19. Oktober, 2023

Kaloyan Kolev

The DIAL: Kaj se zgodi, ko domena preživi državo?

Arhivi storitve NetTime, zgodnjega internetnega poštnega seznama, so ohranili e-pošto z naslovov s končnico, ki je ne vidite več: .yu, za Jugoslavijo. Mnogi od njih, vsebujejo pripovedi iz prve roke iz jugoslovanskih vojn, enega najzgodnejših spopadov, dokumentiranih na internetu. Večina teh digitalnih artefaktov iz nekdanje vzhodnoevropske države je izginila s spleta in postala žrtev neuspelih selitev strežnikov in nenehno spreminjajočih se institucij. Zgodba o .yu se začne leta 1989, ko je računalničarka Borka Jerman-Blažič s svojo ekipo v Ljubljani začela večletno prizadevanje za povezavo Jugoslavije z internetom. Takrat je bilo vprašanje, kateri komunikacijski protokol bi povzročil najboljša računalniška omrežja, predmet ostre debate med računalniškimi inženirji. Na eni strani so bili zagovorniki interneta, ki so zagovarjali decentraliziran pristop, osredotočen na praktično povezljivost in sodelovanje: “Zavračamo: kralje, predsednike in glasovanje. Verjamemo v: grobo soglasje in delujočo kodo,” je znanstvenik David Clark slavno rekel v 1992. Na drugi strani so bili zagovorniki konkurenčnih komunikacijskih modelov, kot sta povezava odprtih sistemov (OSI) in X.25, ki so želeli bolj zapleten in birokratiziran protokol, ki poudarja zanesljivost in varnost.
Le nekaj mesecev preden je internetna povezava zaživela leta 1991, je Slovenija razglasila neodvisnost od Jugoslavije. Država, za katero je bil ustvarjen .yu, je razpadala. Čeprav je .yu preživel Jugoslavijo za dve desetletji, so B. Jerman-Blažič in njeni sodelavci postali prvi, ki so se spopadli z vrsto vprašanj brez primere, ki ostajajo aktualna vse do danes: ko se nacionalne države vzpenjajo, propadajo in spreminjajo obliko, kdo se odloči, ali in kdaj ukiniti domeno države? Ko je domena izbrisana, kaj se zgodi z vsemi spletnimi stranmi in poštnimi seznami pod njo ter vsem znanjem, ki ga vsebujejo?

Za več informaciji preberite celotno verzijo članka shranjenega v dokumentih spletne strani ali na povezavi TUKAJ.

Lahko pa preberite originalni članek na spletni reviji THEDIAL.word

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ANG.:

Yugoslavia’s Digital Twin, The DIAL paper

October 19, 2023

By Kaloyan Kolev

The Dial: what happen when a domain outlive the country?

The archives of Nettime, an early internet mailing list, have preserved emails from addresses with a suffix you don’t see around anymore: .yu, for Yugoslavia. Many of them, such as the email from insomnia@EU.net.yu above, contain first-hand accounts from the Yugoslav Wars, one of the earliest conflicts documented on the internet. Most of these digital artifacts from the former Eastern European country have disappeared from the web, falling victim to failed server migrations and ever-changing institutions. The greatest loss was perhaps the .yu domain itself.

The story of .yu begins in 1989, when computer scientist Borka Jerman-Blažič and her team in Ljubljana began their multi-year endeavor to connect Yugoslavia to the internet. At the time, the question of which communication protocol would result in the best computer networks was the subject of fierce debate among computer engineers. On one side were the proponents of the internet, who championed a decentralized approach focused on practical connectivity and collaboration: “We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code,” scientist David Clark famously said in 1992. On the other side were advocates of competing communication models such as Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and X.25, who wanted a more complex and bureaucratic protocol that emphasized reliability and security. Just months before the internet connection went live in 1991, Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. The country for which .yu was created was falling apart. Though .yu outlived Yugoslavia by two decades, Jerman-Blažic and her colleagues became the first to contend with an unprecedented set of questions that remain relevant to this day: As nation states rise, fall, and change shape, who decides whether and when to retire a country’s domain? When a domain is deleted, what happens to all of the websites and mailing lists under it, and all of the knowledge they contain?

For more read the whole article in the document list or click on the following LINK.

Or click on the original article THEDIAL.word