Domain names come of age

June 2004

We are still in the Bronze Age of the Internet, according to the man who created the Domain Name System 21 years ago.

Dr Paul Mockapetris created the system of .com, .org and .gov which end Internet addresses in 1983 while at the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. Jon Postel shares the credit for the system.

Mockapetris told the BBC: "Ten years from now, we will wonder how it was so hard find on the network too. At best we at the Bronze Age, we are not even at the Iron Age stage in the network." He believes in future all communication will be over the Internet.

Mockapetris was one of the scientists working on the forerunner to the Internet ARPAnet - the first packet switching network funded by the Department of Defence. He is now head scientist and chairman of Nominum a DNS management company.