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The bloody telecoms managed to fix this problem, why can't we?

The critical thing to understand with ENUM is that it mirrors the existing phone number hierarchy, beginning at the country code level. Consequently, the same entities that handle phone numbers, beginning with the ITU and ending with your local telco, are the same entities that have the authority to approve delegations within the ENUM (e164.arpa) domain.

The mention of Neustar in the article, whilst not explicit, is for Neustar to handle further delegations within 1.e164.arpa. But why should Neustar handle 1.e164.arpa anyway? Well, Neustar is the company that is currently entrusted with the NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administration), which is the entity that the ITU has recognised as handling phone country code '1'. Obviously, it makes sense for Neustar to also handle this, and you'd think that it wasn't a big deal.

Curiously, it was enough of a deal for the US Government to formally request that the ITU or the RIPE NCC not delegate 1.e164.arpa to any entity back in April 2002. So at the present time, as the ITU hasn't received any requests to delegate 1.e164.arpa, the RIPE NCC hasn't created the delegation. Hence the original article trying to raise awareness of enum to 'merkins.

If the idea of this domain is that parents can whitelist it, then what is achieved by forbidding links to outside the domain? Or do they envision web browsers with no facility to type in URLs? Or are they targetting children too ignorant or stupid to type?

It's alright, I know the answer. They're targetting voters too stupid to spot the inconsistency.

Interestingly, the article is largely about the great deal this legislation gives the company running the domain. It also mentions that ICANN actually criticised the idea.

To all administrative and technical contacts:

Effective November 28, 2000, VeriSign Global Registry Services ("VeriSign GRS"), a division of Network Solutions, Inc., will assume direct administration of the .US domain. This transition will not result in any technical service-level change. VeriSign GRS services will be available
to domain name registrants for whom VeriSign GRS maintains the .US domain name registration record subject to the terms of its interim service agreement, a copy of which appears below for your review.

Your continued registration of a .US domain name beyond November 27, 2000, and the use of our .US domain name registration services constitutes your acceptance of the terms of the Agreement below.

Best regards,

United States Domain Registry
VeriSign Global Registry Services
www.verisign-grs.com
usdomhelp@verisign -grs.com

oh geez... pray that NeuStar (such a proud dot-com name) isn't the spinoff of Bellcore and the ever-so-evil LERG database.

lemme see... neustar.com, typical yucky canned art in ever-so-lucent style, nice ethnic balance in people-focused pictures, blurbs about the ceo-vision-speaking guy blathering on cnn, speaking at some suit summit, featured on businessnow, and a company profile that'd win you a buzzword bingo challenge in 6 seconds flat (first paragraph keywords: rampant, globalization, ensuring, interoperability, networks, ubiquity, internet, packet... and so on. Print this site off and try it on your friends! Makes a great party game!)

Aha... came from Lockheed Martin.

Airplanes, TLD's, what's the difference? It's all marketing. Looks like these guys took a few pages from The Corporation's website.

*scoove*

oh geez... pray that NeuStar (such a proud dot-com name) isn't the spinoff of Bellcore and the ever-so-evil LERG database.

lemme see... neustar.com, typical yucky canned art in ever-so-lucent style, nice ethnic balance in people-focused pictures, blurbs about the ceo-vision-speaking guy blathering on cnn, speaking at some suit summit, featured on businessnow, and a company profile that'd win you a buzzword bingo challenge in 6 seconds flat (first paragraph keywords: rampant, globalization, ensuring, interoperability, networks, ubiquity, internet, packet... and so on. Print this site off and try it on your friends! Makes a great party game!)

Aha... came from Lockheed Martin.

Airplanes, TLD's, what's the difference? It's all marketing. Looks like these guys took a few pages from The Corporation's website.

*scoove*

ps .dot is in there! Submitted by a group called Neustar, Inc., who are one of the applicants that merit further review (although .dot isn't their preferred string - .web is (how lame)).

http://slashdot.dot here we come!