Three core assumptions that make internet work!

Isp-Column

Just finished with INNOG 8 in New Delhi. Yesterday I was seated next to my good friend Mr Prashant Chaddha from DelDSL (neither Delhi nor DSL!). We often joke about all sorts of creativity ISPs have to go through, especially on the last mile. He ended his argument with astonishment at how the internet somehow still works! 😀


At the absolute fundamental layer, three assumptions have to be true for the internet to be what we see it today:

  1. Everyone aligns with (and trusts) RIR and thus gets unique IP/ASNs from RIRs like ARIN, APNIC, RIPE or their sub-delegated country-level registries like IRINN, TWNIC, JPNIC etc.
  2. Everyone aligns with (and trusts) 13 magical root DNS servers which ensures the uniqueness of a domain name over the internet.
  3. Everyone agrees to a given list of transit-free (tier 1) networks and ensures they are downstream of at least one of them for full global reachability.

Imagine if these were not true. Imagine a world where google.com could be the domain name of a bakery in New Delhi pointed to 1.2.3.4 which wasn’t even reachable via all the networks in the world. Glad we don’t live in that world at least for now.