I am at the UN Internet Governance Forum, being held this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A recurring theme you can hear here is one that has vexed the technical community many times before — “Why are there 13 root servers?” This question is usually followed by questions like “Why are most of the root servers in the US?”

So let’s dispel these myths.

There are not 13 root servers.

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It’s been a long while since we posted a factsheet – a clear guide to a technical subject written in plain English. Today we publish one on a very technical, but very important subject: IPv6. Internet Protocol version 6 is important for the Internet’s continued expansion for future generations. The number of free address under [...]

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Earlier this week, we inserted eleven new top-level domains in the DNS root zone. These represent the term “test” translated into ten languages, in ten different scripts (Chinese is represented in two different scripts, and Arabic script is used by two different languages). This blog post is not about that. (If you’re interested about it, [...]

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I moved to Brussels to work from our office here at the start of August. One of the things I’d normally do when moving is working out which ISP to buy a service from. I haven’t done that yet because ‘Internet’ access is bundled along with the rent, water and electricity charges for my apartment. [...]

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In the foyer of the ICANN head office, we have hung on the walls a number of interesting maps of the Internet. There are various takes on displaying the Internet on charts and in diagrams. They range from the mind-bogglingly complex to the almost comically simple: Then again, this was the Internet back in 1969. [...]

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