Names Currently controlled by ICANN and IANA - www.iana.org ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is responsible for overseeing the decision on the assignment of names, IPs, TCP protocols (TCP, UDP, etc.). Originally under contract with the U.S. govenment. IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Association - assigns port # to functions. such as FTP, telnet, etc. IANA is a department of ICANN It is responsible for implementing the decisions made by ICANN. It runs the root name servers - the very top of the DNS hierarchical database. From there responsibility is distributed among public and private institutions caring for the various zones. InterNIC - From 1978 - late 1998, InterNIC was the governing organization of the Internet, now done by ICANN. Over time run by various institutions involved in the development of the Internet, it it now run/owned by ICANN for historical reasons and as a help page. WhoIs - Site for looking available and in-use domain names. Top level domain categories. Originally the Internet was ARPANET (DARPA) and names controlled by U.S. government. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency established as a response to Sputnik Original plan for 5 zones. COM - Commercial. GOV - U.S. and state civilian government. MIL - U.S. military. ORG - non-profit organizations. EDU - education - accredited higher education sites. Originally only 4 year universities. *** NET - non-profit & usually network related. ARPA - special top level id for the actual Internet structure. 2 letter - Nations. Pseudo-official - countries who licenses their domains for commercial use. .to - Tonga as in go.to .tv - Tuvalu At one time, states would rent certain domain qualifiers such as IL from Israel for Illinois. Currently, most states use the US qualifier : www.revenue.state.il.us INT - international organization.