BlackBerry: DoT against ban on encrypted messages

n some relief to BlackBerry, the telecom ministry is understood to have said that a complete ban on encrypted communications.

NEW DELHI: In some relief to BlackBerry, the telecom ministry is understood to have said that a complete ban on encrypted communications is not desirable as long as solutions exist to have the data intercepted in a readable format.

"Banning of encrypted communication is not desirable as long as some solutions exist to get the (data) intercepted in readable format. Therefore, accent should be on regulation of these services in such a manner that security assistance needs and communication security needs are balanced," an expert committee set up by the Department of Telecom (DoT) said in its report.

Recently, Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM) came up with a solution for realtime interception of its BlackBerry Enterprise Service ( BES) after seeking several extensions of deadlines for nearly a year.

The government had earlier set August 15 as the deadline for RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, to provide the country's security agencies with interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular messenger and corporate e-mail services in readable format.

Besides RIM, Nokia is another player that provides a push mail facility to its subscribers . The solution provided by RIM is being tested by the DoT, which is expected to give its report by the month-end . Earlier, MHA had also stated that if no solution is found for any encrypted service, those services should be banned or blocked.

How Domain Name Servers Work

If you've ever used the Internet, it's a good bet that you've used the Domain Name System, or DNS, even without realizing it. DNS is a protocol within the set of standards for how computers exchange data on the Internet and on many private networks, known as the TCP/IP protocol suite. Its basic job is to turn a user-friendly domain name like "howstuffworks.com" into an Internet Protocol (IP) address like 70.42.251.42 that computers use to identify each other on the network. It's like your computer's GPS for the Internet.
Computers and other network devices on the Internet use an IP address to route your request to the site you're trying to reach. This is similar to dialing a phone number to connect to the person you're trying to call. Thanks to DNS, though, you don't have to keep your own address book of IP addresses. Instead, you just connect through a domain name server, also called a DNS server or name server, which manages a massive database that maps domain names to IP addresses.
Whether you're accessing a Web site or sending e-mail, your computer uses a DNS server to look up the domain name you're trying to access. The proper term for this process is DNS name resolution, and you would say that the DNS server resolves the domain name to the IP address. For example, when you enter "http://www.howstuffworks.com" in your browser, part of the network connection includes resolving the domain name "howstuffworks.com" into an IP address, like 70.42.251.42, for HowStuffWorks' Web servers.
You can always bypass a DNS lookup by entering 70.42.251.42 directly in your browser (give it a try). However, you're probably more likely to remember "howstuffworks.com" when you want to return later. In addition, a Web site's IP address can change over time, and some sites associate multiple IP addresses with a single domain name.

Learn More How Web Servers Work Internet Quiz HowStuffWorks Forums: Are all the good domain names taken?

Without DNS servers, the Internet would shut down very quickly. But how does your computer know what DNS server to use? Typically, when you connect to your home network, Internet service provider (ISP) or WiFi network, the modem or router that assigns your computer's network address also sends some important network configuration information to your computer or mobile device. That configuration includes one or more DNS servers that the device should use when translating DNS names to IP address.
So far, you've read about some important DNS basics. The rest of this article dives deeper into domain name servers and name resolution. It even includes an introduction to managing your own DNS server. Let's start by looking at how IP addresses are structured and how that's important to the name resolution process.

 

Where are all the Internet domain names registered and maintained?

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it. It is a global collection of networks, both big and small, that connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as "the Internet." Since its beginning in 1969, the Internet has grown from four host computer systems to tens of millions. However, just because nobody owns the Internet, it doesn't mean it is not monitored and maintained in different ways. The Internet Society, a non-profit group established in 1992, oversees the formation of the policies and protocols that define how we use and interact with the Internet.

When the Internet was in its infancy, you could only make connections by providing the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the computer you wanted to establish a link with. For example, a typical IP address might be 216.27.22.162. This was fine when there were only a few hosts out there, but it became very unwieldy as more and more systems came online. The first solution to the problem was a simple text file maintained by the Network Information Center that mapped names to IP addresses. Soon this text file became so large it was too cumbersome to manage. In 1983, the University of Wisconsin created the Domain Name System (DNS), which maps text names to IP addresses. This way you only need to remember www.howstuffworks.com, for example, instead of 216.27.22.162.

The Domain Name System is a distributed database, but there are central name servers at the core of the system (see How DNS Works for details). Someone has to maintain these central name servers to avoid conflicts and duplication.

In 1993, the U.S. Department of Commerce, in conjunction with several public and private entities, created InterNIC to maintain a central database that contains all the registered domain names and the associated IP addresses in the U.S. (other countries maintain their own NICs (Network Information Centers) -- there's a link below that discusses Canada's system, for example). Network Solutions, a member of InterNIC, was chosen to administer and maintain the growing number of Internet domain names and IP addresses. This central database is copied to Top Level Domain (TLD) servers around the world and creates the primary routing tables used by every computer that connects to the Internet.

Until recently, Network Solutions was the only company that provided domain names. However, to ensure that Network Solutions did not become a monopoly, the U.S. government decided that other companies should also be allowed to sell domain names. While these other companies (known as registrars) provide domain names and maintain DNS servers, Network Solutions still maintains the central database to ensure that there are no duplicates. In the U.S., you pay Network Solutions an annual fee to maintain your domain name in the central name server.

The following links are helpful:

• How DNS Works
• How a Web Server Works
•  
• InterNIC
• The History of the Internet
• All About The Internet
• Recommendations for Administration and Management of gTLDs
• Legal and Technical Aspects of the Domain Name System
• The Economic Structure of Internet Generic Top-Level Domain Name Registries
• Framework for the administration of the .CA domain name system

FB vs Google Plus tech wars: Why Facebook should begin to worry

Google, the most popular Web site on earth, is worried about the secondmost popular site. That, of course, would be Facebook. Why else would Google keep trying, over and over again, to create a social network of the same type? Orkut, Jaiku, Wave, Buzz — Google has lobbed forth one fizzled flop after another. And now there's Google+. It's the latest Google "we wanna be Facebook" project.

The difference is, this one's got a real shot. Instead of throwing open its doors with a big splash, as it did with the hopelessly confusing Wave and the privacy-challenged Buzz, Google is letting Google+ seep into the world virally. You can't yet just go sign up; you have to be invited by someone who's already a member. Even so, Google+ already has millions of members. That's not quite 750 million (Facebook's current tally), but watch out for the network effect.

Followers count !

Google+ stats: Zuckerberg has more than 184,000 Google+ followers, putting him far ahead in the Google+ chart.
In second place is Google CEO Larry Page with almost 95,000. In third, Sergey Brin with almost 72,000. Mathematicians will conclude that the Facebook CEO has more Google+ followers than both the Google founders combined !