For years, I thought DNS meant "it translates domain names to IP addresses."

Technically true. Practically useless.

If you want to work in cybersecurity, you need to understand what happens when a device asks, "Where is this website?"

Recursive resolvers, authoritative nameservers, records, caching, and failures are not trivia. They are the foundation of how the internet works.

I broke DNS down for beginners without jumping straight into jargon: