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny
    SCO chairman Darryl McDrivel today asserted SCO's claims of them owning the Internet, DNS, IRC and FTP. "We're 100% sure of this. Unix started the Internet, so by extension we own 100% of it - completely and absolutely".

    SCO attorney David Bores confirmed this during the press conference by stomping up and down yelling: "We own it...WE own it!...WE OWN IT!". He also took his thumb out of his mouth long enough to give a 'thumbs up' to Mc Drivel during the press conference.

    Mc Drivel also announced that the RIAA and SCO were currently involved in merger talks. "We believe that there is a good fit between both companies' philosophies. Together we shall dominate - er - license our intellectual property to everyone".

  24. What fitting timing by Skapare · · Score: 2

    What fitting timing. I just deployed a replacement for BIND called NSD for all my authoritative name servers. Now I need to choose a good resolving server. Maybe tinydns.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  25. Me Too! by scsi_pants · · Score: 4, Funny

    Finally a celebrity that I share a birthday with that I actually recognize. And DNS even responds to my requests....

  26. DNS is not a locator service by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    DNS is not a locator service, but unfortunately people treat it as if it were one. They think "ok, I want to find the web site for XYZ Corporation, so all I have to do is just prepend WWW to the name and append COM and it'll be there." This line of thinking is what has created all of the fighting that goes on over domain names -- the reason we seem to treat domain names as if they were real estate. A true locator service would have a number of fields you could fill out to tell it what you're looking for, and it would find it for you. Perhaps it would simply find the domain name, which in turn would find the IP address.

    It's not going to happen now, though. At least not using the IETF standards process. Back when DNS was invented, people knew how to participate -- the result is things like DNS, and SMTP, where everyone talks to everyone else. Now that the corporateheads have taken over, everything gets invented in lawyerspace, where standards take a back seat to money (or at least some corporate idiot's dream of making lots of money by owning a choke point) and you have horrid nonstandard systems that don't talk to each other (like the various independent instant messaging systems).

    Oh well.

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    1. Re:DNS is not a locator service by kju · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would rather type in www..com and be right, than using a lookup service. It is much more overhead to type in these informations, and the resultings urls might be difficult to remember (think ibm would probably be under ibm-computer.com, because some other used ibm.com first. In a locator service one would argue, that the real domainname won't matter (and thus won't be fight over) and therefour "real" ibm should have no problem in not having ibm.com. Do you really want this?

      This would mean, we all would have to use a locator lookup service as requirement. This would really slow down my everyday work and fun. No more www.slashdot.org, now i must enter USA -> Computers -> Culture -> Nerds -> slashdot. Yes, thats what i ever wanted. 5 Minutes for each URL i want to open.
      If you really think, that you wan't to do something like a lookup, use google. enter companyname and maybe some other criteria, and nearly sure as hell will be your wanted site under the first four links, if not even on first position. So, there is your locator service. No need to change the domain name system.

  27. First DNS exploit by more+fool+you · · Score: 3, Funny

    Happy birthday to the very first DNS-Nuke program, in about 5 minutes!