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                 DATABASE PROBLEM SLOWS SOME INTERNET TRAFFIC
                                       
     July 17, 1997
     Web posted at: 9:53 p.m. EDT (0153 GMT)
     
     (AP) -- A problem with the database that keeps track of all Internet
     addresses slowed network traffic for several hours Thursday morning,
     effectively blinking some Web sites out of existence.
     
     The problem appeared to be resolved by midafternoon.
     
     During the trouble, computers couldn't always find someaddresses
     ending in .net and .com, sometimes e-mail didn't go through and
     attempts to look up some Web sites came up empty.
     
     A user seeking an address ending in .com, for example, wouldhave
     received an error message that read "Could not resolve DNS," said
     Aggie Nteta, a spokeswoman for Network Solutions Inc., which runs
     the main registry of Internet addresses, called InterNIC, under an
     arrangement with the U.S. government.
     
     Every morning at 2:45 a.m. EDT, the files listing all Internet
     addresses for North America are updated and sent out through the
     network. On Wednesday morning, two of those files somehow became
     corrupted, setting off error alarms.
     
     However, the system administrator on duty chose to release the files
     anyway, creating a situation in which many Web sites effectively
     blinked out of existence, at least in the eyes of browsers.
     
     "The big effect was that our site became invisible," saidChris
     Caldwell, chief engineer at NDA, a Web site design company in
     Woburn, Massachusetts.
     
  Problems with addresses
  
     
     
     The files were corrected and re-released about four hours later,
     although it may have taken several more hours for the corrected
     information to spread throughout the network, Nteta said.
     
     The problem is the latest in a series of addressing glitchesover the
     past few days. Last weekend AlterNIC, an InterNIC rival, briefly
     took over InterNiC's address on the Web. AlterNIC described this on
     its Web site as a form of protest over InterNIC's current monopoly
     on distribution of Internet addresses.
     
     InterNIC has also encountered numerous problems with badinformation
     on its database. Some businesses have been double billed, while
     others have had their Web sites dropped from the address lists by
     mistake.
     
     Dave Crocker, a computer consultant and founder of theInternet Mail
     Consortium, said it was a problem of qualityassurance.
     
     "The fact that they are growing quickly is not an excuse forthis.
     The rate of errors they are having would not be tolerable for any
     other professional organization doing a technical task," he said.
     
     Copyright 1997 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
     may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.  rule
     
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