[ih] History of Naming on The Internet - is it still relevant?

[Patrik Fältström]

On 19 Jul 2025, at 19:55, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:

> So, my question is -- How has the Internet mechanisms for Naming evolved over the last 55 years, from the Users' perspective?   Is Naming even still relevant on The Internet?

There are different things hidden in what you ask for. Names, addresses and identifiers. Being able to identify and access individual items, the ability for you to refer to something and have that referral be stable over time, and over geography (you give the identifier to me).

A good report that I helped writing with many others many years ago (in 2005) I think expresses this in a still very good way:

National Research Council. Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation. Washington, DC, USA: The National Academies Press, 2005. ISBN: 978-0-309-09640-9
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/11258/signposts-in-cyberspace-the-domain-name-system-and-internet-navigation

A presentation from RIPE-50 can be found here: https://ripe50.ripe.net/presentations/ripe50-plenary-mond-signposts-cyberspace.pdf

With that as a background, I think your additional "spice", "from the User's perspective", is very interesting.

What does that mean?

;-)

Patrik -- also using AI for many things that I yesterday did use search engines (or guessed), and before that books

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