Rachel Akisada & Melanie Kingsley How The Internet Works Rachel Akisada & Melanie Kingsley

Overview ICANN Registrar Domain Name Registration DNS Servers Web Hosting

What ICANN Does Coordinates unique identifiers across the world Allows us to have predictable results Helps coordinate how IP addresses are supplied Develops policy on the internet’s unique identifiers -ICANN is the central repository for IP addresses -ICANN then gives out ranges of IP addresses to regional registries who then give them to network providers.

What is ICANN? Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Not for profit Board of Directors President & CEO Staff based around the globe ICANN Ombudsman Board of Directors: 21 members, 15 can vote with 6 liaisons. 8 of them are chosen by an Independent Nominating Committee and the remainder are nominated members from supporting organizations. ICANN then has a President and CEO who is also a Board member and who directs the work of ICANN staff, who are based across the globe and help co-ordinate, manage and finally implement all the different discussions and decisions made by the supporting organisations and advisory committees. An ICANN Ombudsman acts as an independent reviewer of the work of the ICANN staff and Board.

Support Organizations IP addresses Domain names Managers of country code top-level domains

Advisory Organizations Four advisory organizations Governments and international treaty organizations Root server operators Internet security “At large” community (average internet users)

How it make decisions Awareness of issue or change Discuss and produce report for public review Board receives report Board discusses the matter Makes decision Can be repeated until all parties satisfied When it comes to making technical changes to the Internet, here is a simplified rundown of the process: Any issue of concern or suggested changes to the existing network is typically raised within one of the supporting organisations (often following a report by one of the advisory committees), where it is discussed and a report produced which is then put out for public review. If the suggested changes impact on any other group within ICANN’s system, that group also reviews the suggested changes and makes its views known. The result is then put out for public review a second time. At the end of that process, the ICANN Board is provided with a report outlining all the previous discussions and with a list of recommendations. The Board then discusses the matter and either approves the changes, approves some and rejects others, rejects all of them, or sends the issue back down to one of the supporting organisations to review, often with an explanation as to what the problems are that need to be resolved before it can be approved. The process is then rerun until all the different parts of ICANN can agree a compromise or the Board of Directors make a decision on a report it is presented with.

How it is held accountable Externally Can be taken to court Internally Bylaws Independent Nominating Committee Senior staff Different dispute resolution procedures

Criticisms The initial way the board was elected Strays into national and international public policy

Registrar Organizations that sell domains Accredited by ICANN User chooses a registrar to register their domain name

Examples of Registrars GoDaddy ($11.99) NameCheap ($9.98) 1&1($4.99) Name.com ($9.99) https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accredited-list.html

Resellers Third party company Offers domain registration services through a registrar May not accredited

Domain Names Websites have numerical IP addresses Not human friendly Domain names are easier to remember Register a domain name to own it

How to register a domain Think of a unique name Find a domain name registrar(GoDaddy, Doster, etc.) Pay for domain name

Who is involved? Registrant Registrars Reseller Registry Operators ICANN

DNS Servers Domain Name System Servers Database of domain names and IP addresses Translates a domain name into an IP address Looks at different servers until the correct address is found

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/dns_domainnamesystem/f/dns_servers.htm http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm How it Works

Root Name Servers Looks at Top Level Domain Returns a list of DNS for the requested TLD DNS Process

Caching Contains entries that translate domains into IP addresses DNS caches on client and ISP Efficiently keep the internet synchronized Cache poisoning Flushing a DNS Cache http://compnetworking.about.com/od/dns_domainnamesystem/f/what-is-a-dns-cache.htm

Web Hosting Makes a website accessible via the WWW Lease server space to the client Provide Internet connectivity typically in a data center

Hosting Options Free web hosting (Wordpress.com) Dedicated hosting service Colocation Web Hosting Service Cloud hosting

Top Web Hosts Dreamhost Bluehost GoDaddy InMotion SiteGround iPage HostGator

Choosing a web host Need to choose a web host based on your needs You should consider: The complexity of your website Database support Application Development Platforms

Conclusion All these things are vital to the internet ICANN is important to keep things uniform There is a fluid process for how a website is accessed Questions?