Slashdot Mirror

So it'll work fine for the folks who want it to work most: people in Russia, with Russian ISPs.

It turns out it will also work for me. I set my DNSServer to be someone who does opennic resolving. I was immediately able to visit http://www.opennic.glue/ You're right that I would not be able to send them email without configuring a different smart mailserver.

But I don't think it is reasonable to say that the whole thing won't work because your ISP sucks and transparent proxies you.

however, openNIC is alive and well and kicking much ass. (or http://www.opennic.unrated.net for the unenlightened...)

As another person mentioned this already, e-mailing them is a waste of time unless you're a corporation with extra cash.

How do you fix this problem? DON'T USE THE ICANN ROOT SERVERS. Easy as that.

Plug: OpenNIC (for ICANN users) and OpenNIC (for OpenNIC (and its peers) users)

Or, you can just go here and log in if you're already a member. (If not, see the first link and learn how to resolve the second one.)

To get a .indy domain, go to http://www.opennic.glue/tlds.html (or http://www.opennic.unrated.net/tlds.html for those without OpenNIC set up), which'll provide a link to http://www.opennic.indy/, which should have all the info you need. In short, mail the hostmaster. Policies are available there too...

Unfortunately, if you DON'T have your DNS set up to deal with OpenNIC, the .indy links above won't work, but it's fairly trivial to do so. I've been running with OpenNIC for months now, and haven't seen any DNS problems at all.

One solution to the problem of Top Level Domains controlled by large corporations is www.opennic.glue or www.opennic.unrated.net for those of you who can't resolve the .glue TLD. From the FAQ

"What is the OpenNIC?
The OpenNIC is a user owned and controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic, non-national, alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries.
Users of the OpenNIC DNS servers, in addition to resolving host names in the Legacy U.S. Government DNS, can resolve host names in the OpenNIC operated namespaces as well as in the namespaces with which we have peering agreements (at this time those are AlterNIC and The Pacific Root).

Who makes up the OpenNIC?
Membership in the OpenNIC is open to every user of the Internet. All decisions are made either by a democratically elected administrator or through a direct ballot of the interested members and all decisions, regardless of how they are made, within OpenNIC are appealable to a vote of the general membership."

OpenNIC currently resolves .indy, .geek, .null, .oss, or .parody. I am not sure what (if any) protection exists against the IRC problem, but I think since it is a democratic system, a 14-year old kid (with bad intentions) is not going to be able to convince enough people to vote for him. They do have a strict policy on spamming, too.

Since a lot of you are having DNS problems, it might be a good time to switch to OpenNIC DNS servers. I did a week ago and it is very cool. You'll be able to resolve legacy DNS zones, such as .com, .net, and .org, but you'll get the cool, open zones as well.

There is a list of public servers, but please use the tier 2 DNS servers. Find the lowest latency servers and follow the directions if you don't know how to set up DNS.

Then, if you get into it, get a .geek domain! Don't worry if you can't go to the .geek NIC yet, you'll have to set up the open DNS servers for your machine or network.

P.S.

My AT&T@Home came back up two days ago (Seattle).

Since a lot of you are having DNS problems, it might be a good time to switch to OpenNIC DNS servers. I did a week ago and it is very cool. You'll be able to resolve legacy DNS zones, such as .com, .net, and .org, but you'll get the cool, open zones as well.

There is a list of public servers, but please use the tier 2 DNS servers. Find the lowest latency servers and follow the directions if you don't know how to set up DNS.

Then, if you get into it, get a .geek domain! Don't worry if you can't go to the .geek NIC yet, you'll have to set up the open DNS servers for your machine or network.

OpenNIC is a user owned, international Network Information Center alternative to the
traditional Top-Level Domain registries. OpenNIC was started in 2000 as a reaction to the growing concern about the lack of democratic control within the ICANN. The best thing you can do to help this initiative is to point your root-nameserver(s) and/or your resolving configuration to the OpenNIC nameservers. You'll still be able to resolve all the traditional ICANN TLD's, but you'll also have access to the new TLD's. Also check out this FAQ document.

We are not breaking the old DNS. We agree completely with ICANN on the importance of the stability of the inclusive namespace. We absolutely will not touch a TLD or domain that is outside of our purview.

Our root.cache file is here (or here). See for yourself. There are no .us domains in it whatsoever.

The OpenNIC claims only 5 TLDs. We have over 500 registered members - growing fast - and many more users.

Finally, pointing resolve.conf at ANYONE gives that party control of what you see. I think the OpenNIC is more worthy of user trust than any other root, including ICANN/VGA. This is because the entire organization is governed by the vote of its members, much like the Debian people. So nobody's cutting deals behind the scenes.

Get it straight, Cleatus. You're embarassing yourself.

We are not breaking the old DNS. We agree completely with ICANN on the importance of the stability of the inclusive namespace. We absolutely will not touch a TLD or domain that is outside of our purview.

Our root.cache file is here (or here). See for yourself. There are no .us domains in it whatsoever.

The OpenNIC claims only 5 TLDs. We have over 500 registered members - growing fast - and many more users.

Finally, pointing resolve.conf at ANYONE gives that party control of what you see. I think the OpenNIC is more worthy of user trust than any other root, including ICANN/VGA. This is because the entire organization is governed by the vote of its members, much like the Debian people. So nobody's cutting deals behind the scenes.

Get it straight, Cleatus. You're embarassing yourself.

When is ICANN going to realize that DNS is not rocket science? And when is the internet citizenry going to realize that they DO have a choice in their namespace? I mean, do you just accept all the defaults when you install an OS or an application? Of course not, you choose the options that are right for your needs and purposes. The choice of namespace should be the same way.

My 2 cents.

Claim your namespace.