On Wed, Sep 13, 2006 at 12:17:59PM -0400, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
I reiterate, no one knows me by my IP address. The software (DNS) they use may and some people may need to make a change but the world in general does not need to know that. That's the whole point of DNS.
Let me adjust that for you: ---- I reiterate, no one knows me by my phone number. The phone book they use may and some people may need to make a change but the world in general does not need to know that. That's the whole point of the phone book. ----
My point is that my friends and aquaintences may remember my number or have it in their Rolodex but no one has to remember my IP address and very few ever have to even deal with it at all and those that do, only for a moment.
Some people may know your phone number off the top of their heads, but most will have to look it up. The main difference I see is that there is a dynamic system for looking up IP addresses, so changes are easier to propagate. The Rolodex is the equivalent of a hosts file. The phone book roughly equates to mailing out a zone file periodically. Calling 411 is probably about as close to DNS as the phone system gets. We have phone numbers so the network knows where to send the call, not because they are convenient for people to remember.
OK, my real point is that phone numbers are not like IP addresses. You may find a dark corner that exhibits some similarity but the basic analogy is flawed.
They may not be identical, but I think the analogy works well. In both cases the numeric address is used to route to a destination device. In both cases, we have a reference system to resolve a name to said address. -c