Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the rollin'-em-out dept.
babycakes writes "Yesterday ICANN unanimously approved a proposal to add a number of new TLDs, to be determined at a later date. Here's the story on InfoWorld and at the BBC."
We've gone over this a hundered times..porn won't work. Forcing people in one domain is impossible on a large scale (and the censorship, etc), but keeping a domain clean isn't as bad. That's why we've got.kids in the works.
A.porn domain would be good, if most of the porn was collected under a single TLD it would be easy to block it at schools and so
blocking via domainnames? I think you'd better block via IP, most of those kids are smart enough to figure this out... Anyway the most illegal porn won't be located under http//www.lolita.porn. but under http://fctnts14d017.nbnet.nb.ca/~xydds/ this is why filtering wont work...
Define porn. That's the problem with ideas like a.porn or.xxx domain - who defines it? For example, what about nudism? It's nakedness with genitals visible (oh no!). Porn? not a chance, in my book, but what about Ashcroft's book.
Besides, who is going to enforce such a separation? it may not even be constitutional here in the US, and there will always be a country with less-stringent rules that sites can take refuge in.
In short, such a proposal will not work. Get over it. Sex is a fact of life. If you find porn distasteful (I do, personally) DON'T LOOK.
We need a.porn TLD immediately! This would make my web surfing so much more efficient. I hate going to web pages that don't have pictures of naked women. What a waste of time.
The trouble with '.kids' is that you end up with the intersection of everybody's ideas of what is suitable for kids. If you've met the kind of religious cunt who glues together the pages dealing with evolution in the family encyclopaedia, you'll see the problem.
That's a great idea. I just opened a new hotel in St. Louis called Hotel Ectrics Ex in the latin district, but it turns out some bastard already registered hotelectricsex.com. Move all those pervs to.porn so legitimate businesspeople like myself can run our businesses!
The trouble with '.kids' is that you end up with the intersection of everybody's ideas of what is suitable for kids.
It's exactly the same issue as with the.porn domain idea. The only way it might be workable would be as a secondary or tertiary domain within a geo-specific hierarchy.
The courts. Law is full of 'man on the Clapham omnibus'-style subjective definitions. Why should porn be different?
In which case you don't want a.porn TLD in the first place. You need to have something which follows the jurisdiction of the courts. e.g..porn.clapham.london.uk.
Legislators would devise some 'reasonable wankability' test, which the courts would interpret and apply.
You'd need to get 200 odd legislatures to agree, being as they can't even manage this on the simpler problem of prosecuting war criminals it's a bit of a waste of time trying.
It's exactly the same issue as with the.porn domain idea
With.porn, you define a domain positively based on its content. It's easy to imagine a whole list of such domains dealing with different types of 'controversial' material, say, domians which dealt with comparitive religion, explicit but non-porn sexual matters, and so on. These domains would be blockable by arbitrarily liberal or prudish parents
.kids is different, in that it's a catch-all containing everything left over when you remove the unsuitable material. Further, it has to be suitable for children in the most repressive households, or else word gets out among some religious community that.kids allows unfettered access to material dealing with sexual health, evolution, atheism, blood transfusions, or other such horrors.
While I have to agree with you on your point, I think the idea of a.porn domain is a wonderful one. Legitimate pornography businesses could migrate themselves to.porn and not bother anybody. They know that people looking for porn will seek it out, and those that want to filter it out wont. If a few big outlets move over to a new domain, people will begin to only trust that particular domain. While it is a VERY distributed industry, resonance can shift the whole thing very quickly.
--
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The only way it might be workable would be as a secondary or tertiary domain within a geo-specific hierarchy.
Excellent! This will make it much easier for me to find pictures of hot German chicks at *.PORN.DE, withouth having to look through ugly Russian girls (now at *.PORN.RU).
I don't think porn sites should be forced into it. It's better to somehow make it cool for porn sites to have a.porn address.
"Cool"? Pornography on the internet isn't a high-school popularity contest-- it's about making money. Making.porn "cool" might get a few porn site operators who still idolize Fonzie, but for the rest of 'em you're going to have to appeal to their pocketbooks.
-- If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You are right. There's no useful purpose for TLDs. Even though you could use them to easily distinguish your business between a kids site, a movie, and a store, they really have no practical point.
We could abolish all TLDs! That way we wouldn't have to remember if it was w3.org or w3.com; we could just go to "w3"
But lets go a step further. Domains are just a way to concentrate power in the hands of a few people (corporate boards get many of them - a person here or there can buy a domain for $35 and sell it for $100,000) so we should get rid of them.
Of course, then it becomes hard to go anywhere, if you keep the same browsing methods. Many places might still be vying for the same name.
So how about a system where everyone who wants can sign up for a "site" under a particular name. So when you type the name in, it brings up a list of results that match the search you entered, with the most popular results being first.
Or...
How about to don't complain about TLDs being worthless and instead come up with a plan to replace ICANN?
-- That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
You know, I've seen a number of discussions here on.xxx or whetever, and I haven't come across a reason why it wouldn't work. I mean it's not forcing people to go there any more than the word 'Pornography' is forced to be under the P in a dictionary. Oh, the horror, the censorship!
Also, why wouldn't the x-rated want to be under a.xxx TLD? It only makes 'em more easy to find, and anyone who's looking for porn will find it anyway. And anyone who doesn't want to find it will click away anyway. The ones who would want to stay under.com or whaterever (then infamous whitehouse.org comes to mind) are of such questionable character anyway that one would think they should be forced to disclose their intentions anyway. Plus of course, economically speaking, clustering of similar services has allways been a good thing.
As for enforcement...if there's enough to go into a discussion if something is porn or not, the site in question should probably be under.xxx in the first place (otherwise there wouldn't be a discussion!). Yes, some fundamentalist could make the wrong call....but that's the case anywhere, whether in movie ratings, ideological things or anywhere where there is a judgement call to be made. And I should think it's just as easy to shoot off an email over whether that site under.kids is 'dirty' or that site under.net/.org/.com/.whatever is carying x-rated material.
Uh, yes, that's the point. To sell more by putting your stuff where people will expect to find it. That's why plumbers advertize in the Yellow Pages under "plumbing" rather than "photography."
Thanks for the link; an intelligent one at that! (who would have expected that here at/.;) )
Anyway, commenting as I go, the 'pornographers' seem to think it's a good idea, while the "National Law Center for Children and Families in Fairfax, Virginia" doesn't...odd, that.
"...raises privacy and free speech concerns"
I still don't entirely get this one. So libraries are bad because they put stuff like The baron de Sade into their erotica catalogue? This is bad how? And as long as it';s still available, how does this repress free speech?
"In 2002, the US Congress mandated the creation of a kids.us domain for "child safe" material. This was after being convinced that, for reasons some of which are described in the following section, trying to legislate standards for the whole world with a.kids domain was inappropriate."
Uhm...so they mandate something they think won't work? But if.kids can work, so wil.xxx (which actually has industry backing!).
Then comes a bit about how sexuality differs in the world. This is actually a good point, but easily accounted for with correct national subdomains (.xxx.us,.xxx.nl or.us.xxx,.cs.xxx, whatever).
the comes this: "The American Civil Liberties Union -- and other members of the international Global Internet Liberty Campaign -- caution that publishers speaking frankly about birth control, AIDS prevention, gay and lesbian sex, the social problem of prison rape, etc., could be coerced into moving to an adult domain. Once there, they would be stigmatized and easily blocked by schools, libraries, companies, and other groups using filtering software. Publishers of such information who do not view themselves as pornographers and retain their existing addresses could be targeted for prosecution."
Which is as it should be: the discussion should always be held on a case by case basis, as I can contend that the Venus de Milo is art and that the movie of a gangbang isn't. I can contend that as the maker of that movie, I consider it art, but it's the mayority's opinion that matter here...that's what forms morals and values of a group; the mayority's opinion. And the vetting on a case by case basis is especially important because a societies values change over time.
As for opening the door to more of this kind of thing...that's actually a good thing. What if you should go to simpsons.tv to find your Simpsons website? Or what about discussion.republic.vs.constitutionalmonarchy.poli tics? Oh, that's right, newsgroups already do this, to good effect!
Then the language barrier...wow, did you know that in some countries with a car license plate of the sort aa-bb-11, you see the word co-ck-34 come up? Oh, the horror! Grow up, is my advice.
OK, now for the tech part: first off the ridiculous assumtpion of the operator being able to reroute traffic from www.purity.com to www.obnscene.example.xxx...wow, a DNS operator can do that already! This is FUD, pure and simple.
Then they talk about spam...uh, different problem, maybe? One that hasn't been handled with the current setup, maybe? One which can be reduced by filtering aal mail from someone@something.XXX, maybe?
Actually, IRC, nesservers et al are beyond the scope here! We're talking about the web, nothing more! You know, the web, where our kiddies surf for porn? The one where we talk about pages, instead of channels, www. instead of ftp or irc?Tackle each problem on a separate basis, please.
Then the 'problem' with IP numbers...with IP6 (or IP8, IP128 for all I care), that is a non-issue. He says it is, but he's wrong. A honcho at Motorola should know better, period. Especially considering that IP and DNS (! and DNS is where.xxx would reside!) are two different things! His entire argument in this area is misguided and just doesn't apply!
.kids is different, in that it's a catch-all containing everything left over when you remove the unsuitable material. Further, it has to be suitable for children in the most repressive households, or else word gets out among some religious community that.kids allows unfettered access to material dealing with sexual health, evolution, atheism, blood transfusions, or other such horrors.
The problem is that you are not thinking globally here. The issues listed are rather specific to some parts of the US. How much common ground do you think could be found in the "suitable for children" between China, India, Sweden, Brazil, Libya and the US?
When will the United States finally have to act like everybody else and use ".us" for sites hosted in the country? I'm sure Microsoft and Netscape would just autocomplete that part, like they do with "http://".
Because, quite frankly, the US government created the internet. All other TLDs such as.net,.org, and.com are not limited to US companies and organizations. The same thing most likely applies to the new TLDs that will be proposed. These are just additional TLDs to the already existing country code TLDs.
Who created it is irrelevant. There are more people on the internet in Europe than in the US. We keep making up names that are English, and yes, while it is a common second language, it's not the best idea. The internet is all about sharing (info, etc), not about the English language's ability to control technology.
When will the United States finally have to act like everybody else and use ".us" for sites hosted in the country? I'm sure Microsoft and Netscape would just autocomplete that part, like they do with "http://".
It's not mandatory to use the two-letter country suffixes for non-US sites. For example, jungle.co.uk (an online retailer of computer goods and so on) is just a re-direct to jungle.com, even though they do business exclusively in the UK.
Also, the.US domain has recently been opened up to general use. It's available from a number of different registrars, for example here and here and here, to name a few.
Regarding auto-completing parts of URLs, note that the "http" protocol is universal to web sites. (Well, if you count https, but anybody using that for an entire site will have an unencrypted redirect page if they have the first clue what they're doing.) It is interesting, though, to try different browsers with just random words typed into the location bar. Internet Explorer, for example, will interpret "foobar" as a search term and direct you to a MicroSoft owned search engine where it will search for foobar. Phoenix (and most likely NS7, Beonex, and their common progenitor Mozilla) will assume that you meant http://www.foobar.com/ and send you there.
.com,.org,.net and.edu can be registered for from any country. It's not like the US is forcing sites located in other countries to use their tld's (as if we could). Also, the reason that it appears that the US has a 'monopoly' on those 4 domains is because the internet started here.
-- Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded.
-- Yoda the Retard
(Well, if you count https, but anybody using that for an entire site will have an unencrypted redirect page if they have the first clue what they're doing.)
In a perfect world, a web browser would not assume 'http', but try every protocol it knows about in turn. I think it's perfectly reasonable that an organization might want its entire site accessible only by SSL, and I think it's annoying that we have to set up a non-SSL site solely to issue redirects for those people that just type "www.example.com"...
I can only speak of own experiences.. lots of swedish companies register.com addresses and even those.nu addresses. The reason to that is that "nu" is "now" in english. So "http://tv.nu" is read as "TV Now". Oh, you got the point?:-)
Anyway, guess how popular a.now would become if there was one for english people.:-)
-- Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
All very nice, but when the CEO demands IT get him a website with domain ".big-corp.com", you try telling him no and he now has to have "www.big-corp.screw-customers-for-profit"...of course you could always threaten, sorry, legally pressure some poor little geek for his personal domain, 'cos its got your company name in it.
-- Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
Re:Very nice but...
by
mpe
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· Score: 3, Interesting
All very nice, but when the CEO demands IT get him a website with domain ".big-corp.com", you try telling him no and he now has to have "www.big-corp.screw-customers-for-profit"...of course you could always threaten, sorry, legally pressure some poor little geek for his personal domain, 'cos its got your company name in it.
Thing is that if.com were managed properly this "poor little geek" would have had to go to the trouble of registering "big-corp" as a business in at least two countries before they'd have had any chance of getting.big-corp.com The interesting thing is that many real transnational businesses want to chop their market up into regions (even single countries) anyway.
I don't think this guys topic is especially off-topic.
They have failed miserably to promote the names introduced in 2000. How many web addresses have you seen with.biz or.info... seriously?
I've seen a few small companies here in Scotland with the newest suffixes and I get angry at the marketing company who set them up, before the names have "bedded in".
As a result, these.biz etc websites will be getting very little traffic outside of google's spiders.
I've actually missed a few firms because I was looking for a.com /.co.uk address and never thought of.biz, and I'm a clued up slashdot-using internet professional, so what chance does the rest of userland have?
Maybe it's because .biz looks just as respectable as .mob... No really, some people just want to have the plain old .com over any new fangled invention (never mind the dot bomb era).
I've had my computer pointing to them for a while now, and everything works swimmingly. They support most of the TLDs that ICANN uses, and define a few of their own. Encourage people to use it. If enough do, then eventually we can switch over to a democratic system.
We do actually need a universal registrar, much as we need universal telephone numbers. However, opennic is democratic while ICANN is an isolated monolith. We need to switch.
-- "I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Current timetable...
by
briancnorton
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· Score: 5, Funny
The current decision decided that the new tlds must be implemented in a timely manner... Proposals must be submitted by 2009, and a formal decision can be expected by 2123.
--
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Who needs domain names when you've got Google?
by
kusma
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· Score: 5, Insightful
They should have opened a lot of new TLDs years ago, when good domain names were much more important than now.
Nowadays, I google for websites much more often than using their domain name anyway, and I hope people will rather spend the $50k mentioned in the BBC article on a good website that will be first hit on Google than on a domain name.
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google?
by
Zog+The+Undeniable
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· Score: 2, Insightful
That's £50,000 to sponsor creation of a whole new TLD, not just to buy a domain.
-- When I am king, you will be first against
the wall.
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google?
by
prell
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· Score: 2, Interesting
yea I agree with this. Google is a great tool for those who know of it, and how simply powerful and accurate it is.
Recently, I started using Phoenix's address bar as a "phrase bar," where I enter what I want to see.. like "apache python module," and usually (about 90% of the time), since it automatically grabs the first google search result of "apache python module," I get exactly what I want.
Re:Who needs domain names when you've got Google?
by
oever
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· Score: 4, Interesting
With URL's you can access the entire web. With Google, you can't.
In a free world, 'where do you want to google today' might work.
-- DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I was wondering...
by
Andy_R
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· Score: 5, Insightful
how they could decide that new TLDs were needed without first deciding what they would be.
Then I spotted this part of the BBC story:
Under the new plans, any organisation can propose a name. But it must prove that the new domain will represent a well-defined community closely associated with the domain name, and supply a $50,000 application fee. Final approval rests with Icann
Might I suggest that anyone stupid enough to give Icann $50,000 with the nothing in return but a 'we'll think about it' from a notoriously unaccountable organisation that is responsible for the lack of decent TLDs in the first place should be awarded a new.dumbass domain?
-- A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
voluntary censorship by TLD
by
rdewald
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What would really be useful for Internet culture would be a.kid TLD that would be free of content that requires a mature personality to process, such as graphic violence, graphic sex, advertising, etc. I don't have children (and I am no prude), but I can imagine what a problem it can be to manage one's children's Internet use. Having a restricted TLD might help.
-- The best way to do is to be.
Re:voluntary censorship by TLD
by
rmohr02
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· Score: 2
Re:voluntary censorship by TLD
by
mpe
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· Score: 4, Informative
What would really be useful for Internet culture would be a.kid TLD that would be free of content that requires a mature personality to process, such as graphic violence, graphic sex, advertising, etc.
This is sort of the opposite of.porn, with much the same problem of there being no global definition of "child". It would really only make much sense as a secondry or tertiary domain within a geographic TLD. e.g. kid.us, kid.uk, kid.fi, kid.ca.us, etc.
Re:voluntary censorship by TLD
by
mpe
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· Score: 2
However, I think there is a global definition of a child, delimited by puberty. I can't think of a culture that doesn't recognize that division.
Plenty of cultures have the concept of "legal age", where only someone older than X years can do Y. In many cases there are lots of Y's with X' being close to being a random number. Such definitions appear most common amongst the industrialised nations, who are the people most likely to be using the Internet in the first place.
.com worth more
by
QaBOjk
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· Score: 4, Interesting
What's funny is that a.com domain name has much more value than any other TLD.. but to purchase any new TLD costs 3 times as much as a.com
What's funny is that a.com domain name has much more value than any other TLD.. but to purchase any new TLD costs 3 times as much as a.com
How are you determining a.com domain has much more value? It seems to me its the length of the domain name, not the extension, that matters. And it also depends on your line of work.
Sure, hbo.com is valuable. So is hbo.tv.
The other TLD's are expensive because its still possible to get short domain names in their namespace.
Which is more valuable:
mynameisjonathanfrakes.com
or
number2.cc
--
"And like that... he's gone."
Re:Previous plans for more TLD's failed
by
dj28
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· Score: 5, Informative
Mods, please check the links of the people you are modding up. In this case, the link in the parent post goes to goatse.cx. Mindless moderation runs so rampant on slashdot.
" the International Air Transport Association (IATA) stated its case for ".travel," the World Health Organization (WHO) lobbied for ".health," Nokia Corp. for ".mobile" and a group of Internet companies said it wants ".III" for individuals"
IMO most of those are pretty useless. ICANN should be working on revoking the country TLDS's that are being abused (.tk,.tv). Why add more unneeded TLDs that will just confuse things?.III: Of all these proposals, this makes the most sense reasoning wise, but why three I's?.mobile: I'd love to type 'mobile' out with those annoying keypad typing things..travel: Well look who's too good for.com's.health: Same, might be useful for only 'correct' health sites to prevent users from being misinformed, but who decieds that?
Also, Has anyone here actually been glad that.info and.biz are in use?So far I've only seen one.info, and it was misused (No info on the site, it was a network). Still no.biz's yet
-- Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive.
Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
How are.ca and.ie being abused? I dont see dodgy warez/porn sites using those country codes.
You can no longer be sure that something under.ca has any connection with Canada or that something under.ie has any connection with the Republic of Ireland (Eire).
Re:Bad choice of TLDS.
by
Greedo
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· Score: 4, Informative
You can no longer be sure that something under.ca has any connection with Canada or that something under.ie has any connection with the Republic of Ireland (Eire)..CA domains can (basically) only be registered by Canadian citizens or residents, companies registered in Canada, or holders of Canadian trademarks.
I'm surprised they're not - seeing how.tv is making money off of it and ICANN isn't...figured they'd be pissed about that.
I think it goes to show that in creating these new TLD's, ICANN has zero clue about what they should be aiming for..biz???.television or.movie would have probably made more $$$ and more sense.
What about Domain Squatting, etc?
by
vasqzr
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Do the majority of people think it is wrong?
Maybe some of the problem is giving up some of the current domains. Sure, if you've registered the name, you own it, and should be able to sell it. But, I can't go to the copyright office and register every word in the dictionary, can I?
Re:What about Domain Squatting, etc?
by
program21
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· Score: 2
Not if I get there before you do;)
-- This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
TLDs vs Country IDs
by
Angram
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· Score: 5, Insightful
They shouldn't make more TLDs. Each country has one, let the individual nations make some lower domains on their own turf. If the US wants Travel, let it have.travel.us and stop clogging up the rest of the world. (It's only "Travel" in English, remember?)
Does.travel mean anything you would want a tld of, or anything inappropriate in other languages?
Enquiring minds want to know
Re:TLDs vs Country IDs
by
crow
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You obviously didn't follow the idea. It's like.kids.us. Instead of registering a second level domain, you register a third level domain. So you might have something like www.travelocity.travel.us. In essence, you could think of "travel.us" as a top level domain, even though technically it's not.
That's how.com should have worked..gov,.mil, and.edu should have been moved under.us a long time ago.
It's like.kids.us. Instead of registering a second level domain, you register a third level domain. So you might have something like www.travelocity.travel.us. In essence, you could think of "travel.us" as a top level domain, even though technically it's not.
That's how.com should have worked.
Actually it's how the DNS should be used. Nothing to do with webservers, since the DNS has been around long before the invention of the HTTP protocol.
.gov,.mil, and.edu should have been moved under.us a long time ago.
It'd make no difference. A far better use of time would be to stop domain squatting. Far too often I enter a name and come across some random search site with ludicrously high bidding prices for the domain.
Really, if all the domain squatters/speculators were cleared up.org/.com/.net would become far less crowded. The last set of new domain names failed spectacularly - the only one i've ever seen used is.info:.aero anybody? WTF? An entire TLD for a very specific industry?
Which solution would better?
by
Alethes
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use.org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated, thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs. The other big problem is that existing.com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement. It certainly isn't to make it possible for me to go register amazon.info or yahoo.sex.
Re:Which solution would better?
by
mpe
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use.org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?
Or even you don't get a.com unless you are a commercial business operating in more than one country. A generic TLD would be something like.misc or.etc rather than treating.com,.net and.org as being.misc.
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated,
Indeed some of then have become less well regulated as time has gone on.
thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs.
If domain names were used properly there wouldn't be an issue. The problem is treating a hierarchical system as though it is a flat namespace. No one is demmanding that there be more coutry names for postal mail or more country codes for telephones.
The other big problem is that existing.com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement.
Implying that the real idea is to make money out of the registrations. Anyway trademarks are ment to be specific to a specific place and type of business, though this appears to be increasingly ignored.
Mess, mess mess....
by
jonr
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Mr. Lee never intented that the URL should be visible, and these days, when search engines have become "powerful enough" to find about anything, the domain name isn't that important anymore. Personally, I use Google to search for "someproduct or company" instead of someproductorcompany.com, I started to do this in the glory days of AltaVista. I think we should just allow any 3 letter top domain (aaa-zzz) and be done with it. 4 letters could be used for special purposes (.kids?) and 2 letters for countries. I can't see any technical problems with this, except that IBM would claim control over the.ibm domain.:)
And the Lord spake, saying, 'Thou shalt have only three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt have, and the number of characters of a domain name shall be three. Four shalt thou not accept, nor either accept two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.'
Adding more TLDs is going the wrong way. As others have said, there are already the country code TLDs. So phase out the existing.com,.net and.org TLDs and make everyone go by country code. It's easy enough to put your country in your search domain anyway, so that if I said "ibm.com" I'd get ibm.com.us, while someone in Japan would get ibm.com.jp. This would solve the problem of non-multinational companies taking over a domain for all countries, too, AND allow much easier regulation of country specific domains like.kids. Face it, no one in the rest of the world is going to use.kids anyway.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
New domains are stupid because they'll either be ignored or else the same company will get all variations.
Better would be to enforce a rule that an individual/company/organisation can only have ONE domain name. That's why subdomains were invented
You use subdomains. That's why there's www.google.com and labs.google.com, etc etc... completey different uses, same "google.com" that we all know and love.
-- Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
that's the point. they made so much money from 'tld application fees' and once approved, from co.'s buying variations that they figure they want more money now for their corporate holiday allowances.
DNS...why do we use it?
by
Joe+U
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Additional TLD's won't help in the long run, because when it comes down to it, it's just all part of an aging DNS system.
The better solution would be to replace DNS with a better naming system.
Search engines are a good start but they are too hit or miss on many topics. Those with IE/Windows, try using the Google toolbar as your address bar for a week. It makes a decent DNS replacement system (Okay, it hides DNS, it still uses it, but it wouldn't be a big jump to switch Google to an all IP address solution)
Leaving DNS will be a huge task, bigger than changing to IP v6. There needs to be some way to get everyone to install the replacement, or convince Mozilla/Netscape, AOL and Microsoft to include it.
On a side note, at this time, there is only one plugin that has made it this far, and that's Flash. So, it can be done, there just has to be a compelling reason to get people to do it.
Re:DNS...why do we use it?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
so please tell me how a dynamically changin IP will work in this grand scheme of yours? or are you taking the same snooty ICANN route that if you cant afford a static IP you shouldn't be on the net?
DNS it needs to be opened up completely. have.0000 -.zzzz tld's and have a free registration, first come first serve.
anything else is just raping and pillaging from the people on this planet... (ICANN- stealing money from people daily!)
Re:DNS...why do we use it?
by
Mac+Degger
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· Score: 2
Or should that be "ICANN'nt stop stealing money from people daily!
-- --
Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Re:DNS...why do we use it?
by
delta407
·
· Score: 2
What are you smoking?
DNS was designed to be a distributed means of resolving names into IP addresses. It is distributed in that there is a built-in concept of delegation -- that is, I asked the registrar for lissard.org, they delegated it to my nameservers, and I can make whatever changes I like withing lissard.org without consulting.org. Furthermore, DNS isn't "fuzzy" like search engines are -- if I ask for smtp.myisp.com, I will get the IP address(es) for that machine, not some random SMTP server that a third party decided I was really looking for. To this end, DNS works, and works well.
Google toolbar... it hides DNS, it still uses it, but it wouldn't be a big jump to switch Google to an all IP address solution
Again, what are you smoking? Yes, you could have Google crawl the web by IP address, and get the search results back that way. But, what about round-robin load balancing? What if the web server's IP changes? And here's a big one: what about HTTP virtual hosts? (That's how you get more than one domain per IP.) All of those rely on DNS for proper usage.
Leaving DNS will be a huge task... There needs to be some way to get everyone to install the replacement
That's the thing: there isn't some way to get worldwide deployment of your replacement. There are countless platforms -- from Big Company's mainframes to my colocated rackmount servers to grandma's desktop to Alice's 802.11 access point to all of those WiFi-enabled handhelds. The difference between replacing DNS and replacing IPv4 is that IPv6 has a compatibility mode -- with your proposed name resolution mechanism, here is no feasible way of grandfathering in the older units.
On a side note, at this time, there is only one plugin that has made it this far, and that's Flash.
Again, what are you smoking? If you want to refer to things by IP, by all means, do it. Does <img src="http://1.2.3.4/image.png"> ring a bell?
By your account, the web can never leave the DNS system without completely and totally falling apart.
I disagree completely.
1. There is no reason why DNS can't eventually be replaced by a more efficient system.
2. I'm not saying, dump DNS tomorrow, kill every legacy app out there and ruin 30% of all websites.
3. I'm not even proposing a new name resolution system, that job is for people who have more experience in this field.
4. The Google Toolbar and Flash were EXAMPLES of moving away from strict DNS lookups, not a solution I was proposing.
I'm saying that name resolution system could stand some improvements. DDNS? Who knows.
By the way, Thank you for being so concerned about my health. I don't smoke but thanks for asking 3 times. Ever think about a career in politics?
Re:DNS...why do we use it?
by
delta407
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· Score: 2
First off, no service should be slaved to DNS.
Agreed, but a number of services are -- SMTP, anyone? Yes, you can do address lookups via/etc/hosts, but MX records provide most of the redundancy that gives e-mail functionality. This would have to be replaced, which would be a large transition in and of itself.
By your account, the web can never leave the DNS system without completely and totally falling apart.
The current web, yes. Ditto with IPv6. The backbone routers can handle it, some ISPs use it, but there's no way to make Joe Sixpack use it. I know people running Windows 95 and liking it -- there will always be stragglers, and nothing can reverse that. Again, unlike IPv4->6, re-architecting DNS would break an immeasurable number of applications, operating systems, embedded devices, and so on.
1. There is no reason why DNS can't eventually be replaced by a more efficient system.
Please explain the inefficient parts of DNS so I can understand what your DNS replacement would do.
2. I'm not saying, dump DNS tomorrow, kill every legacy app out there and ruin 30% of all websites.
Good.:-)
3. I'm not even proposing a new name resolution system, that job is for people who have more experience in this field.
Here's the thing: that's what DNS is. It's a name resolution system with some hacks built into it for special applications (MX records, AXFR requests, and so on). DNS resolves names, and by proposing a replacement for DNS, you must provide a way to resolve names, meaning that the statements thus far are either incomplete or contradictory.
4. The Google Toolbar and Flash were EXAMPLES of moving away from strict DNS lookups, not a solution I was proposing.
I still don't see what you're saying with that. There is nothing to stop you from referring to your web site as 1.2.3.4 and telling people to find it by typing "this is my site" into the Google toolbar, but I for one would not use your site for that reason.
I'm saying that name resolution system could stand some improvements.
Such as?
Re:DNS...why do we use it?
by
delta407
·
· Score: 2
I think most of those questions can be answered by the other messages in these threads.
Actually, very few of my points are addressed. Among them:
there will always be stragglers, and nothing can reverse that
Please explain the inefficient parts of DNS so I can understand what your DNS replacement would do.
There is nothing to stop you from referring to your web site as 1.2.3.4 and telling people to find it by typing "this is my site" into the Google toolbar
I'm saying that name resolution system could stand some improvements. Such as?
Continue.
To sum up, DNS is not a good 'average joe user web lookup system', in fact, it's a pretty poor one.
That's because DNS simply is not meant to be a 'web lookup system', but rather a way for an administrator to give a machine a name instead of a number. And at that, DNS excels.
DNS is designed to map domain names to IP addresses, and not designed to help the user find information.
Correct.
What is needed is something like a combo of realnames, dmoz, yahoo, google and your local yellow pages.
Then use Google or RealNames, but don't pretend that they are a replacement for DNS. Besides which, what entity would run said new system -- ICANN?
Look, if you want information anarcy, check out Freenet. No hostnames, just links between Freesites. There are alternatives to a DNS-based web, and Freenet is one of them, but don't plan on commerical involvement any time soon.
DNS is for all intents and purposes a reference of names to IP addresses. Keep it simple, stupid.
-- This sig no verb.
Why do we need TLDs?
by
slashzero
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I might be showing my ignorence but why do we need TLDs? Why can't domains be single names and go from there? It just seems like an out dated idea that isn't working. Why can't I just type http://slashdot and be done with it or at the max http://www.slashdot and that's it (although that does look weird). Why do we need all these.com,.net,.org,.museums any how? If we need them to categorize sites by type we would need an infinate number of TLDs to effectively categorize sites. Jesus, look at how many categories yahoo has for instance.
Re:Why do we need TLDs?
by
sql*kitten
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I might be showing my ignorence but why do we need TLDs? Why can't domains be single names and go from there? It just seems like an out dated idea that isn't working. Why can't I just type http://slashdot and be done with it or at the max http://www.slashdot and that's it (although that does look weird). Why do we need all these.com,.net,.org,.museums any how? If we need them to categorize sites by type we would need an infinate number of TLDs to effectively categorize sites. Jesus, look at how many categories yahoo has for instance.
Well, in the ancient days, there was this bizarre idea that the name of something should in some way represent what it actually was..net was intended for network infrastructure. So a company might have a.com domain for its public face, and any infrastructure that it operated that needed to be addressed from outside, say caches or routers or whatever, would all be.net.
That's before idiots decided that.tv meant "television" and not "Tuvalu" or that.to could be come.to instead of Tonga. In short, the system is screwed because the people in charge of looking after it, like ICANN, are idiots. No other word for it, they are utterly incompetent and got their jobs by being "old geezers" who happened to be around when jobs were being assigned, and now they are clinging on to their vestiges of power as hard as they can.
The solution is a free-for-all: you get whatever domains are being hosted on whatever root servers you want to use, no central authority. There's no need for one, there never really was.
Technically, I don't think there is any reason why this couldn't happen. However, it wouldn't work in the current hierachy because the root name servers would become overloaded. However, if we added implicit dots between each letter (or two letters) then at each letter (or group of two letters) only 26 different (or 676) name server records would need to be kept. There would be additional IN A records but there shouldn't be that many.
Now, to look up brian.norton we certainly don't want to have to do 11 DNS requests. Caching would become very important. The TTLs would need to be very large. Possibly, the entire caching mechanism would need to be redesigned, e.g., cache forever until told the data has changed the IP addrs of name servers for n, on, ton, rton, orton, norton, nnorton, annorton, iannorton, riannorton, and briannorton (in this scheme the dots would become syntatic sugar). Any changes would be propagated up so that if the name server for nnorton changed the next time a query for www.brian.norton was made the result would contain the additional information that the name server for nnorton has changed and the client should ask the name server for norton what the new name servers for nnorton are.
I bet RMS will be thrilled when he hears this. The FSF will finally be able to propose the.gnu TLD.
after .biz and .name...
by
X_Caffeine
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· Score: 4, Funny
...I'm sure they'll come up with some real winners.
.cam - nubile 16-year-old girls with Amazon wishlists, and the FBI spooks who lurk there
.bomb - all venture-capital-rich startups start here for one year. if the company has not purchased any Aeron chairs within that period, they get awarded a.com
.trek - a special little home for people who actually care that Enterprise and Nemesis are completely out of synch with the rest of the series
.slash - a copyright-free zone for hot man-on-man fan fiction. may have a little overlap with.trek
.google - because sooner or later, Google is going to become the Internet anyway
.mac - give them their own damned internet so the rest of us can hear how much prettier, faster and more expensive it is. Pages will only move at 56k speeds, but a special "double-pumped" technology using two phone lines will supposedly make it as quick as DSL.
and most importantly,.troll [-1 not funny];)
-- // I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I mentioned this in an article the other day but it was so far down that nobody noticed..noads would be for websites that were either completely free _or_ charged REAL MONEY for their services.
Once established I would surf almost exclusively in this domain.
Now can anybody lend me USD 50,000?
I want to register...
by
anonymous+loser
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· Score: 3, Funny
chicken.coop, but that would involve starting up some kind of cooperative farm, which goes directly against my no-chicken-droppings-in-the-house policy.
DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The whole IP crap has killed the utility of DNS; the mistake was basing it on letters. Letters mean memorable words (the original intent) but memorable words mean "branding" and "trademark" and "lawyers".
A number based system is the only practical alternative: people and companies would publicise their "web number" just as they do their phone and/or fax today. So the first root domain would be "http://1/" and the owner of that could sell http://1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 etc to whoever s/he likes. Meanwhile http://2 is sold off, then//3,//4 etc with no effective limit.
This is NOT the same as using IP numbers - the "web number" is still translated into an IP number and the IP number can be changed without changing the web number.
This kills almost all the problems with the current crap system of trademarked names and squatting while, thanks to search engines and bookmark files, not actually making the system much harder to use. A few numbers might still go for higher prices, like some phone numbers do, but this would be a far smaller issue than it is now. Meanwhile, by effectivly increasing the number of TLD's to infinity the power of ICANN is completly undermined and reigned in.
I personally would not stop old style names being used but I would like to see and end to new ones being registered. But even if the current name system just became totally commercial and everyone else went to numbers, free from the threat of legal action because their name is "too like" someone elses, it would be an improvement.
The ultimate improvement is to eliminate the control of registration of new names/numbers from a single person/group. In my alternative there is a lot less power invested anywhere since the owner of//1 can sell sub-domains forever without having to go back to the root registrar and since the numbers don't mean anything there is not such a big reason to keep wanting a TLD, but the root registrar still has too much power. I just can't think of a working system to eliminate that person and their DNS server(s) competely.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
ceejayoz
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· Score: 2
This is NOT the same as using IP numbers
No, but it has the exact same problem - impossible to remember. I'd rather not have to remember http://2093.927348/ - gimme http://slashdot.org/ anytime.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
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· Score: 2
No, but it has the exact same problem - impossible to remember.
The biggest prblem with IP numbers is that they change, memory is secondary.
I'd rather not have to remember http://2093.927348/ - gimme http://slashdot.org/ anytime.
Just stick in your bookmarks. I admit that it's easier to remember slashdot.org but how did you first find slashdot? Did you just guess the url? Of course not, you clicked on a link somewhere or read it or saw it on Google or something. After you found it and liked it what would be the big deal if it was a number?
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
Dun+Malg
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· Score: 5, Insightful
A number based system is the only practical alternative: people and companies would publicise their "web number" just as they do their phone...
I don't think moving towards the "phone # model" is all that great an idea. It may be familiar, but it only exists because phones are a legacy system that, as originally designed, could only handle addressing serially and very low speed (pulse dialing). Phones themselves have been moving away from the "phone # model" lately. Between on-board phone # directories and voice recognition dialing, how many people still dial the actual number on the keypad anymore? I know I only enter numbers directly to dial if I'm calling a person/business I've never called before.
This kills almost all the problems with the current crap system of trademarked names and squatting...
Yeah, but it's really a strategy of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. People are fiercly competetive over recognizable domain names, so the solution is to make all domain addresses equally grim and abstract? That's a soviet communism solution. <hyperbole>
While we're at it, lets apply this theory to art. Masterpieces of fine art are in finite supply, with not enough for everyone. The price of fine art is so high that many can't afford it. I propose we destroy all art and replace it with sequentially serial numbered sheets of framed (but blank) newsprint paper. That way, everyone will have their own distinct piece of art and no one will have the advantage of better art just because they have more money.
</hyperbole>
Count me out of this movement.
-- If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
·
· Score: 2
So then you will have everyone bidding their buns off to be "Number 1". All you will see is we're #1, and those with anything else (ie http://2.*) will be at a disadvantage marketing wise....
Well, I imagine that the root registrar would be #1 or that an ISP looking for a nice number to sub-domain would buy it, but even if you're right the marketing value would be pretty small, much the same as having a simple phone number.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
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· Score: 2
how many people still dial the actual number on the keypad anymore?
Ah, ha! And how many people use URLs manually? They are much more likely to click on a search result or use a bookmark. If they really did type URLs a lot I wouldn't suggest this system in the first place.The only real value in the DNS system is that users need not track IP addresses and I'd keep that.
the solution is to make all domain addresses equally grim and abstract? That's a soviet communism solution.
Not for most people. Go watch a normal (ie, not a geek) user. Many of them don't even know what a URL is; they just type things into their address bar and wait for MS search to bring something up. Most people would not even notice the change.
Your art analogy fails because what is happening is not that people can't afford the "art" but that other people, backed by the WTO, are allowed to come round and take their legally held "art" off them with no compensation (indeed often at a cost of the poor sod that's on the losing end of this). That's fascist.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
·
· Score: 2
what's the difference between a "web number" and a "telephone number".
One difference which people in the UK would notice is that the web number wouldn't need changing every 5 years because BT have run out of numbers again. They'd also be shorter than full-dialing-code phone numbers, I think.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
ceejayoz
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· Score: 2
The biggest prblem with IP numbers is that they change, memory is secondary.
That's the biggest problem for the server admin. It's not a problem for the end users. Microsoft doesn't care if their IP addresses can change - they have technical staff to deal with the change. They'd care, though, if people couldn't remember the URL to the site.
I admit that it's easier to remember slashdot.org but how did you first find slashdot?... After you found it and liked it what would be the big deal if it was a number?
You answered your own question. The big deal is that slashdot.org is easier to remember than a number. If a friend tells me "check out slashdot.org", I'll remember that more than "check out 66.35.250.150".
In short - replacing domain names with numbers is absurd.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
·
· Score: 2
Microsoft doesn't care if their IP addresses can change...They'd care, though, if people couldn't remember the URL to the site.
Which is why they make sure that when the 99% of their users that don't know what a URL is type "Microsoft" into their address bar the search engine behind it brings up MS's site.
If a friend tells me "check out slashdot.org"
If a friend tells you to check out The Lord of the Rings do you ask for the ISBN? No, you go to a book shop and ask or look for it; on line you go to a search engine. If he does give you the ISBN then so much the better.
In short - replacing domain names with numbers is absurd.
Not as absurd as thinking that all the world's trademarks can live peacefully in a single namespace and still leave room for ordinary users that are cursed with names like "McDonald" or "Fox".
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
ceejayoz
·
· Score: 2
Which is why they make sure that when the 99% of their users that don't know what a URL is type "Microsoft" into their address bar the search engine behind it brings up MS's site.
99%? Very doubtful. The dot-com boom certainly imprinted the.com at the end of a URL into consumers' minds.
If a friend tells you to check out The Lord of the Rings do you ask for the ISBN? No, you go to a book shop and ask or look for it; on line you go to a search engine. If he does give you the ISBN then so much the better.
You just proved my point. He won't give the ISBN - he'll give the book name. Just like someone will give you the domain name of a site, not a number for it. Words are easier to remember.
Not as absurd as thinking that all the world's trademarks can live peacefully in a single namespace and still leave room for ordinary users that are cursed with names like "McDonald" or "Fox".
Isn't it wonderful that somebody invented the.name TLD?
If someone wants to go by number, they'll use their IP address. Domain names exist because they're far easier to remember than long numbers.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
nagora
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· Score: 2
99%? Very doubtful. The dot-com boom certainly imprinted the.com at the end of a URL into consumers' minds.
Think about all the office workers around the world that use their machines for: a) spreadsheets, email, and word processing, and b) only use the web at lunch. There are a LOT of them and in my experience have no idea that when they type "bill bailey" into their address line that what comes up is the result of search.microsoft/netscape. I have seen many people who's bookmarks are search URLs for the thing they think they've actually bookmarked. Most people have heard of.com but do they know what it is?
Just like someone will give you the domain name of a site, not a number for it. Words are easier to remember.
I'm not arguing that they're not. I'm arguing that the legal crap that comes with them is not worth the small difference getting rid of them would make.
Isn't it wonderful that somebody invented the.name TLD?
Oh, yeah. That was a good idea, wasn't it? Because all the people in the entire world can happily be fitted into one domain, can't they!?.name is the best example of what a load of crap TLD's are - there might just possibly be more than one Mr/Mrs Smith in the world.
If someone wants to go by number, they'll use their IP address. Domain names exist because they're far easier to remember than long numbers.
IPs change; mine changes every so often and I don't actually know what it is at the moment, nor do I care. Domain names exist to prevent IP changes screwing the whole system and the extra benefit of being memorable is outweighed by the total mess that was made of implementing it (specifically the TLD's; ccTLD's were at least an attempt to address the namespace issue, even though it has failed too).
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
Dun+Malg
·
· Score: 2
Ah, ha! And how many people use URLs manually?
most people type URLs for basic things. FOr example, if you want Verizon's website, you type www.verizon.com. makes it pretty easy.
Not for most people. Go watch a normal (ie, not a geek) user. Many of them don't even know what a URL is
hogwash. Every entity with a web presence advertises with their URL in print. People know what URLs are.
Your art analogy fails because what is happening is not that people can't afford the "art" but that other people, backed by the WTO, are allowed to come round and take their legally held "art" off them with no compensation
my art analogy was a deliberate simplification in order to illustrate a point. You don't think the WIPO name-grabbing is about money? Chances are, whoever has the most money is going to win the WIPO hearing. If you can't afford to defend yourself, kiss your domain name goodbye.
-- If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Re:DNS is broken, let's just kill it
by
Dun+Malg
·
· Score: 2
the only time you would enter the 'web number' is the first time you're going someplace
but where does one FIND this "web number"? Do we trade in the current circus that is domain names for a whole new circus of paying for better positions on search engines? This "solution" is only an added layer of abstraction that shifts the problem to a different space.
-- If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
TLDs considered useless
by
n3k5
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I wanted to post something like this (parent) earlier on, but my connection went dead before i hit submit, so I put it here now:
As my friend Billy S. said: "What's in a TLD name? That which we call a foo by any other name would be as easy to google."
The concept of searching for content by trying out an 'address' is SO 1990ies... Of course, if I want the site of the Austrian postal service, I can be pretty sure that it will be at post.at and try that first. Other names might not be that straight-forward, but still easier to remember, like bmf.gv.at for the BundesMinisterium für Finanzen, which is part of the GoVernment of AusTria. But you only remember that address if you already found out (with Google etc.) that it's basicly saying 'Bundesministerium für Finanzen', and not the more commonly used shorter term 'Finanzministerium'.
Everything less official doesn't have intuitive domain names any longer because there have been way too much name clashes already. If a new movie about foo is released, the site isn't foo.com, it's foo-the-movie-com, foomovie.com, $$$productions.com/foo or something like that. No one tries any of these, as a search engine query will lead to the target much faster. People who want free pr0n aren't trying freepr0n.com any longer.
By the time anything like.travel will be well known and widely used by the respective sites, people will generally be googling their way to the desired sites anyway. Of course, the intention behind the new TLDs is to make the names intuitive again, like in the old days when you went to pizza.com when you wanted to order a pizza on-line. But with a great amount of TLDs, where do you go to? pizza.food, pizza.delivery, pizza.homeshopping or get-me-some.pizza? Any anyway, how many TV stations actually bought a.tv domain when it was made available from Tuvalu?
So, what's in a name? Nothing at all, it doesn't matter to people anyway. It's just nicer to have something 'human-readable' for writing it down instead of an IP number, but once everyone carries around their bookmarks on PDAs (or wristwatches or smartcards) and does the drag-and-drop instead of the scribble-on-paper thing, even those would be okay as addresses, even if they were in decimal format.
Why do we need tlds?
by
briancnorton
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I dont know a whole lot about internet architecture, but is there a reason that TLDs are crucial to operations? Why couldnt I have brian.norton? Why cant there be an unlimited number of TLDs?
--
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I would like to see...
by
anethema
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
.inc.ltd
etc..I think a limited or incorperated company would be happy to have its own Businessname.inc
Plus its short! (unlike SOME i could mention-- nokia.takesmeafuckinghourtotypethisonamobilephone
--
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
The DNS system is broken? I just typed in "slashdot.org" and got here just fine. What exactly are you referring to? Are you proposing that people type in "66.35.250.150" and remember that instead? What happens when IP addresses change?
The inability of people to get domains which are safe from either squatters or big business. The idea behind the TLD's was to allow separation, for example, of two companies that do things in different spheres or places. This has failed. For example, try going to Tuvalu and setting up a database of vulpine observations. I think you'll find that your "fox.tv" will get a very sharp letter and your ISP will drop you like a stone about 4 days later! The number of cases like this has got out of hand and can only get worse over time. In addition the limited number of TLDs and the way they are doled out gives ICANN far too much power.
Are you proposing that people type in "66.35.250.150"
Possibly, if 66 TLDs were sold and then the owner of #65 sold 35 subdomains and the owner of #35 sold 250 sub-subdomains and the owner of the 250th of those sold 150 sub-sub-subdomains and you wanted the site on the that sub-sub-sub domain, then yes. In reality I doubt that the sub divisions would ever get that deep since there would be no 255 limit; http://86625000/ would be totally legal and would allow as many individual sites as you would need in the example you gave. Would you care if the URLs in your bookmarks or on Google looked like this? How many sites do you regularly type the URL for? How many phone numbers have you memorised that are even longer than 86625000?
What happens when IP addresses change?
I specifically said that this is an abstraction on top of IP's and that there would be no change. If you like, I'm sort of suggesting that DNS servers accept numbers as legal name characters. There is absolutely no connection between web numbers and IP numbers.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Please can we keep the monopoly?
by
melonman
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· Score: 2
I can't help thinking that the domain name system worked a lot better when it was all run by one company. I register domains with OpenSRS, and trying to take over domains administered by Network Solutions, for example, is a nightmare, because half the time they just ignore the requests to hand over the domain. The last thing we want is to introduce that kind of behaviour at the next level up.
-- Virtually serving coffee
MLM for registrars and icann
by
confusion
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· Score: 2, Insightful
At this point in the game, the primary customers of the recent 'new' domains (.biz,.info) are trademark holders who are forced to register yet more domains. Its quite a boon for registrars when the name registrations start slowing down.
I agree with many of the other posters here - dns is outdated and it doesn't fit how the Internet is used any more, particularly with respect to businesses online with trademarks, etc. The downside is that replacing it will happen just shortly after we all convert to IPv6 which should be about 3523 A.D.
Fredericton would be my guess... look at the first 4 letters of the address. Besides everyone knows all the perverted porn dealers are in Fredericton (all the politicians are there too... coincidence?)
Re:WHAT YOU SAY GOES AGAINST THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY
by
medscaper
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· Score: 2
Hee! I love it.
How about a.rz domain for Religious Zealots only? Someone could con the $cientologists in there, too.
Or does $cientology only live in.ca?
-- Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Re:Nice troll...
by
nagora
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Seeing as how the whole point of DNS was so that people WOULDN'T HAVE TO REMEMBER NUMBERS.
No, it was so the people WOULDN'T HAVE TO TRACK CHANGING IP ADDRESSES. Duh!
It was thought that the ability to have memorable names was a nice side-effect and that it would be managed by keeping different intellectual property claims in separate domains. That worked for a while but once companies started to leak out of.com and into.net and.org the system rapidly fell apart and it now SUCKS. Go on, set up cocacola.info for all your cola-wars stories and see how long you'll last with the "but it's clearly not THE cocacola because it's.info, not.com" argument. How about something more generic like "apple.co.uk" for your orchard business? Or perhaps the world's Mr McDonalds would like a site devoted to their families? Good luck to them!
Recognisable names seemed like a good idea but are not viable in the long run; abstracting IP's is vital.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Decause it is a _naming_ system
by
abulafia
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· Score: 2
There are certainly ways to improve DNS, but name spaces are should not be confused with content indicators. Looking for Ford, or "Bob Jones", or "Pictures of Bubbles the Chimp" is fundamentally different than connecting to www.ford.com.
Or do you also agree that the phone book should indicate what sort of information you'll get from me when you call my phone number, and be surprised if I start reading bad science fiction to you instead of telling you to place me on your Do Not Call list?
Names are identifiers, not semantic indicators. Otherwise I'd be named Software Hack #22948236, White Male #039784982367, or perhaps Annoying Sarcastic Jerk #9865666652, depending on one's priorities.
If Google resolved all links to IPs, that would make Google far more brittle, because content moves and IP addresses change.
And I'm ignoring the larger issues of decentralized name delegation and the fact that you seem to be conflating the web with the net.
I believe if you look at the wider URI specification, there is some what what you're looking for. URLs were considered Good Enough(TM) by most people, which is a little unfortunate, but if development houses can't even support that, how are you going to get them to toss DNS? (If you're really interested, DNS SERV records get closer to what I think you mean, too.)
The basic problem with the DNS system IS NOT the trademark issue, anbd IS NOT the used of words to replace fixed IPs.
The problem is ICANN. Why are we limited to so few TLDs? Why can't anybody willing to put up a shingle put together their own TLD in a cooperative fashion?
There's certainly no TECHNICAL reason not to... The fact that we have a limited number of root nameservers is already shown to be a potential problem.
DNS root servers should operate in a quasi p2p fashion, and, if anything, ICANN should register only the actual TLDs, not the 2nd layer.
If I want to host a TLD like.trash I should be able to. It's certainly not a problem using Bind! Many corporations have their own "private" TLDs for internal LAN use.
All that's needed is a method to coordinate these multitudinous TLDs and the DNS "issue" can be fixed for once and for all!
(sighs, goes back to moderating)
-- I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Re:The problem is ICANN
by
TheAwfulTruth
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· Score: 2
"The problem is ICANN. Why are we limited to so few TLDs? Why can't anybody willing to put up a shingle put together their own TLD in a cooperative fashion?"
Because the TLDs are supposed to MEAN something. (Not like they really do any more but...) Assuming for a second that they DO mean something, they are used for high-level organization. If you go to a.gov site you are supposed to be relatively sure that you are really on a government site! If there were an unlimited amount of TLDs they would no longer be useful. You will in fact have completely gotten rid of the concept of a Top Level Domain completely.
The only real question is, how many should there be? 10? 100? as the net grows I would expect the TLD list to grow, but within tightly controlled bounds! The fact is, the more TLDs there are and the less controlled they are, the less meaning they will have. What if TDL registrar A created "trash" then B created "junk", then C created "garbage", then "crap", "waste", "sewage", "effluance"... After a while, then entire concept of a TLD has no meaning at all.
-- Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Some TLDs will be well known - much like when you buy at McDonalds, you know you'll get a greasy, sugary burger "thing" they call a sandwich.
Others will be less well known, such as "Kasey's house of delictable delights" as a restaurant.
What is wrong with that? Why should we have all "commercial" entities in ".com" (even though if you registered "mickey.info" you'd have a beer company and an entertainment giant on your ass in seconds)
If there was no limit to TLDs, then "www.beer.mickey" wouldn't/shouldn't conflict with "www.mouse.mickey". "Mickey's beer" and "Mickey mouse" get along just fine in the wide-open verbal namespace, why should we artificially restrict DNS?
-My $0.02
-- I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
But I thought the internet was all .com!
by
louzerr
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The City of Saint Paul, Minnesota used to use the domain stpaul.gov. We now use the official ci.stpaul.mn.us domain (shut up NeuStar - we own it!). In both cases, one continual uphill battle is getting people to realize there's no '.com' on the end. "How will it know to use the internet if I don't put.com on the end?" - I've heard this too many times!
In fact, I don't think most people (slashdotters aren't most people) know how to type an address into their browser. If it's not linked from their AOL or MSN homepage, it must not exist. (I had a hard time believing this at first, but over time, found it to be true.)
Soooo, I'm not too worried about what people are going to have to type in (most simply won't). I would be extremely amused at all the dom-squatters who would break their bank trying to buy every new domain that they think someone would pay for.
Anyone suggest the '.blog' TLD? How about '.exe', just to see how many firewalls it would trip up?
-- "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away"
-- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Re:But I thought the internet was all .com!
by
MikeBabcock
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· Score: 2
What I hate, and you've probably run into this before, is the people who register ".us.com" or in my case, ".ca.com" so as to catch all the unwary travellers who add those.com's to the domains or worse, mistype a domain and have their browser auto-search.com,.org and.net extensions.
If only we could teach people that domains actually end in a '.'... 'www.microsoft.com.' is the FQDN for Microsoft's website. 'www.microsoft.com' means that you're allowed to try 'www.microsoft.com.localdomain.net' or 'www.microsoft.com.com', etc.
We need a better *logical* name - domain name map
by
Fastolfe
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· Score: 2
I totally agree with you here. DNS was never intended to have anything whatsoever to do with the nature of content served up by one host under the domain on one protocol (HTTP).
DNS is intended to provide an administrator-friendly name to an IP address, not to serve as a mechanism to locate a logical entity.
What we really need is a mechanism to reliably link a real-world, logical name to a DNS domain. RealNames tried to be this, but going about this from a "keyword" or "pay-to-play" perspective is totally wrong and only sparks litigation. Only one company is going to get "apple", for instance, even though there are hundreds of them that surely have a claim to it.
We really need a mechanism, backed by LDAP or X.500 or something, where I can go in and type "Apple Computer" and instantly get a record pointing to "apple.com". Nothing else. (Nothing yet even suggests "web".) If I do a search for "Apple", I'd presumably get back a lot of records, which I can filter so as to ignore stuff that's outside of my locality and isn't nationally or internationally recognized. I can choose which one I want, and I'd ultimately end up at a single domain name representing that entity.
Now, when I want to pull up the web site for "Apple Computer", I have a mapping to "apple.com". A SRV record lookup would then be performed over DNS to determine the web server for this domain, and ultimately connect to "www.apple.com:80" (or:443). An SSL certificate could then be used to authenticate not only the DNS domain name, but all the way back to the original "official" entity name I selected to begin with.
At no time was the user ever exposed to IP addresses, DNS hostnames or port numbers. All of that was handled entirely behind the scenes. They just asked to be connected to the web site of Apple Computers.
This is the way things Should Be (in my opinion). The trick is getting an infrastructure in place, solving any legal or jurisdictional battles up front, to provide this "logical name" to DNS domain name mapping. At this point, who the hell cares about new TLD's or whether a company is represented with a 2nd-level GTLD or some company-name.saint-louis.mo.us domain? It shouldn't matter. DNS returns then to being something managed by engineers and administrators, not marketroids and politicians.
On top of this, many entities are (ab)using DNS domains for products (trademarks and service marks), not organizations. So however this is built, another engine along-side this should probably be built along with it to associate users with logical company names based on a trademark/service mark search. This should probably be handled by each individual country, maybe with a "meta-engine" to aggregate everything into one infrastructure.
My US$0.02.
DNS is meant to follow organizational boundaries
by
Fastolfe
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· Score: 2
Let's say you have a business entity called "Example". As a business entity, a DNS domain for them should logically be allocated under "com". So they are assigned "example.com". If this entity divides themselves into two departments, say Human Resources and IT, you do not create "example-human-resources.com" and "example-it.com", as that would be creating two DNS peers to "example.com". Instead, you create sub-domains and delegate those to each business unit. So now you have "hr.example.com" and "it.example.com". IT can spawn off some sub-groups (maybe Research & Development), so they might get "research.it.example.com".
The point is, sub-divisions of one logical real-world entity should result in sub-divisions at the DNS level, and we should never have second-level domains for products or service-marks of all things. It's horrible enough to use DNS to locate companies or as a content identifier, but it's even worse to use it as a database for locating trademarks and service-marks.
You do *not* want a flat name-space
by
Fastolfe
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· Score: 2
Opening up the TLD's for anyone, or adopting a "keywords" system (first come, first serve) only exacerbates the.com problem: who gets "apple"? There are hundreds of organizations that have a legitimate claim.
What we really need is another naming layer that maps these logical entity names to DNS domains. Put DNS back to what it was doing when it was originally designed (which wasn't a bad design for its requirements) and move all of the trademark and intellectual property crap to a separate database where it belongs.
Content labels belong with the content
by
Fastolfe
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· Score: 2
I neglected to add this to my earlier post, but as an extension to what I was saying earlier, DNS should not be used as a content label. One organization (e.g. a publishing company) could host several different types of content, including some children's media and maybe a porn site. To say that that one logical entity needs to represent itself with 2 or 4 or 10 different DNS domains is absurd. They should only need one.
If you need to label content, that label needs to belong with the content. This is what we have PICS and RSACi for.
Perhaps search engines need a way to relay PICS-based ratings directly in the results, doing the "filtering" right up front based on your criteria.
And kudos for keeping a second account to mod yourself up.
I've only had 3 mods over 9 posts on this topic.
I take it "Troll" in your language means "other opinion"?
The whole problem of IP/copyright claims didn't arise until the corporations realised there was money to be made on the 'net
I agree, but it has arisen now and the genie won't go back in the bottle.
Until that point, DNS was used to avoid having to worry about IP addresses at all. So it's a little of both. But there's absolutely no sense in going back to a number-based system.
I'm not suggesting that we go back to IP addresses or even a fixed format like dotted quad; I don't see why you think it would be so tough on people (hardly surprising when you refuse to say why it would be so bad). Not all number-based systems are as user-hostile as IP4 or, much worse, IP6.
Go read a book or something before you spout bogosities like that.
So you think the current system is fine and that it will continue to be fine for, say, the next 50 years?
The point of a forum is to discuss. Just saying "you're a troll" over and over is not really very useful.
TWW
-- "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
A proposal I saw in Slashdot is to have top servers organized by the last letters of the name. So the IP corresponding to 'Slashdot' would be served by the T server, or maybe the 'OT' server. This is very similar to the current country system. There would be a flat namespace. IBM could have jp.ibm and fr.ibm instead of ibm.co.jp and ibm.fr.
There remains to be solved who pays the top servers and how to resolve name conflicts in this flatter system.
-- __ Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death. GW Bu
This is another dumb idea to increase registrar revenue.
Realistically, everybody who has any use for a domain has one (probably more) already. The domains associated with "famous" trademarks are, by now, owned by the trademark owners. The domain rush is over. The domain speculators are being purged out of the system as their domains come up for renewal. There just isn't a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
It time for a .dot domain!
A .porn domain would be good, if most of the porn was collected under a single TLD it would be easy to block it at schools and so on.
Martin
When will the United States finally have to act like everybody else and use ".us" for sites hosted in the country? I'm sure Microsoft and Netscape would just autocomplete that part, like they do with "http://".
GL
All very nice, but when the CEO demands IT get him a website with domain ".big-corp.com", you try telling him no and he now has to have "www.big-corp.screw-customers-for-profit"...of course you could always threaten, sorry, legally pressure some poor little geek for his personal domain, 'cos its got your company name in it.
Windows guys please stop pissing on everyone and the Linux guys stop pissing in the wind, hoping to hit Windows guys!
ICANN's a damned monopoly with no interest for the common internet user. We need another top level domain registrar.
The current decision decided that the new tlds must be implemented in a timely manner... Proposals must be submitted by 2009, and a formal decision can be expected by 2123.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
They should have opened a lot of new TLDs years ago, when good domain names were much more important than now.
Nowadays, I google for websites much more often than using their domain name anyway, and I hope people will rather spend the $50k mentioned in the BBC article on a good website that will be first hit on Google than on a domain name.
how they could decide that new TLDs were needed without first deciding what they would be.
.dumbass domain?
Then I spotted this part of the BBC story:
Under the new plans, any organisation can propose a name. But it must prove that the new domain will represent a well-defined community closely associated with the domain name, and supply a $50,000 application fee. Final approval rests with Icann
Might I suggest that anyone stupid enough to give Icann $50,000 with the nothing in return but a 'we'll think about it' from a notoriously unaccountable organisation that is responsible for the lack of decent TLDs in the first place should be awarded a new
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
What would really be useful for Internet culture would be a .kid TLD that would be free of content that requires a mature personality to process, such as graphic violence, graphic sex, advertising, etc. I don't have children (and I am no prude), but I can imagine what a problem it can be to manage one's children's Internet use. Having a restricted TLD might help.
The best way to do is to be.
What's funny is that a .com domain name has much more value than any other TLD.. but to purchase any new TLD costs 3 times as much as a .com
Mods, please check the links of the people you are modding up. In this case, the link in the parent post goes to goatse.cx. Mindless moderation runs so rampant on slashdot.
" the International Air Transport Association (IATA) stated its case for ".travel," the World Health Organization (WHO) lobbied for ".health," Nokia Corp. for ".mobile" and a group of Internet companies said it wants ".III" for individuals"
.tv). Why add more unneeded TLDs that will just confuse things? .III: Of all these proposals, this makes the most sense reasoning wise, but why three I's? .mobile: I'd love to type 'mobile' out with those annoying keypad typing things. .travel: Well look who's too good for .com's .health: Same, might be useful for only 'correct' health sites to prevent users from being misinformed, but who decieds that?
.info and .biz are in use?So far I've only seen one .info, and it was misused (No info on the site, it was a network). Still no .biz's yet
IMO most of those are pretty useless. ICANN should be working on revoking the country TLDS's that are being abused (.tk,
Also, Has anyone here actually been glad that
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
With all the lobbying going on in ICANN, it is suprising that there is not a .squatter TLD.
-------
Bite Me Fanboy!!
Do the majority of people think it is wrong?
Maybe some of the problem is giving up some of the current domains. Sure, if you've registered the name, you own it, and should be able to sell it. But, I can't go to the copyright office and register every word in the dictionary, can I?
They shouldn't make more TLDs. Each country has one, let the individual nations make some lower domains on their own turf. If the US wants Travel, let it have .travel.us and stop clogging up the rest of the world. (It's only "Travel" in English, remember?)
GL
Really, if all the domain squatters/speculators were cleared up .org/.com/.net would become far less crowded. The last set of new domain names failed spectacularly - the only one i've ever seen used is .info: .aero anybody? WTF? An entire TLD for a very specific industry?
Would it be better to have many tightly regulated TLDs, such has only allowing non-profit organizations to use .org, or would it be better to have just a couple of very generic TLDs?
.com owners get first pick of the new TLDs, meaning that it's just another domain companies have to buy/borrow/steal to prevent supposed trademark infringement. It certainly isn't to make it possible for me to go register amazon.info or yahoo.sex.
As it stands, most of the existing TLDs are not very regulated, thereby defeating the orginal point of having different TLDs. The other big problem is that existing
We want dot geek!
.ipv6 or .hackme?
Or how about
Of course, that could also be ipv6.geek and hackme.geek (or crackme.geek for Eric Raymond et. al.)
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Mr. Lee never intented that the URL should be visible, and these days, when search engines have become "powerful enough" to find about anything, the domain name isn't that important anymore. Personally, I use Google to search for "someproduct or company" instead of someproductorcompany.com, I started to do this in the glory days of AltaVista. .ibm domain. :)
I think we should just allow any 3 letter top domain (aaa-zzz) and be done with it. 4 letters could be used for special purposes (.kids?) and 2 letters for countries. I can't see any technical problems with this, except that IBM would claim control over the
And people who only regiesters domain names for redirects or "buy this domain for $1000" should be flogged in public!
J.
Adding more TLDs is going the wrong way. As others have said, there are already the country code TLDs. So phase out the existing .com, .net and .org TLDs and make everyone go by country code. It's easy enough to put your country in your search domain anyway, so that if I said "ibm.com" I'd get ibm.com.us, while someone in Japan would get ibm.com.jp. This would solve the problem of non-multinational companies taking over a domain for all countries, too, AND allow much easier regulation of country specific domains like .kids. Face it, no one in the rest of the world is going to use .kids anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
New domains are stupid because they'll either be ignored or else the same company will get all variations. Better would be to enforce a rule that an individual/company/organisation can only have ONE domain name. That's why subdomains were invented
Sig is taking a break!
Additional TLD's won't help in the long run, because when it comes down to it, it's just all part of an aging DNS system.
The better solution would be to replace DNS with a better naming system.
Search engines are a good start but they are too hit or miss on many topics. Those with IE/Windows, try using the Google toolbar as your address bar for a week. It makes a decent DNS replacement system (Okay, it hides DNS, it still uses it, but it wouldn't be a big jump to switch Google to an all IP address solution)
Leaving DNS will be a huge task, bigger than changing to IP v6. There needs to be some way to get everyone to install the replacement, or convince Mozilla/Netscape, AOL and Microsoft to include it.
On a side note, at this time, there is only one plugin that has made it this far, and that's Flash. So, it can be done, there just has to be a compelling reason to get people to do it.
I might be showing my ignorence but why do we need TLDs? Why can't domains be single names and go from there? It just seems like an out dated idea that isn't working. Why can't I just type http://slashdot and be done with it or at the max http://www.slashdot and that's it (although that does look weird). Why do we need all these .com,.net,.org,.museums any how? If we need them to categorize sites by type we would need an infinate number of TLDs to effectively categorize sites. Jesus, look at how many categories yahoo has for instance.
I bet RMS will be thrilled when he hears this. The FSF will finally be able to propose the .gnu TLD.
and most importantly,
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
How about
I mentioned this in an article the other day but it was so far down that nobody noticed. .noads would be for websites that were either completely free _or_ charged REAL MONEY for their services.
Once established I would surf almost exclusively in this domain.
Now can anybody lend me USD 50,000?
chicken.coop, but that would involve starting up some kind of cooperative farm, which goes directly against my no-chicken-droppings-in-the-house policy.
A number based system is the only practical alternative: people and companies would publicise their "web number" just as they do their phone and/or fax today. So the first root domain would be "http://1/" and the owner of that could sell http://1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 etc to whoever s/he likes. Meanwhile http://2 is sold off, then //3, //4 etc with no effective limit.
This is NOT the same as using IP numbers - the "web number" is still translated into an IP number and the IP number can be changed without changing the web number.
This kills almost all the problems with the current crap system of trademarked names and squatting while, thanks to search engines and bookmark files, not actually making the system much harder to use. A few numbers might still go for higher prices, like some phone numbers do, but this would be a far smaller issue than it is now. Meanwhile, by effectivly increasing the number of TLD's to infinity the power of ICANN is completly undermined and reigned in.
I personally would not stop old style names being used but I would like to see and end to new ones being registered. But even if the current name system just became totally commercial and everyone else went to numbers, free from the threat of legal action because their name is "too like" someone elses, it would be an improvement.
The ultimate improvement is to eliminate the control of registration of new names/numbers from a single person/group. In my alternative there is a lot less power invested anywhere since the owner of //1 can sell sub-domains forever without having to go back to the root registrar and since the numbers don't mean anything there is not such a big reason to keep wanting a TLD, but the root registrar still has too much power. I just can't think of a working system to eliminate that person and their DNS server(s) competely.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I wanted to post something like this (parent) earlier on, but my connection went dead before i hit submit, so I put it here now:
.travel will be well known and widely used by the respective sites, people will generally be googling their way to the desired sites anyway. Of course, the intention behind the new TLDs is to make the names intuitive again, like in the old days when you went to pizza.com when you wanted to order a pizza on-line. But with a great amount of TLDs, where do you go to? pizza.food, pizza.delivery, pizza.homeshopping or get-me-some.pizza? Any anyway, how many TV stations actually bought a .tv domain when it was made available from Tuvalu?
As my friend Billy S. said: "What's in a TLD name? That which we call a foo by any other name would be as easy to google."
The concept of searching for content by trying out an 'address' is SO 1990ies... Of course, if I want the site of the Austrian postal service, I can be pretty sure that it will be at post.at and try that first. Other names might not be that straight-forward, but still easier to remember, like bmf.gv.at for the BundesMinisterium für Finanzen, which is part of the GoVernment of AusTria. But you only remember that address if you already found out (with Google etc.) that it's basicly saying 'Bundesministerium für Finanzen', and not the more commonly used shorter term 'Finanzministerium'.
Everything less official doesn't have intuitive domain names any longer because there have been way too much name clashes already. If a new movie about foo is released, the site isn't foo.com, it's foo-the-movie-com, foomovie.com, $$$productions.com/foo or something like that. No one tries any of these, as a search engine query will lead to the target much faster. People who want free pr0n aren't trying freepr0n.com any longer.
By the time anything like
So, what's in a name? Nothing at all, it doesn't matter to people anyway. It's just nicer to have something 'human-readable' for writing it down instead of an IP number, but once everyone carries around their bookmarks on PDAs (or wristwatches or smartcards) and does the drag-and-drop instead of the scribble-on-paper thing, even those would be okay as addresses, even if they were in decimal format.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
I dont know a whole lot about internet architecture, but is there a reason that TLDs are crucial to operations? Why couldnt I have brian.norton? Why cant there be an unlimited number of TLDs?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
.inc .ltd
etc..I think a limited or incorperated company would be happy to have its own Businessname.inc
Plus its short!
(unlike SOME i could mention-- nokia.takesmeafuckinghourtotypethisonamobilephone
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
The DNS system is broken? I just typed in "slashdot.org" and got here just fine. What exactly are you referring to? Are you proposing that people type in "66.35.250.150" and remember that instead? What happens when IP addresses change?
I can't help thinking that the domain name system worked a lot better when it was all run by one company. I register domains with OpenSRS, and trying to take over domains administered by Network Solutions, for example, is a nightmare, because half the time they just ignore the requests to hand over the domain. The last thing we want is to introduce that kind of behaviour at the next level up.
Virtually serving coffee
At this point in the game, the primary customers of the recent 'new' domains (.biz, .info) are trademark holders who are forced to register yet more domains. Its quite a boon for registrars when the name registrations start slowing down.
I agree with many of the other posters here - dns is outdated and it doesn't fit how the Internet is used any more, particularly with respect to businesses online with trademarks, etc. The downside is that replacing it will happen just shortly after we all convert to IPv6 which should be about 3523 A.D.
Fredericton would be my guess... look at the first 4 letters of the address. Besides everyone knows all the perverted porn dealers are in Fredericton (all the politicians are there too... coincidence?)
How about a .rz domain for Religious Zealots only? Someone could con the $cientologists in there, too.
Or does $cientology only live in .ca?
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
No, it was so the people WOULDN'T HAVE TO TRACK CHANGING IP ADDRESSES. Duh!
It was thought that the ability to have memorable names was a nice side-effect and that it would be managed by keeping different intellectual property claims in separate domains. That worked for a while but once companies started to leak out of .com and into .net and .org the system rapidly fell apart and it now SUCKS. Go on, set up cocacola.info for all your cola-wars stories and see how long you'll last with the "but it's clearly not THE cocacola because it's .info, not .com" argument. How about something more generic like "apple.co.uk" for your orchard business? Or perhaps the world's Mr McDonalds would like a site devoted to their families? Good luck to them!
Recognisable names seemed like a good idea but are not viable in the long run; abstracting IP's is vital.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
There are certainly ways to improve DNS, but name spaces are should not be confused with content indicators. Looking for Ford, or "Bob Jones", or "Pictures of Bubbles the Chimp" is fundamentally different than connecting to www.ford.com.
Or do you also agree that the phone book should indicate what sort of information you'll get from me when you call my phone number, and be surprised if I start reading bad science fiction to you instead of telling you to place me on your Do Not Call list?
Names are identifiers, not semantic indicators. Otherwise I'd be named Software Hack #22948236, White Male #039784982367, or perhaps Annoying Sarcastic Jerk #9865666652, depending on one's priorities.
If Google resolved all links to IPs, that would make Google far more brittle, because content moves and IP addresses change.
And I'm ignoring the larger issues of decentralized name delegation and the fact that you seem to be conflating the web with the net.
I believe if you look at the wider URI specification, there is some what what you're looking for. URLs were considered Good Enough(TM) by most people, which is a little unfortunate, but if development houses can't even support that, how are you going to get them to toss DNS? (If you're really interested, DNS SERV records get closer to what I think you mean, too.)
-j
I forget what 8 was for.
The pages are stuck together for a different reason!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
(I'd just moderated a bunch in this forum, too)
.trash I should be able to. It's certainly not a problem using Bind! Many corporations have their own "private" TLDs for internal LAN use.
The basic problem with the DNS system IS NOT the trademark issue, anbd IS NOT the used of words to replace fixed IPs.
The problem is ICANN. Why are we limited to so few TLDs? Why can't anybody willing to put up a shingle put together their own TLD in a cooperative fashion?
There's certainly no TECHNICAL reason not to... The fact that we have a limited number of root nameservers is already shown to be a potential problem.
DNS root servers should operate in a quasi p2p fashion, and, if anything, ICANN should register only the actual TLDs, not the 2nd layer.
If I want to host a TLD like
All that's needed is a method to coordinate these multitudinous TLDs and the DNS "issue" can be fixed for once and for all!
(sighs, goes back to moderating)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The City of Saint Paul, Minnesota used to use the domain stpaul.gov. We now use the official ci.stpaul.mn.us domain (shut up NeuStar - we own it!). In both cases, one continual uphill battle is getting people to realize there's no '.com' on the end. "How will it know to use the internet if I don't put .com on the end?" - I've heard this too many times!
In fact, I don't think most people (slashdotters aren't most people) know how to type an address into their browser. If it's not linked from their AOL or MSN homepage, it must not exist. (I had a hard time believing this at first, but over time, found it to be true.)
Soooo, I'm not too worried about what people are going to have to type in (most simply won't). I would be extremely amused at all the dom-squatters who would break their bank trying to buy every new domain that they think someone would pay for.
Anyone suggest the '.blog' TLD? How about '.exe', just to see how many firewalls it would trip up?
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
I totally agree with you here. DNS was never intended to have anything whatsoever to do with the nature of content served up by one host under the domain on one protocol (HTTP).
DNS is intended to provide an administrator-friendly name to an IP address, not to serve as a mechanism to locate a logical entity.
What we really need is a mechanism to reliably link a real-world, logical name to a DNS domain. RealNames tried to be this, but going about this from a "keyword" or "pay-to-play" perspective is totally wrong and only sparks litigation. Only one company is going to get "apple", for instance, even though there are hundreds of them that surely have a claim to it.
We really need a mechanism, backed by LDAP or X.500 or something, where I can go in and type "Apple Computer" and instantly get a record pointing to "apple.com". Nothing else. (Nothing yet even suggests "web".) If I do a search for "Apple", I'd presumably get back a lot of records, which I can filter so as to ignore stuff that's outside of my locality and isn't nationally or internationally recognized. I can choose which one I want, and I'd ultimately end up at a single domain name representing that entity.
Now, when I want to pull up the web site for "Apple Computer", I have a mapping to "apple.com". A SRV record lookup would then be performed over DNS to determine the web server for this domain, and ultimately connect to "www.apple.com:80" (or :443). An SSL certificate could then be used to authenticate not only the DNS domain name, but all the way back to the original "official" entity name I selected to begin with.
At no time was the user ever exposed to IP addresses, DNS hostnames or port numbers. All of that was handled entirely behind the scenes. They just asked to be connected to the web site of Apple Computers.
This is the way things Should Be (in my opinion). The trick is getting an infrastructure in place, solving any legal or jurisdictional battles up front, to provide this "logical name" to DNS domain name mapping. At this point, who the hell cares about new TLD's or whether a company is represented with a 2nd-level GTLD or some company-name.saint-louis.mo.us domain? It shouldn't matter. DNS returns then to being something managed by engineers and administrators, not marketroids and politicians.
On top of this, many entities are (ab)using DNS domains for products (trademarks and service marks), not organizations. So however this is built, another engine along-side this should probably be built along with it to associate users with logical company names based on a trademark/service mark search. This should probably be handled by each individual country, maybe with a "meta-engine" to aggregate everything into one infrastructure.
My US$0.02.
Let's say you have a business entity called "Example". As a business entity, a DNS domain for them should logically be allocated under "com". So they are assigned "example.com". If this entity divides themselves into two departments, say Human Resources and IT, you do not create "example-human-resources.com" and "example-it.com", as that would be creating two DNS peers to "example.com". Instead, you create sub-domains and delegate those to each business unit. So now you have "hr.example.com" and "it.example.com". IT can spawn off some sub-groups (maybe Research & Development), so they might get "research.it.example.com".
The point is, sub-divisions of one logical real-world entity should result in sub-divisions at the DNS level, and we should never have second-level domains for products or service-marks of all things. It's horrible enough to use DNS to locate companies or as a content identifier, but it's even worse to use it as a database for locating trademarks and service-marks.
Opening up the TLD's for anyone, or adopting a "keywords" system (first come, first serve) only exacerbates the .com problem: who gets "apple"? There are hundreds of organizations that have a legitimate claim.
What we really need is another naming layer that maps these logical entity names to DNS domains. Put DNS back to what it was doing when it was originally designed (which wasn't a bad design for its requirements) and move all of the trademark and intellectual property crap to a separate database where it belongs.
I neglected to add this to my earlier post, but as an extension to what I was saying earlier, DNS should not be used as a content label. One organization (e.g. a publishing company) could host several different types of content, including some children's media and maybe a porn site. To say that that one logical entity needs to represent itself with 2 or 4 or 10 different DNS domains is absurd. They should only need one.
If you need to label content, that label needs to belong with the content. This is what we have PICS and RSACi for.
Perhaps search engines need a way to relay PICS-based ratings directly in the results, doing the "filtering" right up front based on your criteria.
Do I still get "YOU COULD HAVE A VIRUS" banner adds in Linux?
dudethisisawesome.porn will never be prefferable to porn.com
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Personally, I'm settling for a dot com address.
Hmm, now which one should I pick...
http://www.wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.com/ ? Dang, taken.
http://www.asdfg.com/ ? Arrgh... Taken again.
http://www.unuseddomain.com/ ? Nope. Taken.
http://www.linuxxp.com/ Taken...
http://slashdot2.com/ ? Yay! Free!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I've only had 3 mods over 9 posts on this topic.
I take it "Troll" in your language means "other opinion"?
The whole problem of IP/copyright claims didn't arise until the corporations realised there was money to be made on the 'net
I agree, but it has arisen now and the genie won't go back in the bottle.
Until that point, DNS was used to avoid having to worry about IP addresses at all. So it's a little of both. But there's absolutely no sense in going back to a number-based system.
I'm not suggesting that we go back to IP addresses or even a fixed format like dotted quad; I don't see why you think it would be so tough on people (hardly surprising when you refuse to say why it would be so bad). Not all number-based systems are as user-hostile as IP4 or, much worse, IP6.
Go read a book or something before you spout bogosities like that.
So you think the current system is fine and that it will continue to be fine for, say, the next 50 years?
The point of a forum is to discuss. Just saying "you're a troll" over and over is not really very useful.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
A proposal I saw in Slashdot is to have top servers organized by the last letters of the name. So the IP corresponding to 'Slashdot' would be served by the T server, or maybe the 'OT' server. This is very similar to the current country system. There would be a flat namespace. IBM could have jp.ibm and fr.ibm instead of ibm.co.jp and ibm.fr.
There remains to be solved who pays the top servers and how to resolve name conflicts in this flatter system.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Realistically, everybody who has any use for a domain has one (probably more) already. The domains associated with "famous" trademarks are, by now, owned by the trademark owners. The domain rush is over. The domain speculators are being purged out of the system as their domains come up for renewal. There just isn't a problem.
goats.ex.resultsin.kids?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
... "travel" means "20 years hard labour in Siberia".
Damn, was I on-topic now?
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