The Global Slice of the Web - Part II
|
Introduction In the first part of this article we saw the growing pressure for a Net that recognizes Oriental, Arabic and Hindi characters.
As we have read earlier the Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet’s global directory. Because IP addresses (which are strings of numbers) are hard to remember, the DNS allows a familiar string of letters (the "domain name") to be used instead. So rather than typing a sequence of numbers say "112.10.30.154," you can type a string of characters called the URL to reach the web site of your choice. The entire network that has now come to be the World Wide Web runs on the coordination on management of the technical aspects of DNS. And this is handled by ICANN. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. These services were originally performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and other entities. ICANN now performs the IANA function.
ICANN is responsible for coordinating the management of the technical elements of the DNS to ensure universal resolvability so that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. It does this by overseeing the distribution of unique technical identifiers used in the Internet's operations, and delegation of Top-Level Domain names (such as .com, .info, etc.). |
|
New Languages in the Global System We now know that the Western dominance in the Internet world has been challenged by China, Israel etc. with the build of their internal systems for domains in their native languages. The biggest problem in such a scenario is the stability of the internet avoiding dubious spoof sites and the like. In a recent Telecommunication union meet in Geneva, a prototype system that worked with the existing Internet but also allowed new languages to be added on to the global system was demonstrated. Thus was shown that it is possible to connect these pockets of different language networks and also on the whole connect them to the Internet at a global level without affecting the stability or performance of the same. With this approach the current DNS remains untouched and safe while helping other countries in the namespace. Thus now we see the Internet that we all know and use ceases to be a global entity but becomes then an English ASCII Internet, which exists alongside Arabic Internet, Chinese Internet and so on.
It is necessary now to see how and why we reached this stage of the Internet Fragmentation. Its birth was alongside that of the ASCII code, which was devised to enable computers to be able to process and represent all the English characters including numerals and other special symbols. This code is so intricately wired in to the Internet, that other characters – Non-English and accented can be included only with the use of complex combinations of letters that make no legible English word in order to be able to represent them. And to device the sequence of letters is no small task. Linguistics have tried long and hard to achieve all possible permutations and combinations of the different languages. For example with the domain names it was acknowledged that the domain name be preceded by a sequence of letters, an accepted code. With this method, it becomes possible to have domain names using foreign characters, i.e. Non-English characters. But the problem still remained with the domain name suffixes - .com, .net which still remained incomprehensible. With the number of top level domains expanding over time, People want their domains in their own language. But the speed breaker to this is that there is only one organization that can add new top-level domains to the existing global Internet, ICANN. Many members of the global Net community have raised hue and cry at the endless delays from a company based in the least linguistically diverse area of the world. This accusation is only strengthened by the fact that the existing global domains are owned and run by American Companies. Thus they stand to lose the most from foreign language additions. This is just the run up to the long list of concerns pertaining to this issue. |
|
A Stand off Probably the most important and delicate concern is that the proud cultures of the east are offended by the very thought that they have to apply to a private US company in order to have their language accepted over the Internet. ICANN now faces a major bind to studiously avoid political repercussions while approving or disapproving languages while at the same time maintaining the overall charge of DNS to prevent total chaos.
Once the complex technical issues which have been cited as the cause of delay is completed it will take a masterful stroke to keep the Internet that we know in one piece. |
|
|
|
|