From: callison@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (James P. Callison)
Subject: Re: .Extensions
Nntp-Posting-Host: uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
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In article <1r6omsINNnbk@ctron-news.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>In article <gfpftjW00iV3Q3vWYv@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Daniel U. Holbrook" <dh3q+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>>These are the extensions I know of
>>>ch   Switzerland
>>>se   Sweden
>>>fi   Finland
>>>uk   UK
>>>Com  US?
>>>Edu  US?     (are both com and edu US?) 
>>>fr   France
>>dk    denmark
>>no    Norway
>
>.com and .edu are both United States, one refers to commercial institutions,
>the other to mental - I mean, "educational" - institutions.  .gov is also
>pretty much US, it refers to government institutions.  Internet was built on
>the AARP backbone, a US Defense contractor network that used the extension

I think you mean ARPA; AARP is the American Association of Retired Persons,
and I seriously doubt that they'd want young whippersnappers building
anything on their backbones, what with de-calcification and all :-)

>to identify the type of organisation.  Internet extended the convention for
>other countries, but the US retained the old conventions.

The general convention is that if it doesn't have a country tag on it, it's
a US site. That includes:
	.com	commercial 
	.edu	educational 
	.mil	US Military sites 
	.gov	US Gov't non-military sites (eg NASA sites)
	.org	anyone who is "none of the above"
There are sites with such tags that are non-US sites, but they will have
the country extension (eg xxxx.edu.au is an extension I saw today).
US sites can also use the .us extension, but, as Mr. Smith pointed 
out, the Internet was built on the ARPANet backbone, and they default
to US sites if there's no country code.

I would suggest that anyone who didn't know this (or wants to know
more about it on a non-system-administrative level) check out
the book _The_Whole_Internet_User's_Guide_and_Catalog_ by Ed Krol.
(or is it Catalog and User's Guide? I can never remember, and my copy
is my desk at home...). It's a very good not-necessarily-technical
guide to the Internet and the various utilities that lurk on it (including
USENET). I don't think it's part of the Nutshell series, but it is
published by O'Reilly and Associates.

This should go to one of the news.* newsgroups, but damned if I
can figure out which one.... :-)

				James

James P. Callison    Microcomputer Coordinator, U of Oklahoma Law Center 
Callison@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu   /\    Callison@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu   
DISCLAIMER: I'm not an engineer, but I play one at work...
		The forecast calls for Thunder...'89 T-Bird SC
   "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he has 
	and all he's ever gonna have." 
			--Will Munny, "Unforgiven"
