1. DNS The DNS is mainly considered a convenience tool for humans -Minimizes human error(mistyping ip addresses) -No need to remember IP addresses just the url

2. Size of the DNS The size of the DNS is always expanding with around approximately 50 billion webpages can be found on Google, with a rapid increase in the last few years as technology becomes more available to people of poorer backgrounds. http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/

3. 3 main components of the DNS - Name Space is the first component, TLD (top level domain) This is always the ending part of any url for example the.com.co.uk or.gov and. Org. These are useful for web surfers to identify authentic websites like if they were looking for a government website which would have accurate information compared to a 3 rd party website, it would be easy to find because you just look for the.gov TLD. - Zones are divided from the name space as described in the 2002 report by incognito software: “A zone consists of a group of linked nodes served by an authoritative DNS name server (the final authority in providing information about a set of domains)” - The 2 nd component is the name servers these store all the information about the zones in, the main name server or primary will collect cached data from its domains that have previously be en visited a lot so that in future retrieving data of the same kind will be faster because it knows where to look, the secondary name servers will contain copies of what is on the primary server, this helps release pressure from the primary server. - Resolvers are the 3 rd component of the DNS and it is responsible from translating the domain name to a IP address. - (January, 2007) Understanding DNS (the Domain Name System) incognito software http://www.incognito.com/resources/nc/wp_understanding_dns.pdf http://www.incognito.com/resources/nc/wp_understanding_dns.pdf

4. DNS’s Function The main function of the DNS is for human convenience more then anything, converting IP addresses into remember able URL’s which are more easy to remember. The DNS maps names to addresses.

5. Legislation effecting the DNS - As it stands in the UK there is no law permitting an individual from registering a domain of any kind before any company wants to invest in the domain. This causes a few problems and a lot have to be settled in courts to decide whether or not the company deserves the domain. If not the individual can usually make a fair profit by selling it back to the company whom desires it. - Some examples include the purchase of mcdonalds.com, which originally belonged to the owner of the popular “wired” magazine, his email was even setup as ronald@mcdonalds.com. Eventually he handed the domain name over in exchange for a big donation to a charity of his choice from mcdonalds.ronald@mcdonalds.com

6. Limitations of the DNS - One limitation of the DNS and challenge it will have to face is the ipv4 addresses have all been allocated now and the DNS does not support ipv6 addresses yet as they are longer, this means at the current state the DNS cannot continue operation as eventually the DNS will need to be changed to allow ipv6 addresses. - Another limitation is that eventually all domain names will be taken and you will have to make domain names for websites more unique as more domain names are taken.