Thread by @everestpipkin

while we're talking about internet backbones - do y'all know the story of the 1998 "test" of DNS namespace instigated by Jon Postel?

okay so Jon Postel was one of those old-school internet guys who were mostly posted up in California. he was around for a lot of ARPAnet and TCP/IP stuff in the 60s and 70s, first as a grad student then a postdoc. classic weirdo professor afaik

Postel also worked on over 200 "requests for comments" (RFCs), and was pretty much responsible for the construction of IANA, the Internet's numbering authority and the precursor to ICANN, which is what gives you your website domain name

as director of IANA, Postel initially performed all DNS numbering procedures and allocations manually. you might be asking - what does this mean, exactly?

one of the biggest things that makes the internet usable to normal humans is domain names. domain names are why you can go to twitter.com instead of the long string of numbers that make an IP address

but all servers and computers actually are, still IP addresses- domain names are just a layer that sits on top of a world of numbers. (for instance, twitter's IP is 104.244.42.193)

how this all works is .... complicated.

when i type in twitter.com, for instance, my computer first checks if it ‘knows’ that IP address already. it may be built into the browser, or saved in my cache. (this is why clearing your cache slows your browser)

if my computer doesn't have the domain in memory, it asks something called a resolving (or recursive) name server for the address. these are semi-local servers, usually run by your service provider (you can also use public ones! it's a great way to get around blocked websites)

resolving servers generally have most domains stored in memory, they store all the traffic from their network.

but if /this/ server doesn’t know where a domain should point, it knows how to find something called “The Root”.

there are only 13 Root servers in the world (although there is redundant hardware, each with the same file copied on)

the Root doesn't know the twitter domain- but it knows where to find it. it sends back the location of the correct top level domain (TLD) server

the TLD server then checks with the domain registrar, and sends the resolving name server over to a correct ‘authoritative name server’ which then hands the resolving name server the right IP address, which then gets returned to your browser which then goes to the website. woof.

there are a few notable things here imo:

> there are ten million moving parts
> partly because all of these bits are security risks, and root servers in particular are targets for DOS attacks
> if any point gets bunked up, it can have dramatic effects on the entire network

who controls the 13 root servers?

well its split up between 13 orgs, who all control /one/. these are:

VeriSign Global Registry Services
University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute
Cogent Communications
University of Maryland
NASA Ames Research Center ..

.... and :

Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
US DoD Network Information Center
US Army Research Lab
Netnod
VeriSign Global Registry Services
RIPE NCC
ICANN
WIDE Project

OKAY, back to Postel.

so Jon Postel was in change of IANA, the precursor to ICANN. he was in charge of the assignment of IP addresses to domain names. he had a little institute, which was basically his office at the University of Southern California

and in 1998, just a few months before his death, Postel had this idea to perform a “test” of the DNS rootservers.

now - was he was thinking about how hackers might achieve a vector to Root DNS, and what was vulnerable? was he trying to prove the flexibility of internet infra? or was he just trying to prove a point and stick it to the US government? Postel was intentionally vague

but regardless- on January 28, 1998, he emailed 8 of the 12 organizations that control the Roots, and asked them to reconfigure so that instead from pulling those Root addresses from a government operation in Herndon, Virginia, they’d grab them from his machine instead

and folks, they all just ... did it. i mean - it was Jon Postel! he ran IANA! surely this was authorized?

(it was not authorized.)

there wasn't any interruption to internet service, but for A WHOLE WEEK all Root DNS traffic was run from one machine in a little office in Southern California

the feds eventually noticed and ordered him to return control, which he cheerfully did. but its a good story- of an internet that is personal, an internet whose very core procedures can be altered with a charming email

soon after Postel's death in october of the same year, ICANN was formed from IANA. a lot of these DNS protocols were further tightened as the internet became more corporate and governed

but I like to think that Postel's legacy lives on in the truly paranoid and goofy procedures that ICANN and Root Sever controllers still keep.

( see - )

anyway. important to remember that even with all this power the internet is just held up by people shuffling numbers about, and that a typo can take out half of cloudflare's traffic for an afternoon. and honestly i think that's a little beautiful