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tk seems a bit dodgy, but dk reliably redirects:

$ curl -I http://dk./
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:49:11 GMT
Server: Apache
Location: https://www.dk-hostmaster.dk/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

How about http://io./ , that returns 200 (no redirecting) and works fine in Opera, Chromium and Firefox on Linux for me.

$ curl -I http://io./
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:50:10 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.2 (Unix) OpenSSL/0.9.8n
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Type: text/html

Some country-code domains have their CCTLD set up as a website.

Try http://tk./ and http://dk./ for example.

Both give me the "Firefox can't find the server at" message.

Some country-code domains have their CCTLD set up as a website.

Try http://tk./ and http://dk./ for example.

Complete list of CCTLDs with A records (many more have MX records):

ac has address 193.223.78.210
ai has address 209.59.119.34
cm has address 195.24.205.60
dk has address 193.163.102.24 (and ipv6 2a01:630:0:40:b1a:b1a:2011:1)
gg has address 87.117.196.80
io has address 193.223.78.212
je has address 87.117.196.80
kh has address 203.223.32.21
pn has address 80.68.93.100
sh has address 193.223.78.211
tk has address 217.119.57.22
tm has address 193.223.78.213
to has address 216.74.32.107
uz has address 91.212.89.8
vi has address 193.0.0.198
ws has address 64.70.19.33

It actualy works for some TLDs:

http://ac./
http://ai./
http://dk./
http://io./
http://sh./
http://tm./
http://uz./
http://ws./

Here is a list of TLDs that work as web addresses: (be sure to enter them with http:/// and a dot at the end or your browser might not make it to the site, firefox for example will assume it is invalid and try adding a 'www.' and a '.com' unless i have already been to the page by explicitly adding a dot.)

http://ac./
http://ai./
http://bi./
http://cm./ (there is no http server running at the IP this resolves to)
http://dk./
http://gg./
http://hk./ (there is no http server running at the IP this resolves to)
http://io./
http://je./
http://ph./ (Here I get an ASP error, which looks to be part of an asp dispatched virtual hosting solution.)
http://pn./
http://pw./ (there is no http server running at the IP this resolves to)
http://sh./ (there is no http server running at the IP this resolves to)
http://tk./
http://to./ The shortest URL shortener in existence, having only 3 characters in the domain itself (and some browsers will work with only 2 of them)
http://uz./
http://wz./ (there is no http server running at the IP this resolves to)

So using top level domains as regular domains is very possible.

The two URLs would point to the same site. According to the DNS convention, the trailing dot at the end of URL is always implicit. You specify it or not, http://dk/ will always be parsed as http://dk./ (See RFC 3696). That is what the whole argument about - what implications can occur if you allow a character or a string of characters to be specified as TLD instead od the dot(.). This is certainly going to break the entire concept of DNS that we have known since years.

The two URLs would point to the same site. According to the DNS convention, the trailing dot at the end of URL is always implicit. You specify it or not, http://dk/ will always be parsed as http://dk./ (See RFC 3696). That is what the whole argument about - what implications can occur if you allow a character or a string of characters to be specified as TLD instead od the dot(.). This is certainly going to break the entire concept of DNS that we have known since years.

So what happens if I happen to have a local machine named "tube", and someone decides to register the "tube" TLD and puts an A record on it, which he most likely will -- after all, if you owned a TLD, wouldn't you put your website there?

That won't work. You need an extra dot for the TLD. See, for example http://dk. vs. http://dk.

So what happens if I happen to have a local machine named "tube", and someone decides to register the "tube" TLD and puts an A record on it, which he most likely will -- after all, if you owned a TLD, wouldn't you put your website there?

That won't work. You need an extra dot for the TLD. See, for example http://dk. vs. http://dk.

ai and dk should work.

I just create a list with all the short ones I could find that actually resolve.

I guess to beat that, you'd need to go with a country code domain.

ai and dk should work.
Due to DNS weirdness you might need to add a dot, as in ai. and dk.

I guess to beat that, you'd need to go with a country code domain.

ai and dk should work.
Due to DNS weirdness you might need to add a dot, as in ai. and dk.

Additional coolpoints voor DK hostmaster:
click here (it should work without the dot at the end as well, but I don't get that to work often on my windows box).

AI is the only other TLD I've discovered so far which scores coolpoints for this as well.

A much nicer sollution is used by the Danish: go visit dk to register a .dk domain.

I've heard this may fail in msie though.