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When Worlds Collide: The New Dot-Biz And The Old
angkor writes: "It seems the new dot biz domain
conflicts with domains registered in an alternative root system." This is where all the alternative root servers conflict with the (ahem) interesting name choices made by the ICANN board.
Oh yeah, good one.
That's exactly what will solve this problem: submission of your site to a quasi-governemental board so that they can judge your content and "allow" you to keep your domain name.
Why do you care if amazon.com takes amazon.person? Is that the first place you're going to look for it? Is that the first place your mom's going to look for it? Or are you going to go to the address that they've spent millions establishing a brand name for? Let them waste their money locking up every possible TLD, they'll just go bankrupt more quickly and eventually they'll all free up again.
I think in the end, ICANN is either going to radically change their policies or become irrelevant. Sooner or later, someone big will become feed-up enough or greedy enough to bolt out of the current DNS structure and that's the end of ICANN. There will probably be some confusing times ahead for DNS resolution, but trying to maintain an artificial scarcity in TLD's isn't doing anyone any good.
I'm going to go to work tomorrow and find some alternate DNS roots to put in our root server list. It's unlikely anyone will even notice, but I might sleep better.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
people come out and say the 'alternative' registrars are not 'official' and stuff, and use different root servers, consider this:
.biz.. suddenly there *is* conflict and all those ISP's who chose to use this service? Fucked.
1) They *are* a business
2) They operate by having root servers that pass queries back to the 'standard' root servers.
So.. if they come out with
Who created this conflicting dot-biz business? I don't this it is an accurate reflection of the popular opinion! The infrastructure was too confusing to create new domain name extensions with. I demand a recount!
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Try going to chatyahoo.com or mailyahoo.com.
I wonder what other addresses has yahoo taken for itself !!
They should prevent Network Solutions, Register.com, and any other existing registrars from participating in this stupid ICAN'T thingy. Those guys have ulterior motives for promoting/not promoting certain tld's. Think about it, do you think they want another registrar to be annointed with the ".web" tld, and thus steal potentially lots of money away from the current .com? Of course not... The last thing Network Solutions wants is competition!!!!
I was unaware of these other root servers. How would I go about making sure my users could resolve these addresses on my dns server? Just add something to the named.root file? And how would this affect things once the ICANN approved dot biz names go into affect? I guess it all just depends on if they honor the old dot biz names and make sure the new ones don't conflict. I am sorta bummed now though. I really wanted to register a three letter version of our company name with .biz......
anyway is it worth it to add these alt root servers to dns?
I can't think of any other resources quite like this. The only thing close is space, and because of the dificulties of just getting there, so little has been used that there have not been any conflicts, (no big ones anyway).
Every other resource I can think of, from radio waves to minerals, are owned by the country they reside in. In this case, no single gov't can control the resource, since it resides everywhere.
The problem with ICAAN is that it has no real authority. They can decree whatever TLDs they want, and set up their nameservers. So can anyone else. ICAAN is well known, but really has no more authority than anyone else...
I hesitate to say that we should have an internationally sanctioned body governing this, but without one, this type of stuff is bound to happen. All part of the internet's growing pains, I suppose.
From the Tidbits Newsletter:
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
You aren't paying for some global .biz...you are paying for a .biz served up by root-servers.net or whatever. That other guy charges you money to get served by a .biz that his servers push out. I could create my own .com hierarchy internally on my network but no one is going to be ludicrous enough to write a news story suggesting there is some kind of monumental conflict.
ICAAN should feel free to ignore whatever anyone else does. After all, this guy ignored what NSI/ICAAN were doing.
Causing a collision anywhere on the Internet is ethically wrong.
a. He presumes his ethics are the same as everyone else's.
b. The collision only occurs when you use non-standard root nameservers. Which is pretty much what you expect to have happen when you try to have two roots in a hierarchy.
You'd think for $50,000 a TLD, someone would have done a little research...
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The Register has an interesting take on the ICANN situation. They cover the possible breaking away of the country TLDs as well as some of the rejected gTLDs from ICANN to alternative root servers. You can find the article here
Mass Debate
Instead of talking about this, let's get our act together and move.
:)
.biz registrants/registrars. So what if they're "the" governing body? The thing that goes on the internet is what works and what is used. Look at DNS itself! One of the biggest hack-jobs in the history of the net. Now it's one of the most necessary protocols/services.
/..
The collective of geeks and what-have-you that are here on slashdot probably have, at their control (or at their influence), a large enough portion of the DNS system to make this kind of thing either a significant issue or a moot point.
Personally, I say those of us who can push for adding the alternative rootservers to our root caches. You don't lose any functionality from the current TLDs, and you gain lookups in the "alternative" ones. Enough people following "alternative" makes it mainstream.
I was pissed when InterNIC started charging for domains -- as were the folks who (unlike me and most of us) got off their asses and started the other registries. Now is when their work is going to pay off or go the way of Beta videotapes.
Just from Internet "precedent," ICANN shouldn't be able to push around the existing
ICANN obviously has pissed us off -- look at how many headlines there have been in the past week on
Tomorrow morning I'm going to ask my supervisor (the owner of a regional ISP) if we can adopt the other root servers. Get out there and ask your boss or ISP or company's net admin or your father or whoever to make the change for you, too.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
It seems to me that the most appropriate section to place this article in would be web scams. Here are con artists on the web tricking people out of money and essentially providing nothing in return. This is not an attempt to "free" the web, it is a scam, pure and simple.
Don't make me use my other sig!!
So, you're anti.pro?
You're right... but why stop there? Let's consolidate even more! How about "food.microsoft.com", "shelter.microsoft.com", "doublethink.microsoft.com"... one-stop shopping!!
Conceded. I went too far with that comment; thank you for the measured response. There's a lot of FUD about, I really shouldn't be adding to it.
Best,
Dave
--
Well, I certainly can't remember the last time I actually _typed_ a URL, and if I type it wrong, well, whose fault is that? Whatever happened to taking responsibility for ones own actions?
The whole idea of people a priori "owning" a name--an address, a location--in this non-physical idea world that WE created seems to me to be completely ludicrous. The reason behind trademark law--reducing fraud--seems to be conveniently forgotten these days. The fact is that the URL is only a convenient mnemonic device. It is a label for a web-site, a street address for electrons. It is not a sign or advertisement. A better name is simply a better street for business.
As for "cybersquatting", the only problem with it is that individuals who honestly paid for a piece of property have had it yanked away from them under the misguided presumption of "ownership" over a string of characters (or even similiar strings!)--no matter what the use is being made of that name. If I was on the ball and snagged www.coke.com before coke did, why shouldn't I be able to sell it to them for an exorbinent price? (Personally I think that any company that shells out big bucks for a web address ought to get some new leadership) On the other hand if I was selling soft drinks on that site using a coca cola like logo, Coke definitely has a case against me, as I am clearly defrauding their customers.
I for one hope that the ICANN monopoly is demolished and an exploratory chaos ensues. A world where property, no matter how virtual, can't be taken away because of some poorly thought out laws, can only be better.
A worthy idea, but the implementation is wrong.
Network apps do not query DNS servers directly (typically, though there are exceptions). Most simply make calls to the OS's resolver, which then forwards requests to the primary DNS server, which then queries a root DNS server.
So, adding code into Mozilla to use alternate root servers would simply be a waste of time and space.
Hacking BIND would be the way to go. You could have bind check to see which kind of TLD is being requested (official or alternate) and then have it query whichever root server. However, the same problems that are associated with having an alternate DNS system are still present (collisions, etc...).
..for there to be "alternative" namespaces on the internet.
But now that I've spend a good two minutes looking around youcann.net, I don't want to bother mucking with config files just to see "the rest of the web".. and I can imagine a future where we'll see links like "Click _here_, and BTW, you have to connect to Misc. Nameserver XYZ to get there.." ugh.
Perhaps if as well as nameservers, we could have nameserver servers.. ugh.
I wonder if this guy sold brooklynbridge.biz, or perhaps swampland.biz...
.biz) reminds me of the guy who sells land on the Moon, Mars, etc... to suckers (he's got a web site somewhere).
People would have had to be fools to register with an alterate root server that had little chance of ever becoming official.
This guy (the guy who ran the alternate
IMHO, one of the major problems that eat up so many domain names is people and businesses thinking they need a foo.com for everything, when bar.foo.com and xyzzy.foo.com would work just as well as bar.com and xyzzy.com.
.com effectivly became .misc1 with things such as celebrity names, TV programms, personal websites, etc. .com should be .com/co. (many times .com.us or .com..us) since plenty of the companies concerned only actually do business to specific geographic areas in the first place.
.com then the SLD must be based on either the registered name or a recognised trading name of your company."
.* behaviour which NSI activly promotes. Instead TLDs with a specific purpose and clearly understood criteria as well as appropriate used of second and third level domains.
It all comes down to lack of proper management by the registrars. At first companies started registering product names, then
Added to which a fair chunk of
Movie labels are awful about this. Do we really need somemovie.com/.net/.org? Why can't we have somemovie.sony.com? or someothermovie.newline.com, and so on?
It's an extension of registering brand names. An alternative would be somemovie.films.ent.
Really someone should have said a long time ago something to the effect of "if you want a
If only dot-commers would pull their heads out their asses just long enough to see what the hell is going on, we might not have any need for new TLDs (well, yet, anyway).
New TLDs could be useful, but they need to be the right TLDs and properly registered. None of this trying to register
In fact I propose that the generic domain names should be banned. Because internet is linking entrie world together, for greedy corporation it is a plus to have a generic site, like .com
.org & .net would not be such a problem if they were well regulated. The problem is how to ensure that they are regulated. Self evidently the current registrars arn't up to the job.
.com and for that matter
TLD's are like real estate. When new TLD's are created, a huge new grant of this real estate is made to the registrars to sell off (and tax at regular intervals) and the potential for millions of new dollars in initial and residual income is created.
Rather this is the way they are being seen by ICANN. It certainly isn't the only way to see them.
You're right, there's a fair amount of power wrapped up in the various slashdot readers. And this slashdot reader sure as hell won't be joining you in your protest.
I know it's trendy to slag off ICANN. I know everyone has their problems with it. I know everyone feels like the only thing they can do against this new authority is to shout about it, or to "rebel". And in that context, splitting the root seems like a fantastic idea.
Don't do it, guys.
Internet "precendent" says that we've tried to work out problems through consensus building. Seriously! We get together in groups like RIPE and NANOG, present our ideas, and try to build consensus. We can fork, yeah, but we fork as little as possible, because when we fork, we split the user base and we are all weaker because of it.
But that's not the worst of it in this case.
Ever since domain space became valuable, there are so many special interests circling it that it's not funny anymore. It's pretty ugly, actually. Consensus building has been pretty impossible because people with dollar signs flashing in their eyes shout louder, and the people who are just plain kooks shout the loudest. That's hurt a lot of the development of DNS in the last few years. The one weapon we've always had against this is caution, and a recognised authority.
All those special interests are sitting, eagerly awaiting the day when a significant majority of admins reject ICANN and switch to another root. When that happens, they'll turn on each other, and that's when it gets ugly.
You think you have user problems because people think that "The Internet" is the thing behind the button on their Windows desktop? That's nothing compared to what we (all of us) will have to deal with if we split the root.
I'm speculating now, but here's my guess. See what you think:
Don't be fooled into thinking that everyone pushing for alternate DNS has the good of the internet at heart. Some of them mean well, I'm sure. Some of them are sound guys. I'm equally sure that some of them are out to grab a piece of the gold mine that is DNS, and are willing to damage it in the process. Believe it or not, ICANN is the one thing standing between us and a corporate takeover of the internet.
Yeah, I just wrote that with a straight face. I mean it.
To drag this back on topic? We're seeing the beginning of this now. Everyone's been bitching at ICANN to hurry up and introduce some new TLDs already (watch for buzzwords such as "artificial scarcity" in other slashdot posts near you!) What happened? Someone tried to preempt them and lured a some-thousand userbase to give themselves some credence. What do ICANN do here? Reject potentially better-prepared proposals for favour of this one? I don't think that's fair.
Guys, you really should know better than to measure something's worth through the count of its [slashdot|newspaper] headlines. Jon Katz had this one nailed down years ago. A lot of the criticism against ICANN is genuine; a lot of it's crud; and a lot of it ignores the best interests of the internet.
Think for yourselves. Don't be afraid not to fork.
Dave
Posted with mozilla 20000112721--
Look at the EM spectrum; as to prevent pollution of one signal into another, the band has been divided into several segments and 'rented' out appropriately.
.com should become .misc1, .org .misc2, .net .misc3 and .edu .misc4...
.biz case is demonstrating.
.biz situation is more like IATA wanting to use a radio band already in use by a consortium of civil airlines.
.biz already has this kind of charter. NSI is about the worst possible choice for a default, since they are responsible for the mess in the first place. If anything they should loose all their domains immediatly.
As opposed to having every form of RF transmission known to man on the same band. Which would be a closer analogy with the current domain system. Effectivly
Pollution from one 'domain' into another is very easy to happen here, as the
No the
The cause of the kind of "pollution" is gross mis-managment by existing registrars (NSI especially) and by implication ICANN.
The only thing that should be restricted here is that any new TLDs should have some charter that all sites within it should abide by (ie, regulated domains), and if too many abuses of this are reported to ICANN, the register will lose that TLD to a default register (NSI most likely) or another register if appropriate.
The existing
Then get yourself an alternative root zone from the SuperRoot Consortium and let your local nameserver use that one instead. For dnscache users this is as simple as replacing the contents of the .../root/servers/@ file with:
BIND users will please follow the instructions found here.Now, the new root servers provide the same service as the old ones -- i.e., they will resolve names in the .com, .org, .net, etc. TLDs, plus they will provide access to a whole bunch of alternative TLDs like, e.g., .ocean (try www.atlantic.ocean), .wine and so on. This system is plugin-compatible with the old ICANN't system (well, there's now a conflict with the .biz TLD, but who cares?).
Go try it -- you'll like it! :-)
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
That said, I think they should also go away. The have good ideas, but I think they should try to influence ICANN instead of creating a rouge system.
Here's a brief history of DNS, as made-up by me (i.e. I'm doing some guessing, but it seems reasonable):
When the Internet was new, all people had were IP addresses. Having to remember many of these got to be a pain, so they assigned names to each computer and kept them all in the eqivalent of a hosts file on each computer. Maintaining and updating this file got to be a pain as the Internet got larger. Modern DNS was born to solve this. Root servers, each organization responsible for it's own namespace, etc.
DNS is a names-to-numbers system for the Internet! People are treating it like a keyword system for the WWW. It's not. If you want one of those, by all means, make one. Or just use Yahoo or something. Don't try to use DNS, because everything ends up as www.keyword.com and www.bignewmovie.com, which is pointless - and has polluted the .com TLD.
Back to my best guess of history: Our current TLD make sense to me, given the history of the Internet.
What new groups have joined the Internet? I see a need for a TLD for individuals, maybe .per (personal) or .idv (individual). I don't quite know how to resolve the dispute when everyone wants johnsmith.per, though.
If we want to stick with the current TLD, we should enforce, somehow, their correct use. The rules should be strict enough that most organizaions will fit into only one TLD. None of this grabbing foobar.* .
New TLDs need only be as broad as the old. I mean, what is .museum compared to .com or .org?? The idea of .misc is interesting, but that just encourages the "keyword" behavior. Maybe it could be .keyword if we really can't do without it.
Or else we could scrap the current TLDs. I like that idea too. Make it all usenet-style too.
Yeah, it would be cool, but what happens if my alternative root system has an abc.123 registered, and your alternative root system also has an abc.123 registered, who wins? And how do I check before registering an abc.123 on my system to see if none of the other systems already use that? By aggregating all the data into one central database, you've just destroyed the concept of alternative root systems. It really doesen't work.
humor for the clinically insane
great comedy company.
In principal, I couldn't agree more.
playstation.sony.com is logical, it saves an url-typer the job of typing a redundant "www" (autocompletion will fix the url after a few letters) and it also gives the name "sony" some spotlight.
In practice, www.playstation.com draws more visitors than playstation.sony.com. Browsers expect that a user typing "playstation" might be looking for www.playstation.com/net/org and will try these if there is no local server called "playstation"
And as long as the "excesss" domain playstation.com gets more visitors than the alternative, don't expect sony to stop squatting.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
ent -- entertainment sites (for movies and games)
You missed the obvious one here, could have something like "music.madonna.music.ent".
n addition, the registrars would be required by ICANN to have registrants submit a link to the proposed site (or submit a copy of the entire site on a CD, DVD, or other storage media). The registrar would then review the site content, and judge whether or not the requested TLD would be appropriate for the site.
The assumption that a domain implies website is flawed. Also the idea is too complex and time consuming. Far better IMHO to have a working complaints procedure. e.g. someone could simply email to complaints@register.biz a message to the effect that www.foobar.biz does not appear to be a legitimate business/has ceased trading/etc.
Why do you care if amazon.com takes amazon.person?
Depends if there is someone called "amazon", he or more likely she is likely to be none too happy about some bookseller using their name.
I'm concerned about the .pro tld. Who gets this elite status?
Probably not the "professionals" who qualify for it twice, given that it is also an abbreviation of their profession.
First, what's easier to remember:
- slashdot.org
- slashdot.andover.net
The first one, I'd say. Especially for Ma & Pa Oneclick McNewbie. But that's not the only reason...Say I wanted to host a porn site that featured nothing but really, freakishly tall women from all over the world, and I was going to call it something really witty like Amazon Nudes. By your reasoning, instead of going for www.amazonnudes.com, I should go for amazon.nudes.com, or nudes.amazon.com.
Assuming nudes.com exists, I might be able to work out an agreement with them. But I'm at their mercy, and have to pay what THEY ask for. My own .com name might be cheaper, and easier to remember. As for nudes.amazon.com... well, let's just say I don't like lawyers, and wouldn't invite them in by even TRYING to do that.
"There's a party," she said,
"We'll sing and we'll dance,
It's come as you are."
Maybe the same will happen with the holders of "alternative" .biz domains. They'll just sue to prevent anybody from getting the "legit" version. After all, it's their name, and they have something invested in it.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I often hear the radio ads for .tv domains. Which cost more to register. The ads state that since your company is new and fresh to the internet it is better.
.biz it is even worse. Not only are you late, but you are late and spending a lot more money to make up for it.
Frankly I think it says you are late to the boat and are lucky to jump on.
Now with
Business-wise this is not something I respect.
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
So this implies that all ICANN is doing now is making sure computer-illiterate people can surf the net.
Now, there is more to this. Look at the EM spectrum; as to prevent pollution of one signal into another, the band has been divided into several segments and 'rented' out appropriately. Sure, there are a few times where ham radio people can get into teh wrong band that's typically used for air traffic control, but for the most part this works. The internet domain space is the same way, when you consider that there is only a good number of limited 3-or-more letter words that can work as a TLD. Pollution from one 'domain' into another is very easy to happen here, as the .biz case is demonstrating. So does there need to be an organization that divides these domain air waves appropriately, which is what ICANN can do. But if you continue the analogy further, two things show up:
- The TLD spectrum is practically infinite, bounded only by length at n^26 possible domains. While some are more desirable than others (as it's generally easier to broadcast over certain ranges compared to others in regards to power consumption and signal quality), all are effectively possible.
- ICANN is maintaining an artifical sarcity on TLDs. Because the spectrum is infinite, and we've only scratched a tiny fraction of the spectrum, ICANN's role should be evaluating proposals for any new domains at *any* time, not just when they feel like it. As long as the domain register is faithful and trustworthy and there isn't conflict with a previous domain, then ICANN should grant the new TLD. The only thing that should be restricted here is that any new TLDs should have some charter that all sites within it should abide by (ie, regulated domains), and if too many abuses of this are reported to ICANN, the register will lose that TLD to a default register (NSI most likely) or another register if appropriate. This will prevent the need for trademark owners to spend thousands to 'complete the set' because there's more than enough domains to effectively protect the trademark in them all, and in some, trademark protection may not even be possible.
But as ICANN stands right now, they are merely a grinning government appointed panel making sure that Joe Q Public can read his stock quotes every morning and his porn every night.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
And how is that much different than using subdomains? Rather than
ross.com ross.ross ross.cool ross.yeti ross.irc ross.sil ross.silly
you'd have ross.com, ross.ross.com, cool.ross.com, yeti.ross.com, irc.ross.com, sil.ross.com, silly.ross.com, and so on.
IMHO, one of the major problems that eat up so many domain names is people and businesses thinking they need a foo.com for everything, when bar.foo.com and xyzzy.foo.com would work just as well as bar.com and xyzzy.com. Movie labels are awful about this. Do we really need somemovie.com/.net/.org? Why can't we have somemovie.sony.com? or someothermovie.newline.com, and so on?
Other markets are just as bad, however. Why do we need a playstation.com, when playstation.sony.com would work just as well? And don't even get me started on crap like all the planet*.com sites. How about quake.planet.com rather than planetquake.com?
As much as I dislike themes (not that themability is bad, just that most themes are poorly-designed, pixmap-heavy, vomit-inducing eyesores), themes.org got this right. You want blackbox themes? Try blackbox.themes.org. You want themes for IRC clients? How about irc.themes.org? And so on.
If only dot-commers would pull their heads out their asses just long enough to see what the hell is going on, we might not have any need for new TLDs (well, yet, anyway).
Just my $0.02.
.biz -- for businesses and corporations .xxx -- porn sites (censorware can just block these TLDs)
.com, but would be allowed to take .biz, but not .person. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos can take .person, put his page up, and link to Amazon from there.
.sex,
.person -- personal webpages
.tld -- propose new TLDs to ICANN as needed, plus link to registrars who offer existing TLDs.
.ent -- entertainment sites (for movies and games)
I know there are others that can be added to this list, so feel free to suggest more.
In addition, the registrars would be required by ICANN to have registrants submit a link to the proposed site (or submit a copy of the entire site on a CD, DVD, or other storage media). The registrar would then review the site content, and judge whether or not the requested TLD would be appropriate for the site. If the registrant's application is rejected, the registrar would then suggest a more appropriate TLD for the site to use, and ask the registrant if he/she would like that TLD instead. For example, Amazon.com would be allowed to keep
The reason web browsers don't have DNS stuff is that it would just be unnecessary bloat. It doesn't belong in the web browser; it belongs in the TCP/IP stack. The web browser (probably) isn't the only program you run on your computer that needs to look up addresses. If the Mozilla team put DNS stuff into their project, everyone would rightfully laugh at them.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
OK then, don't hack Mozilla, hack Wsock32.dll. That's supposedly not too hard to do, although I've never had a reason to try it myself. I'm pretty sure there are some instructions on how to hack this DLL on the 'net.
Thanks for all the "bind" stuff, but it's totally useless on Windows.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Think for yourselves. Don't be afraid not to fork.
I do think for myself, as do most people on the net with the expertise and clout to choose their own root servers.
Forking is a grand tradition of the internet. Disagreement and chosing one's own path is inherent in the very philosophy behind much of the internet.
What the ICANN is engaged in is a profound usurping of the open and free nature of the net and a powergrab of megalomaniacal portions, and should be resisted and fought by all good people everywhere.
Six months ago I changed my employer's root servers to point to opennic. I saw what ICANN was becoming then and chose not to wait until the proverbial fertilizer struck the rotating blades, but rather to act proactively.
I must say I have been impressed at how well opennic does work. Not a single DNS problem or complaint in six months, and name resolution times that are actually more snappy than before.
From a political/freedom point of view Opennic is good in that it is truly democratic, supports both the alternic and icann namespaces (sans the new domains), as well as democraticly created TLDs of its own.
I encourage others to take a look-see. It is my hope that FreeNet's pending naming/key service will allow us to dump DNS altogether, but until that happens opennic is at least open, fair, and democratic, unlike ICANN and many of its corporate rivals.
And so what if the internet becomes fragmented? Worst case, we can send each other our IP addresses in the exact same way we share phone numbers today. More likely, such fragmentation would take the wind out of the sails of such entities as ICANN, preventing both their power grab from succeeding and perhaps pre-empting similarly inappropriate powergrabs in the future and leading to some kind of reasonable and equitable compromise. Do you really think entities such as ICANN and NSI would compromise in any fashion otherwise? Based on their behavior to date, not bloody likely.
With any luck we'll be able to replace the heirarchical, centrally controlled DNS namespace with something less prone to corruption and domination, such as that being proposed by FreeNet. Until then, please consider opennic as a free, democratic alternative to ICANN and Alternnic.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What is someone in another country going to think when they look at the word "business" and look at ".biz" and wonder where the hell the "z" came from?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
-Jeff
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
OK, I just visited some sites that explained the basic ideas. If I want to view the other TLDs, I have to change my network settings. If I do that, I lose my ISP's fairly reliable dynamicly assigned DNS servers.
With IE, there is no way to work around this. With Mozilla, you could patch it to use regular DNS lookups for ICANN TLDs, and hit alternative DNS servers for other TLDs.
So, how about it? Why doesn't Open Source put it's coding where its mouth is? If they did this, it might actually give me a reason to use Mozilla.
Right now, the only reason I have a Netscape browser at all is to make sure my web pages look OK in Netscape!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?