Internet address
: n. 1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of
the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a
sitename, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including
periods itself. Contrast with bang path; see also network, the
and network address. All Internet machines and most UUCP
sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of
behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.
See also bang path, domainist. 2. More loosely, any
network address reachable through Internet; this includes bang path
addresses and some internal corporate and government
networks.
Reading Internet addresses is something of an art. Here are the
four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed
by a selection of geographical domains:
- com
- commercial organizations
- edu
- educational institutions
- gov
- U.S. government civilian sites
- mil
- U.S. military sites
Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in
the U.S. or Canada.
- us
- sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains
- su
- sites in the ex-Soviet Union (see kremvax).
- uk
- sites in the United Kingdom
Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty
states, each generally with a name identical to the state's postal
abbreviation. Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for
academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones. Other
top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways.
