This glossary was written and prepared by Blair Bergum of  DNSnews.net
For additions or corrections to this glossary, please send email to glossary at dnsnews dot net

You may freely link to the DNS & Internet Glossary. However, you may not reproduce this glossary in any manner, electronic or otherwise, without the express written authorization from the author. All copies of this glossary must keep this credit in place. This glossary cannot be changed, reformatted, or redistributed in any manner or fashion.

GAC

Governmental Advisory Committee, is an advisory committee to ICANN on matters that concern the government. http://www.icann.org/committees/gac

gateway

a hardware appliance or software that links two different types of networks by converting data from one network to another.

GB

gigabyte, see gigabyte. Note the capital B for Byte, a lower case b would denote bits instead.

Gbps

Gigabits per second, is one billion bits per second, or 1000 Mbps. Gbps are commonly used to measure peak bandwidth in dedicated, colocated and Managed servers that are in a data center.

gigabyte

is one billion bytes. Also written as GB for short.

gigE

Gigabit Ethernet, is an Ethernet transmission protocol that provides a data transfer capability of one gigabit per second, which is one billion bits per second. See also 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which allows 10 billion bits per second.

gigabit Ethernet

see gigE.

GNR

Global Name Registry, operates the .name TLD.

GNSO

Generic Name Supporting Organization, is the advisory body to ICANN concerning policy issues of the DNS. http://www.gnso.icann.org This organization was formerly known as the DNSO prior to January of 2003 when it was renamed to more accurately describe its function as compared to the new country code name supporting organization which is being developed.

GOA

U.S. Government Accounting Office, is a governmental agency that deals with the Internet Management especially as it relates to the privatization project.

gopher

developed at the University of Minnesota, it is a program for organizing and displaying files on the Internet in a subject based format. Gopher predates the World Wide Web, and was popular before the Internet browsers convenient GUI. Gopher is a protocol and instructs a computer to retrieve text-only information. Can be used for files normally accessed through Archie, Telnet, or WAIS programs. The protocol format used to access a gopher menu is gopher://

Green Paper

issued by the U.S. government through the DOC and NTIA on January 30th, 1998. The Green Paper identified four DNS functions to be performed on a coordinated, centralized basis to enable the proper and efficient Internet resolvability. In response to this proposal known as the Green Paper to improve the technical management of the Internet through privatization, a White Paper was issued in June of 1998.

GSS

Global Storage Systems. GSS architectures are typically designed for 300GB-100TB capacity for servers in multi-location set-ups and used in conjunction with CDNs. GSS architectures can perform shared read/writes. However, GSS architectures are not to be used for database applications.

gTLD

generic TLD, refers to the Top-Level-Domain extension, such as .com, .net, .org, etc.

gTLD-MoU

See MoU

gTLD PAB

generic Top Level Domain Public Advisory Body

Guardian Authentication

is an authentication program for authenticating the registrant when processing domain name changes and modifications. There are three forms, of Guardian Authentication which are as follows:

Mail-From (using Email headers)

Crypt-PW (cryptography Password)

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)

GUI

Graphical User Interface.