It's for the best. A phonebook is a single list compiled by one organization. DNS is more like asking a librarian for information on a subject, and the libraria

It's for the best. A phonebook is a single list compiled by one organization. DNS is more like asking a librarian for information on a subject, and the librarian handing back a reference book. The librarian may or may not know anything about the subject, but they know where to go to find the information. Just like DNS: - Which librarian you ask can result in being pointed to a different reference book. - If the librarian is already familiar with the subject, they may be able to give you the answer directly to save time instead of pointing you to the reference book. The phonebook metaphor was a good one to give to completely non-technical people, but technical people used it as well, and so often didn't intuitively understand that DNS involves clients exchanging data with arbitrary servers on the internet, using their own DNS server as a proxy. As a result, they often leave s significant communication channel open to the internet even from supposedly secure environments.