I-number

i-numbers are a type of Internet identifier designed to solve the problem of how any web resource can have a persistent identity that never changes even when the web resource moves or changes its human-friendly name. For example, if a web page has an i-number, and links to that page use the i-number, then those links will not break even if the page is renamed, the website containing the page is completely reorganized, or the page is moved to another website.

Conceptually, an i-number is similar to an IP address, except i-numbers operate at a much higher level of abstraction in Internet addressing architecture. The other key difference is that i-numbers are persistent, i.e., once they are assigned to a resource, they are never reassigned. By contrast, IP addresses are constantly reassigned, e.g., your computer may have a different IP address every time it connects to the Internet.

Technically, an i-number is one form of an extensible resource identifier (XRI) — an abstract structured identifier standard developed at Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards for sharing resources and data across domains and applications. The other form is called an i-name.

The i-number form of an XRI is designed to serve as an address that does not need to change no matter how often the location of a resource on (or off) the Internet changes. XRIs accomplish this by adding a third layer of abstract addressing over the existing layers: numbering (first layer) and DNS naming (second layer). The notion of a third layer for persistent addressing is not new — Uniform Resource Names (URNs) and other persistent identifier architectures have been developed for this purposes. However the XRI layer is the first architecture that combines a uniform syntax and resolution protocol for both persistent and reassignable identifiers.

At the XRI addressing layer, most resources will have both i-names and i-numbers. These different XRIs that all point to the same resource are called synonyms. I-name synonyms make it easy for humans to discover and address the resource, while i-number synonyms make it easy for machines to maintain a persistent identity for the resource. For example, if a company changes its name, it may register a new i-name and sell its old i-name to another company, however its i-number can remain the same — and links to the company that use its i-number won't break.

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