Naming the Net: The Domain Name System, 1983-1990

Advisors: Richard R. John (Columbia), Paul Keenan (LSE)

Naming the Net explores the creation of the semantic structure of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), and how both its implementation and administration struggled with this structure as the Internet globalized throughout the 1980s. A swashbuckling tale of how the Internet got its names, complete with dashes of geopolitical intrigue, this work primarily relies upon archived emails, meeting notes, reports, and other administrative documents from the Network Information Center (NIC) Collection at the Computer History Museum. You'll never look at email addresses the same way again.