We’re all used to the idea that the internet “just works”: you type a website address into your browser — and a moment later it opens. But behind this simplicity lies a complex system without which the web wouldn’t exist at all. It’s called DNS — the Domain Name System. This system is responsible for translating the human-friendly domain name into the technical IP address of a server. However, few people realize that to obtain that address, a query may sometimes travel halfway around the planet before reaching its destination. The reason lies in a mechanism known as DNS recursion.