Who runs the internet…

by Jason Preston on July 1, 2005

I tend to post links more often than I probably should, but what the hell.

This article in Wired talks about how the internet essentially only works because of 13 computers run by the US government…and the government just announced that they were changing their mind. They’re not planning to relinquish control of those computers, ever.

What are they? They file every url extention for every site on the internet. Every time you point your browser to a web address, the browser checks these 13 supercomputers for what IP address matches the site you typed in or clicked on. Now that’s power.

  • http://www.pixelumbrella.com/adlin.com Ben

    i think our hesitancy to relinquish any power whatsoever will eventually lead to the u.s. taking what will become a historically embarrassing fall in the next few decades.

  • Jason

    Our own hubris? Probably. I think the entertainment industry likes to harp on that idea (note themes in Batman Begins and Episode III).

  • http://www.pixelumbrella.com/adlin.com Ben

    I don’t even know if it’s all hubris. Part of me thinks that all we want to do is not lose our position as “Country of Super Ridiculous Power #1″ but in doing so, we’re clutching onto our old ways so tightly that we don’t change with the times. I mean, look at all the “traditional values” that the conservative right (the folks in power, somehow) are fighting tooth and nail to hang on to. Sometimes it seems to me that all our regression and stagnance as a country is in an attempt to reach back at the shining moments of our nation (post WWII, greatest generation, etc.). Unfortunately, such a reach just ends up being a pathetic, counter-productive struggle that prevents us from adapting and makes us seem like arrogant dickwads.

  • Jason

    Amazing how we can simultaneously be the most advanced and most regressed nation in the world, no?

    Happy 4th.

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