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ADMINISTRATION SAYS INTERNET RECONFIGURATION WAS ROGUE TEST

graphic February 4, 1998 Web posted at: 9:29 p.m. EST (0229 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration said Wednesday it was confident a researcher in California won't repeat his rogue reconfiguration of the Internet -- a test that few users noticed but that raised concerns about how the worldwide network is run.

Jon Postel, who runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority at the University of Southern California under a Defense Department contract, last week redirected half the Internet's 12 directory-information computers to his own system.

Normally, those so-called "root servers" help users find addresses on the Internet by pulling data from Network Solutions Inc., a private company in northern Virginia that operates under a federal government contract.