Free Domains for a Free Internet Pedro García López go://pedro.

Free Domains for a Free Internet

Pedro García López

http://www.socialdns.netgo://pedro

Our research group

• Architecture and Telematic Services – Computer Engineering and Maths Dept.– University Rovira i Virgili

• Research topics:– Distributed Systems, Peer-to-Peer

Systems– Software Architectures and Middleware– Distributed Collaborative Systems

Index

• Motivation• SocialDNS

• Usage• Problems solved• Prospective applications

• Conclusions

DNS: Domain Name System

• Converts name domains (www.cocacola.com) to IP addresses (216.64.210.31)

• Hierarchical naming infrastructure• Samples: www.urv.cat, www.tinet.cat

DNS and the WWW

• URLs are used in the hyperlinking mechanisms in the Web (http://www.urv.cat/)

• Each URL will imply a DNS name resolution

• DNS converts these names to IP addresses to locate the named Web resource

• URLs are used in hyperlinks, bookmarks, search engines, ...

Top Level Domains (TLDs)

• ccTLD (country TLDs), gTLDs (generic TLDs)

• Jon Postel’s proposal to expand the name space -> opposition from business groups

• Root Authority- > gTLD-MoU -> Postel’s Letter to Name Servers

• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (US Government)

ICANN gTLD Auctions

• Auction 2000: 47 proposals where presented (7 accepted). – Each one paid 50000$ only for

participating.– Domains = trademarks (commercial

interests for creating new TLDs)• Auction 2009: a minimum of 50,000 $ for

each gTLD– Open in February 2009

Short memorable names

• The Web has naming problems !– TinyURLs are the solution ?– http://tinyurl.com/6– http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?

ovi=1&mqmap.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bIgpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6OzE5XVqcuc5zb252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvNlygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrfXNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP

DNS is the solution ?

• Restrictive name assignment– Managed by ICANN– The creation of new TLDs (Top Level

Domains) is very difficult and slow. Ex: .ny, .ibm, .bcn...

– DNS commitees state that a feasible grow for DNS is in the order of tens of TLDs each year.• Committee on Internet Navigation and the Domain

Name System. Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation.

DNS limitations (1)

• Restrictive name assignment– Only adding GeoTLDs (cities, countries)

would require tens of thousands of TLDs.– If we also consider the proliferation of

connected mobile devices in a near future, – Or that users and companies may claim

their own identifiers

– We conclude that the current DNS system can not cope with this enormous growth

DNS limitations (2)

• The existing DNS design do not provide standard meta-information associated to domain names. This precludes search mechanisms over the existing names.

• Adding this meta-information and search mechanisms could create a yellow pages directory of the Internet. – Millions of mobile devices will connect to the

Internet in the future: forget phone numbers -> use names !!!

DNS and directory services

• DNS is not a directory service nor aims to !!• “as the Internet developed in size, scope, and

complexity, the DNS was unable to satisfy many Internet users’ needs for navigational assistance”. Committee on Internet Navigation and the Domain Name System. 2003.

• “We also feel that facilitating the use of the DNS as a directory service is the wrong goal and that the Internet needs a universal directory system to continue to move forward”. Don Mitchell, Scott Bradner, K Claffy (1996).

DNS limitations (3)

• Domain information is not public and free

• TLDs cannot publish their list of domains by contract enforcement with ICANN

• Verisign is even making money selling the .com list

Our approach:

• SocialDNS is a name and directory service for the Web that does not aim to replace the existing DNS.

• It complements the existing DNS to offer advanced services that are beyond the scope of the existing infrastructure.

• SocialdNS resolves names under a new URL handler:

• We aim to overcome the aforementioned problems to create a novel location infrastructure for the Web

go://pedro.tgn

What is SocialDNS ?

• SocialDNS is a novel naming service allowing millions of Top Level Domains in any language (go://urv, go://deim.urv).

• SocialDNS is a directory service and search engine. It permits search over tags and geotags and it introduces the concept of cloud search.

• SocialDNS is a social service that promotes the creation of communities around domains. It offers public communication channels over domain names and tags.

Name Service

• We create a new namespace using the the handler go://

• Each address go:// can be associated yo another URL:

– go://murcia -> http://www.murcia.es– Or instead

•go://murcia-> http://195.57.119.131/

• Required Software: plugin for Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer

International names (ñ, ç)

• After a long delay, the current DNS is accomodating International Domain Names (IDNs)– Many browsers still have problems with

international domains– Security problems

• SocialDNS supports international names from the first day (chinese, arabic, ...)

Directory Service

• When creating a domain the owner can also introduce:– Tags: keywords– Geotag: country and geographic position in

Google Maps (coordinates)• We offer a search engine using name,

tag or geotags

Social software

• A TLD can become a community of related contents

• Every user can belong to different communities: .ieee, .urv, .scifi, .py (wearing different hats)

• Like the original Usenet, communication channels around tags and domains in the SocialDNS Root TLD create a universal directory for conversations

Standard Open Architecture

• Iterative Name Resolution• Open Standards: HTTP, XML

• Managing a TLD:– XML file– Web server software

Open approach

• We aim to become an Internet standard• WebTLD software is open source• All the information is public and free

(XML file), we also offer open APIs (REST)

• Name conflicts are handled by users (moderators like in the Wikipedia system)

• Third-parties can extend or use the infrastructure for their purposes (Google could index all the information)

Web 2.0 ???

Related projects

• TinyURL: short URLs– 74 million of URLs. Over 2 billion

hits/month. – But: do not include semantic information– http://tinyurl.com/6 Vs go://ibm

• GeoURL: is a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. – 2,576,695 URLs.

• Google Local, Yahoo Directory, Craiglist, Open Tag Directory …

Conclusions

• We present an open naming and search infraestructure for the WWW

• The success depend on the massive adoption by users, communities, companies and GeoTLDs.

• We outline the importance of names and naming systems for locating resources

• From our experience, end users prefer using wTLDs rather than subdomains.

rambla.bcn

granvia.madrid

tiffanys.ny

ceo.ibm

billgates.microsoft

champselysees.paris

pedrogarcia.urvstevejobs.apple

n80.nokia

bravia.sony

wii.nintendozelda.wii

go://ibiza.seat

marysmith.scout

stoica.berkeley

halo3.xbox360

homer.simpson

z4.bmw

penthouse.sex

grizzlies.nba

raul.realmadrid

torvalds.linuxtrac.py

colosseo.roma

ucla.la

luxor.casino

neo.matrix

user243.skype

larrypage.google

java.sun