Yahoo proposes 'really ugly hack' to DNS

Network engineers from Yahoo are pitching what they admit is a "really ugly hack" to the Internet's Domain Name System, but they say it is necessary for the popular Web content provider to support IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol.

Yahoo outlined its proposal for changes to DNS recursive name resolvers at a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) held here this week.

Yahoo says it needs a major change to the DNS -- which matches IP addresses with corresponding domain names -- in order to provide IPv6 service without inadvertently cutting off access to hundreds of thousands of visitors. Under Yahoo's proposal, these visitors would continue accessing content via IPv4, the current version of the Internet Protocol.