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

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 24-Jul-25 13:44, Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> On 7/23/2025 6:28 PM, Craig Partridge via Internet-history wrote:
>> Users care about the path their traffic takes in the network (various
>> issues about ensuring certain traffic did not transit certain countries
>> over the years).   Users care about performance, and before carriers sorta
>> figured out how to ensure good service, we found users playing around with
>> reaching into the routing layer.
> 
> 
> This nicely exemplifies a) just how much variance there is, among the
> attributes associated with 'user', and b) just how profoundly different
> the current Internet is, from the pre-/early- commercial Internet was.

True, but many actors (not just state actors) have learned the lessons
from the fact that most international cable routes went through British
territory during World War I. So I think the concern about routing is
still important for some categories of 'user'.

Of course, CDNs etc have their own effect on the concept of naming.
Where I sit, google.com is 27 msec away and is seemingly a synonym for
syd09s25-in-x0e.1e100.net, which I'm guessing is in Sydney, Australia.
What kind of a "unique" name is google.com?

     Brian