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Ask new.net how successful they are?

Hint: they failed. They've been providing an Alternate DNS Root for over a decade, and now they resort to a browser plugin as they couldn't convince any ISPs to include their roots in local resolvers.

I don't understand what the deal is with trying to legislate .xxx through ICANN. Why should government get involved with something that could be taken care of in the private sector? Looks like another service has already implemented it.http://www.new.net/ Of course with services like this you don't get the mainstream audience but at least it's available. Maybe adoption might get here after some time has passed by. The argument concerning the adoption of any tld is a waste of energy in my perspective. Let the market decide what works and what doesn't. I think the problem is the connotation it implies and what people are trying to do about it that confuses the issue.

like http://www.new.net/ ? (No link, because the 'plug-in' is aggressive spyware and likely to self-install just by viewing that website. Visit at your own risk.)

Nice try, but not good enough. That's like saying Hustler can only be sold in New New York. The problem is that such a regulation is a content-based prior restraint on free speech, subject to strict scrutiny. It won't pass strict scrutiny, since there's no compelling (read: health or safety) governmental interest in preventing it. If it's obscene, it's illegal already, and if it's not, then the government has no right to tell you where you can say it online. (Note: don't get 'regular' porn confused with online child predators. There's a clear safety issue involved in the latter.) They might be able to require you to keep it away from minors, which would require AVS checks, but most places are doing that already.

the ICANN could change the rules for com, net and org domains to allow only non-pornographic content

I suppose they could, but they won't. There would be too much backlash from porn sites, who in any event would be perfectly willing to use New.net. You didn't forget about alternative DNS, did you?

hosting providers could refuse to host pornographic websites not associated with an xxx domain

Yeah, if they like being poor.

Like New.net which already sells their own version of the .xxx domain name.

There IS a lot of fear mongering over spyware. For instance, some packages labeled "spyware", such as new.net aren't spyware at all - and if you visit the site, you'll notice the little logo by the respected accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLC. I've been running this package for the past year, and it has exhanced my internet experience in ways I could have never imagined. DNS lookups are lightning fast now, and it provides a set of DNS extensions which I think you'll find quite indispensable.

And yet, this completely free enhanced DNS lookup system will get removed by most spyware utilities. It's ridiculous, and ought to be illegal...

Don't take my word for it, go out and download it and try it - you'll be thanking me.

DNS is nearly impossible to maintain competitively, and naturally the participants will not want to exert any extra effort over what is required to secure their own personal profit.

The problem here is that while there is basically an infinite supply of domain-space (ignoring the quality difference between domains, say sex.com vs afj32f3-f3fanee.ffff12), and thus there could be an infinite supply of domain-space sellers, the infrastructure required to support this is currently non-existant as well as being outside of the control of the would-be domain-space merchants.

Take, for instance, http://www.new.net/ who already offers a domain-space alternative to the government run ICANN monopoly. As far as I can tell they have failed to convince any nameserver software vendor to make the changes to the software necessary in order to support multiple root networks, and instead have turned to rely on modifying Windows's TCP/IP stack (which has been known to break it badly enough to deny all internet access) and which has apparently installed adware in the past (see http://www.cexx.org/newnet.htm ) in order to support their alternative domain system.

Having 10 separate root networks might be cool to try, but in practice, you might get lucky if two or three become popular enough to convince a majority of the ISPs to configure their nameservers to attempt to relay to them (I suspect that the current ICANN situation will convince nameserver vendors to change their code where new.net failed). The remainder will then have to feed off of the suckers... send out mail saying that if they don't buy slashdot.org on foonic, then they'll sell it to someone else and who knows what will happen then (though with 1% of the resolution market, the answer is "probably not much"). Of course, this assumes that an "msnic" doesn't appear, charge $1 per domain for registration, take the world by storm, then turn around and demand that if ISPs want their clients to resolve the most popular domains in the world, they'll have to sign contracts banning them from allowing their clients to resolve using any other network. Afterwards, renewal on those $1 domains will be $50.

IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING .XXX DOMAIN NAMES
Recently, ICANN approved .xxx as a top-level domain. Please note that the .xxx domain available through New.net ("New.net .xxx Domain") is not the same as the .xxx top-level domain that was recently approved by ICANN. Any New.net .xxx Domain will, however, continue to be accessible and operational through the New.net Domain Resolution Network.

I've checked on http://www.new.net/, and guess what? People have already registered popular domain names under .xxx! Here's some of the ones I found, along with their owners:

microsoft.xxx is owned by:
C Angle
cja5481@hotmail.com

10 Bryn Hedydd
Morriston
Swansea, SA6 8BS
GB

yahoo.xxx is owned by:
P.+Adams P.+Adams
biz2004@mail.com

PO+Box+811505

Los Angeles, CA 90081
US

google.xxx is owned by:
Nader Driver
driverinc@hotmail.com

14 Relroy Court

Toronto, Ontario M1W 2Y7
CA

ebay.xxx is owned by:

Xingtao Jiang
sinoleojiang@yahoo.com.cn

Nanjing Road

Shanghai, none 200070
CN

I dunno, but it looks to me like those domains haven't been registered by their respective companies. A WHOIS yields (predictably) nada on any of these, but if they actually go up, I'll be looking forward to the lawsuit landslide.

Did you have a great website running at girlswholikegirlswholikeghandi.xxx? Well, be prepared to lose that domain if you're not quick enough to snatch it up when ICANN offers it. Ryan

Which brings up an interesting question: can ICANN just usurp New.net's market in .xxx domains without compensating New.net for the destruction of their business? I believe this already happened with the .biz extension, which was originally offered by Atlantic Root Network.

- Ryan

Now that .xxx is real, my site doesn't work anymore, even on new.net spywared machines! Gimme my money back!

NewDotNet enabled non-ICANN domain names like .xxx, .family, etc.

http://new.net/

You can take your tinfoil hat off, now.

Spyware provider, internet annoyance, and alternate TLD provider new.net already sells names such as .travel, viewable on computers which have their spyware and via ISPs such as earthlink which they have paid to make their DNS authoritive. This will be interesting... when many already purchased names stop working as soon as ICANN defines them for real. If they're smart, they'll attempt to automatically register for free all previously registered domains with the new registrar... and give full refunds to all which they can't.

(Yet Another Non-Authoritative Namespace Resolution Scheme?)

I tried to RTFA, but my brain blew a buzzword fuse. How does this differ from the various other non-authorative namespace resolution schemes out there selling cute "internet names" that a majority of machines can't resolve?

It suddenly occured to me that the reason I haven't been modded up is that many of you are probably unfamiliar with new.net.

Find more information here.

According their ISP support page, they suggest adding stub zones. Tiscali, NetZero, Juno, Earthlink have added New.net domains to stub zones. Doesn't sound like a client only solution to me.

DNS is a hierarchical system, and the tree has One Root. (There Can Be Only One!) That may or may not have been the best architectural design that could have been done (Pike & Thompson's paper "The Hideous Name" argues credibly that it was a Bad Idea), but that's the way it is. There's no particularly good reason that, just because there's One Root, that ICANN or Verisign or the U.S.Department of Commerce or Jon Postel's Ghost should be in charge of it, and there are many good reasons that they shouldn't be, but again, that's the way it is. (The mathematical term is "Proof by Vigorous Assertion", and it's worked fairly well here.) In fact the Cabal of 13 Root Server Operators, or some big fraction of them, could theoretically decide to stop listening to ICANN and do something better, but they haven't, in spite of much provocation, and it's unlikely that they will.

There are two basic competitors to the ICANN namespace root. One is the various "Open Root" "Alternate Root" "Orange Root" etc. folks who've sprung up and declared that they can be root just as well as ICANN's preferred root, and at one point as much as half a percent of the Internet occasionally used them to resolve TLDs. If 99.5% of the net doesn't use you, you're not in charge. Some of them have gotten into legal squabbles with ICANN or its predecessors over names that both sides claimed, and they've lost.

The more interesting case is people like new.net, who are selling shortcut namespace for subsets of the DNS hierarchy, roughly equivalent to example.newTLD.new.net. They work for two reasons - one is that new.net has gotten a bunch of major ISPs to buy in and resolve new.net names from their nameservers, and another is that most DNS resolvers have a default suffix, so if the suffix is "3ld.2ld.tld" and they can't directly resolve "example.foo", they'll try example.foo.3ld.2ld.tld, example.foo.2ld.tld, and example.foo.tld, so you can usually trick them into resolving "example.newTLD" as "example.newTLD.new.net". If enough people (or their ISPs) buy into this, you can get yourself a real market in those names, and otherwise you'll have a bunch of grumpy customers who explain that you can reach their website or email at "example.newTLD.new.net".

New.net's FAQ says that if ICANN introduces a TLD name that New.net has been selling, than individual users and ISPs will have to decide who to follow, and that new.net thinks they'll have enough market leverage to dominate. That's a big problem for a new.net user "example.newTLD.new.net" if the ICANN registry sells "example.TLD"; it's a smaller problem for them if ICANN has that TLD but none of the ICANN registries have sold "example.newTLD" yet, so maybe they need to land-rush and buy it from ICANN-space. It's $10-20 for the first year, which is the main risk. They knew the product was limited and somewhat risky when they bought it, and the risks and limitations were disclosed up front.

The more interesting case is what happens if somebody buys "example.newTLD.new.net" first and registers it as a trademark, then somebody else buys "example.newTLD" from ICANN-space, and the first group tries to seize the name, either in an ICANN UDRP arbitration, or else in a trademark lawsuit ignoring the ICANN process. Yes, either approach would be much more expensive than just spending the $10-20 to register the name directly, but sometimes somebody else registers it before you do, either as a bad faith cybersquatting ripoff (like really-distinctive-well-known-name.newTLD), or just because it's a commercially obvious generic name (li

DNS is a hierarchical system, and the tree has One Root. (There Can Be Only One!) That may or may not have been the best architectural design that could have been done (Pike & Thompson's paper "The Hideous Name" argues credibly that it was a Bad Idea), but that's the way it is. There's no particularly good reason that, just because there's One Root, that ICANN or Verisign or the U.S.Department of Commerce or Jon Postel's Ghost should be in charge of it, and there are many good reasons that they shouldn't be, but again, that's the way it is. (The mathematical term is "Proof by Vigorous Assertion", and it's worked fairly well here.) In fact the Cabal of 13 Root Server Operators, or some big fraction of them, could theoretically decide to stop listening to ICANN and do something better, but they haven't, in spite of much provocation, and it's unlikely that they will.

There are two basic competitors to the ICANN namespace root. One is the various "Open Root" "Alternate Root" "Orange Root" etc. folks who've sprung up and declared that they can be root just as well as ICANN's preferred root, and at one point as much as half a percent of the Internet occasionally used them to resolve TLDs. If 99.5% of the net doesn't use you, you're not in charge. Some of them have gotten into legal squabbles with ICANN or its predecessors over names that both sides claimed, and they've lost.

The more interesting case is people like new.net, who are selling shortcut namespace for subsets of the DNS hierarchy, roughly equivalent to example.newTLD.new.net. They work for two reasons - one is that new.net has gotten a bunch of major ISPs to buy in and resolve new.net names from their nameservers, and another is that most DNS resolvers have a default suffix, so if the suffix is "3ld.2ld.tld" and they can't directly resolve "example.foo", they'll try example.foo.3ld.2ld.tld, example.foo.2ld.tld, and example.foo.tld, so you can usually trick them into resolving "example.newTLD" as "example.newTLD.new.net". If enough people (or their ISPs) buy into this, you can get yourself a real market in those names, and otherwise you'll have a bunch of grumpy customers who explain that you can reach their website or email at "example.newTLD.new.net".

New.net's FAQ says that if ICANN introduces a TLD name that New.net has been selling, than individual users and ISPs will have to decide who to follow, and that new.net thinks they'll have enough market leverage to dominate. That's a big problem for a new.net user "example.newTLD.new.net" if the ICANN registry sells "example.TLD"; it's a smaller problem for them if ICANN has that TLD but none of the ICANN registries have sold "example.newTLD" yet, so maybe they need to land-rush and buy it from ICANN-space. It's $10-20 for the first year, which is the main risk. They knew the product was limited and somewhat risky when they bought it, and the risks and limitations were disclosed up front.

The more interesting case is what happens if somebody buys "example.newTLD.new.net" first and registers it as a trademark, then somebody else buys "example.newTLD" from ICANN-space, and the first group tries to seize the name, either in an ICANN UDRP arbitration, or else in a trademark lawsuit ignoring the ICANN process. Yes, either approach would be much more expensive than just spending the $10-20 to register the name directly, but sometimes somebody else registers it before you do, either as a bad faith cybersquatting ripoff (like really-distinctive-well-known-name.newTLD), or just because it's a commercially obvious generic name (li

They're defined as subdomains of .new.net. So that site you just registered is really "www.mygoatpr0n.xxx.new.net"

Take a look at their FAQ. To get this to work in linux, you add new.net to your hosts' file's search path, which makes it so if something fails to resolve, it tries again with .new.net added to the end.

ICANN's move doesn't spell trouble for new.net immediately, but the namespace will start to break down when a real www.mygoatpr0n.xxx appears (causing the .new.net version to never be attempted).

get .xxx. At new.net you can get all kinds of crazy extensions, i tried to post `em but: "Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted." so oh well, go check em out.

> they can add it to Internet Explorer and the new TLD will exist literally overnight.

Er, this has already been done. By a little spyware firm called new.net. They sold fake domains on their made-up TLDs, and people infested with their spyware got sent to these domains whenever they typed in a URL containing one.

Pissed off a lot of us geeks because it was basically messing with your computer's DNS settings in a big, nasty way.

Note: Going back to put the link in this post I discovered that they were still in business! I had thought they went under a while back. I know I wouldn't pay for a fake domain that only clueless people would be able to go to...oh wait, actually... that's the ideal customer base--morons!

To my surprise, ".mobile" is not one of their fake TLD's.

Oh, this article has to do with mobile phones. I saw the words "New Net", "battle", and a nonexistant TLD, and got the wrong idea.

This soulds like one of the extensions sold by alternative root new.net. Basically, they claim right to many 'unused' top level names. (such as .tech, .church, .club, .inc, and many more) If/when any of these names wants to be made official, they will most likely claim that since they registered a bunch of them, and since they have their plugin installed on millions of spyware infested computers and partnered with many isps, their registry will have authority for many anyway.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! Look at this image:

New.net partners (not goatse - what's shocking is some of the partners)

If you don't want to access the site, here goes:
Tiscali
Earthlink (WTF?)
Prodigy (I thought SBC/Yahoo bought them out)
NetZero (big surprise)
Juno (ditto)
Tutopia
EasySpace
BulkRegister

Does that count the numbers behind proxies? I know of AT LEAST 10 behind there. Why, oh why, can't someone DDoS new.net (live for a reason - for the DDoS)?

That sounds great, I was so tired of those pesky 'current Web site addresses ending in .com, .net, and other existing top-level domains' and was looking for 'domain names with(out..) greater relevance and meaning'

but it's OK - they do a *nix version

go to the 'enable your browser' link

The Ts and Cs sound great

Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction with the new.net software is to stop using the new.net software. you specifically agree that new.net shall not be liable for losses or liabilities arising in connection with your download, installation or use of the new.net software, including, but not limited to, loss or liability resulting or arising from or in connection with: (a) software conflicts related to the new.net software; (b) data non-delivery, data mis-delivery or unauthorized access to transmissions of data; (c) your infringement of a third party's right; (d) defects or viruses in, or distributed with, the new.net software; or (e) your own use or misuse of your personal computer or the software applications contained on your personal computer

That sounds great, I was so tired of those pesky 'current Web site addresses ending in .com, .net, and other existing top-level domains' and was looking for 'domain names with(out..) greater relevance and meaning'

but it's OK - they do a *nix version

go to the 'enable your browser' link

The Ts and Cs sound great

Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction with the new.net software is to stop using the new.net software. you specifically agree that new.net shall not be liable for losses or liabilities arising in connection with your download, installation or use of the new.net software, including, but not limited to, loss or liability resulting or arising from or in connection with: (a) software conflicts related to the new.net software; (b) data non-delivery, data mis-delivery or unauthorized access to transmissions of data; (c) your infringement of a third party's right; (d) defects or viruses in, or distributed with, the new.net software; or (e) your own use or misuse of your personal computer or the software applications contained on your personal computer

That sounds great, I was so tired of those pesky 'current Web site addresses ending in .com, .net, and other existing top-level domains' and was looking for 'domain names with(out..) greater relevance and meaning'

but it's OK - they do a *nix version

go to the 'enable your browser' link

The Ts and Cs sound great

Your sole remedy for dissatisfaction with the new.net software is to stop using the new.net software. you specifically agree that new.net shall not be liable for losses or liabilities arising in connection with your download, installation or use of the new.net software, including, but not limited to, loss or liability resulting or arising from or in connection with: (a) software conflicts related to the new.net software; (b) data non-delivery, data mis-delivery or unauthorized access to transmissions of data; (c) your infringement of a third party's right; (d) defects or viruses in, or distributed with, the new.net software; or (e) your own use or misuse of your personal computer or the software applications contained on your personal computer

And the fun part is, if you (or the user) uncheck the New.Net software in MSCONFIG, it doesn't just stop New.Net from working... They simply stop being able to use the internet. At all. So then we have to pray that their version of New.Net has a working uninstaller, or we have to go through a huge manual uninstall that involves removing multiple registry keys. BTW, if anyone here gets this or other spyware that is difficult to remove, try using a program called HijackThis and "Fix" anything that looks out of the ordinary (use common sense... don't delete everything).

ok

At one stage Ad-aware removed the new.net file without correctly uninstalling it (thus breaking your network connection).

New.net is one of the dodgiest companies out there - their site suggests that they sell legitimate domain names - unfortunately they don't sell domain names in real TLDs. Their dodgy bit of software makes domain names with non-real TLDs (which they sell) work.

Why not just get a new.net .kids domain.
</sarcasm>

The internet was based off of the ideas of intellectuals and academics, and has turned into a world nearly exactly opposite of what it was initially intended to do. No I'm not against any porn sites or anything else that is "wrong" with the internet today, I'll leave that battle for the conservatives.

What we are seeing here is a group who likes the control they have and they will be damned if they are about to just give it up. And why should they, the only ones who are against them are the ones who have no real say in the matter, in terms of numbers. Have I purchased a few of the DNS entries that ICANN holds, of course, it's the only way that is widely accepted as a way to identify yourself on the internet.

So where do we go from here? Stop supporting ICANN and start supporting something worth supporting. I support OpenNIC, a free and democratic DNS root. And not some democracy that ICANN has created, a real democracy where everyone gets one vote and that's it. The most votes, wins. Simple majority rules type of governance. While they aren't widely advertised like some other Alternate TLD's I can say that they aren't interested in doing this for the money. They are interested in doing this to take away ICANN's power/influence on us all. If we stop financially supporting ICANN than there will really be no reason for them to exist, they will be a company without assests, which in the capitalistic society we Americans live in, sucks.

Basically I see it like this, if we can all band together and show that we as true computer intellectuals can become something great. A group that can out do the professionals. A group that is designed to have a fair DNS system. A group that is not ICANN. A group that is truly INTERNATIONAL. A group that knows that not everything has to be about money. Money is nice, but certainly some things are more important than money, and freedom happens to be one of them.

Don't many dictatorships end in some kind of revolution?

Usually it takes extreme circumstances-- If the dictatorship becomes too oppressive, sooner or later they will be overthrown.

What would it take to overthrow ICANN? I think it would be a tremendous number of egregious crimes that affect a majority of Internet users.

What would an ICANN revolution look like? I don't know. A non-violent overthrow would need a viable replacement, and so far Alternet and new.net don't seem to be getting the traction they need.

Perhaps someone needs to come up with a whole new idea in naming and identifying computers and systems that is technically and practally superior to the current system-- something so compelling that people will choose to use it over ICANN.

I'd be interested in reading suggestions-- what would it take to overthrow ICANN? The Internet is so good at routing around central authorities. So how to bring the power back to the people?

W

Speaking of Second Level Domains (SLDs)... we haven't heard a peep out of New Net in quite some time. They too are selling second level domains. And, they even have a .kids SLD going. I think that the people who are buying these domains are morons. We should all set up an SLD so that every domain on the Net answers to "www.[insert name here].kids.tld".

No, no, no, New.net is not to do with Microsoft's .NET thing. It's some weirdass domain level company that buggers up your IP stack. There aren't any links in the article, but you can find more here [new.net].

How, exactly, does New.net's software mess with the IP stack? At worst, I understand it to be a simple DNS proxy that filters between new.net domains and regular domains. If I try to browse to ladeda.lala, my IP stack doesn't know that's invalid, the DNS server I use does, and returns that error.

At best, note that ladeda.lala.new.net is actually what ladeda.lala is being referenced to. (Try it, you can't browse to www.nike.golf, but you can do www.nike.golf.new.net). So, at best, this plugin should simply make a registry entry to append .new.net to the domain suffix search list. Then, when the DNS servers return a not found for nike.golf, you try again with nike.golf.new.net.

Not that I think this is a particualry useful idea, but I don't see how IP stack corruption could come from this. With that being said, I won't install it to find out. ;)

For instructions on configuring a DNS server to add these domains, see here.For a MS Word doc explaining alternatives to using their plugin, see here. If you're too much of Linux zealot to read an MS Word doc, and won't even use StarOffice to read it on principle, then here it is in plain text glory:

SysAdmin Instructions
Resolving our new TLDs in a business network environment
If your business accesses the Internet via one of our service provider partners, then your staff will be already activated to access the new domains. If not, however, then there are several options open to you to get your company activated.
Enable DNS resolution of our domains without the plug-in
Alternatively, you can enable users to access our domains by adding ".new.net" to the search path in your company's DNS system that you wish to grant such access to; either centrally via the Registry, or locally on each machine via the Append Search Paths option.
Editing the Registry
Under Win2000 and WinNT, the "append these DNS suffixes" data are stored as comma-delimited data in the REG_SZ value "SearchList" in the following registry key:
KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service s\Tcpip\Parameters
You will of course use Regedit to do this task, and you will need to have system administrator status to edit the Registry. Edit the value of "SearchList" to add "new.net" making it the last entry in that key (or the only one if you have no others listed already). You should propagate this change to the machines on your network in the usual manner in which you employ for such updates.
Adding "new.net" to the Domain Suffix Search Order in TCP/IP Properties
In the Control Panel on each machine that you wish to activate for the new domains, Open "Network." Select "Protocols" and then select the item listed there, "TCP/IP Protocol." Now select "Properties." In the properties box select the menu item "DNS." At the bottom of this dialog box is a section headed "Domain Suffix Search Order." Click "Add" and then enter "new.net" and press "Add" again. Now you have successfully added the new.net domain to your DNS search path and all the new domains will now be resolved. Exit the Network control panels.
Note: if you have added new.net to the DNS search path via a Registry change, then this will also appear here too.
(c) by new.net, not by me

No, no, no, New.net is not to do with Microsoft's .NET thing. It's some weirdass domain level company that buggers up your IP stack. There aren't any links in the article, but you can find more here [new.net].

How, exactly, does New.net's software mess with the IP stack? At worst, I understand it to be a simple DNS proxy that filters between new.net domains and regular domains. If I try to browse to ladeda.lala, my IP stack doesn't know that's invalid, the DNS server I use does, and returns that error.

At best, note that ladeda.lala.new.net is actually what ladeda.lala is being referenced to. (Try it, you can't browse to www.nike.golf, but you can do www.nike.golf.new.net). So, at best, this plugin should simply make a registry entry to append .new.net to the domain suffix search list. Then, when the DNS servers return a not found for nike.golf, you try again with nike.golf.new.net.

Not that I think this is a particualry useful idea, but I don't see how IP stack corruption could come from this. With that being said, I won't install it to find out. ;)

For instructions on configuring a DNS server to add these domains, see here.For a MS Word doc explaining alternatives to using their plugin, see here. If you're too much of Linux zealot to read an MS Word doc, and won't even use StarOffice to read it on principle, then here it is in plain text glory:

SysAdmin Instructions
Resolving our new TLDs in a business network environment
If your business accesses the Internet via one of our service provider partners, then your staff will be already activated to access the new domains. If not, however, then there are several options open to you to get your company activated.
Enable DNS resolution of our domains without the plug-in
Alternatively, you can enable users to access our domains by adding ".new.net" to the search path in your company's DNS system that you wish to grant such access to; either centrally via the Registry, or locally on each machine via the Append Search Paths option.
Editing the Registry
Under Win2000 and WinNT, the "append these DNS suffixes" data are stored as comma-delimited data in the REG_SZ value "SearchList" in the following registry key:
KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service s\Tcpip\Parameters
You will of course use Regedit to do this task, and you will need to have system administrator status to edit the Registry. Edit the value of "SearchList" to add "new.net" making it the last entry in that key (or the only one if you have no others listed already). You should propagate this change to the machines on your network in the usual manner in which you employ for such updates.
Adding "new.net" to the Domain Suffix Search Order in TCP/IP Properties
In the Control Panel on each machine that you wish to activate for the new domains, Open "Network." Select "Protocols" and then select the item listed there, "TCP/IP Protocol." Now select "Properties." In the properties box select the menu item "DNS." At the bottom of this dialog box is a section headed "Domain Suffix Search Order." Click "Add" and then enter "new.net" and press "Add" again. Now you have successfully added the new.net domain to your DNS search path and all the new domains will now be resolved. Exit the Network control panels.
Note: if you have added new.net to the DNS search path via a Registry change, then this will also appear here too.
(c) by new.net, not by me

Of course you know pr0n brings people together. There is more and more evidence of this every day.

Today's lesson is that XxX is spelled the same in every language.

I hope you all feel better knowing this.

Some choice quotes from http://www.new.net/about_us_guiding.tp:

"New.net will seek to work with ICANN to ensure stability in the Internet, and we will attempt to work in the best interests of all parties to not interfere with anything that ICANN plans to do." (Clearly, the author of this article would argue with the use of the word "stability".)

"New.net is building a more open registry business that also will enable other parties to introduce new domain name extensions to the millions of users that have access to New.net domain names. New.net will determine which extensions to release in the future, applying the standards set forth below." (You call that open?)

"We are building a DNS infrastructure that is at least as reliable as the root servers that serve .com, .net, .org, .co.uk, and other top-level domains." (I don't consider having to install special software just to get to a URL "reliable", but maybe I'm narrow-minded.)

None of the weird domains run on my boxes, so I suppose that's a good thing right now... *g*

new.net is a company who decided that instead of waiting for the new top level domains to be approved, they'd just start up their own root domain servers and sell the new top level domains themselves.

So if you want to buy sweat.shop, you can go to new.net and do just that.

The software in question is a "plugin" that "fixes" windows to use their dns servers when requesting a domain that ends in ".shop" or whatever.

For more info, don't be so lazy and click on the "About Us" button at the bottom of the new.net homepage

http://www.new.net/about_us_mission.tp

I submitted a story about this on slashdot long ago and, surprise! it was rejected. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought this site and company is worth discussing.

-- Punch the Monkey!

I was about to submit a link to this, but here might be more appropriate

New.net has submitted a proposal for ICANN reform into a more market-based mechanism with policies that are only based on voluntary consensus. An interesting read.

I was about to submit a link to this, but here might be more appropriate

New.net has submitted a proposal for ICANN reform into a more market-based mechanism with policies that are only based on voluntary consensus. An interesting read.

The least you could have done is check your links.

I personally like OpenNIC, but there are even more like Pacific Root and commercial ones like New.Net

Not entirely sure what the big deal with ICANN is anyway. Since their control is only "virtual" and the Internet really does not rely on their existance. In fact, we can do just as well without them. They talk about how there needs to be control for TLDs, etc. But, I say WTF?, I can create my own TLD and tell a bunch of people to use.

Just setup named, and you can create any stupid name that exists. Albeit only those few people you tell will know.

Even better, Click Here and Here.

Yeah it still costs $$$ to register a domain, but your choices are much wider and if everyone sets this up, then ICANN doesn't mean crap anymore.

Quit your whining and do something about it. Going to those meetings ain't gonna do jack. Because corporate people don't give a crap about you. Just go behind their backs and use your own TLDs!!!!!!!!

First of all I have to say I coudln't find where the poll tax bit was mention, except in the previous /. article. But im assuming that the domain registration fees are the tax.

I can't actually figure out how ICANN will get the poll tax. This is because it isn't (in my eyes) democratic - not everyone gets a say, so why should they have to pay tax. For the domain holders paying tax on top of the fee (if that's what was implied) is a bit steep, and will only ensure the rich get a say in "democracy". And the 'ordinary' net users will not have a say at all. It's not really fair at all as they aren't represented, and the board of ICANN seems very dictatorial. I can't see how they will be able to get everyone to pay taxes. But do 'ordinary' users need a say, or even care about how the web is run?

I can now here everyone say "dump ICANN, lets set up our own rootservers". The problem is that many people say this, but there does not seem the will to do such a thing. You would either join another root (e.g. new.net) or you make your own. The problem with new.net is that it still isn't democratic (being a company) so when it is large and sprawling everyone will complain about them instead of ICANN.

Setting up your own root server is too much hard work. Who will fund it? (the people - but what if they don't want to? the web is free, right?) I take it the software is free but the resources for it, incl. the hardware, electricity and bandwidth have to be paid for, by the users. I would imagine most people wouldn't pay at all for something they don't understand or care about. I mean the servers only hold the records of domain owners, and if you're not one, why make the effort to care.

How do you ensure democracy? I'm not a expert on these things ( or anything else :) ) but I would say make a cooperative system of ISP, with many cooperatives each with a rootserver. Either that or a system where governments are in control, but that could come under abuse if the government isn't democratic). The cooperative assigns each ISP votes, and the ISP pays for access to the server. The ISP can then absorbs the fee and the customer doesn't get a vote (but the ISP does), or their may be a slight increase (£1/$1) which gets each customer a vote in a subject where the ISP is their representative (the ISP would have to be obliged to vote what their constituents voted for).

Different cooperatives could be responsible for different TLD's. Users could only access these TLDs (this is the downside - could invalidate a lot of existing stuff) or TLD's from other cooperatives where there is some sort of reciprocal agreement between them. This would solve the problem of identical TLDs between cooperatives. The root servers would be paid for and it would be a democratic way to ensure users get a say (if they join the right ISP). Some existing content might be inaccesible, but a special TLD (e.g. .ext for external) could be created to access existing stuff.

This would give users control. The problem is setting up such a system, and persuading people to move to it.

I know that this is a bit of a rant, but its an idea of how change could occur to make things more democratic. I don't even know how much it actually costs to run a root server, but it must be quite a large amount. There could be flaws in the above system that i can't see but I thought a suggestion would be good since everyone seems to moan about ICANN all the time.

If you installed BearShare then you probably have a DLL in your windowl directory called newdotnetxxx.dll which was installed without your knowledge when you installed BearShare. This DLL nicely hooks into your winsock and gives the company, New.net , a way to sell additional TLDs like .shop or whatever. The prob is you will have a very *fun* time to uninstall it. I eventually scrapped my whole operating system (WinXP) because I cannot connect to the Internet after AdAware removed the DLL. Lesson learned: don't use BearShare, use LimWire.

ICANN is trying to block and fight back at these types of services and re-establish themselves as the organization in charge of TLDs.

http://new.net/ is currently selling domains under a wide array of TLDs (like ".xxx", ".shop", or ".mp3" etc.). They suggest to ISPs to add additional entries to their named.conf, of course, but for end users you can change your "search" in your resolv.conf and add new.net: domains like "www.guitar.mp3" will resolve correctly under "www.guitar.mp3.new.net".