FOUR OF 13 SERVERS THAT MANAGE WEB TRAFFIC FAILED FOR BRIEF PERIOD Issue: Internet Four of the 13 computers that manage global Internet traffic partially failed for a brief period Wednesday night due to a technical glitch. Engineers at Network Solutions, which runs the primary "A" root server from its offices in northern Virginia, worked to determine why the servers briefly stopped responding to requests for links to Web sites ending in "com." Web addresses ending in other routing suffixes, such as "org" and "net" were unaffected, officials said. A Network Solutions vice president, Mark Rippe, called it "a *MAJOR, MAJOR* incident" and "our problem." Although the Internet theoretically can operate with only a single root server, its performance would slow if more than four root servers failed for any appreciable length of time. Network Solutions, the Defense Department, the University of Southern California and an organization in Japan control the four root servers that failed. [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B8), AUTHOR: Ted Bridis] (http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB967158401194326837.htm) (Requires subscription) Joe Baptista The dot.GOD Registry http://www.dot.god/
