Slashdot Mirror
Niue WiFi Network Gone, .nu TLD May Follow
gxc writes "The world's first free national wireless grid is no longer with us, after waves from
Cyclone Heta swept over Niue's thirty metre cliffs, destroying
everything. Although only one person died, the damage is so bad that
there is talk of winding up the country , meaning their fortuitous ccTLD could go the way of .su. Perhaps the easiest way
for Slashdotters to help Niue would be to choose a .nu domain over the dull alternatives."
Niue came to be self-governed simply because of its remoteness from New Zealand (which still maintains Niue's defense). Without generous grants from New Zealand to make up regular budget deficits, Niue would have folded long ago. The population is half what it was in the Sixties, and continues to decline. I personally hope Niue is able to make a go of it, but things were hardly rosy before the storm.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Here's a another write-up of the incident by ReliefWeb. If you're looking for a place to direct your help to, note that Niue is a member of Development and Economic Policy Division Funding Assistance and Regional Natural Disaster Relief Fund ... so these might be good places to donate.
I suppose you could also just pick a random person, transfer some money and ask them to pass it around, since there are only about 2,000 people there.
Ah the irony of Niue, "Savage Island". It was so named by Capt Cook after the fierce-appearing warriors painted their teeth red by chewing a local plant. Later they were "Christianized" by missionaries and now apparently rival the Puritans in their pious and strict religion.
At any rate, Niueans don't shy away from selling the .nu domain (means nude in French), and host many adult web sites under it. Also, they appantly offer a tax shelter for many less than savory businesses.
My source for this information was the excellent book, _Blue Latitudes_ by Tony Horwitz.
.nu has been a source of rivarly between the Niue people and an American who effectively stole it from the country through deception. The population have been trying to get it back with no luck. The Americans have been threatening the local people (whole story documented here)
.nu domain, your money will just line the pockets of a shady entrepreneur.
No-one from Niue will benefit if you register a
Even if New Zealand assumes soverign control, Niue will probably retain its ccTLD.
Actually, the status of .su is debatable -- IANA froze the domain so that no new .su domains could be created, but it was reopened by .su administrators a few years later, even though IANA & ICANN didn't recognize it as an active TLD. .su still isn't listed on IANA's public list of ccTLDs, but it's listed the in whois.iana.org database because .su's administrators are too stubborn to give up. (The .su root servers are also .ru root servers, which makes them hard to ignore.)
.cs in 1995 and .zr in 2001. (Also, I'm told .dd was dissolved when the two Germanies unified, but I'm not sure .dd was ever active to begin with.)
.nu, depending on how active it remained and who was willing to keep managing it.
Using the ccTLD of a "deleted nation" is kind of iffy. The ccTLDs are supposed to be based on ISO 3166-1, and the ISO is allowed to reassign old codes to new nations. If IANA let ccTLDs outlive their nations, they increase the chances of having two claims to one ccTLD. Sooner or later, somebody would get accused of ccTLD-squatting.
For the record, ccTLDs have been sucessfully dissolved before:
If the end of Niue's independence led the ISO to drop nu from ISO 3166-1, IANA and ICANN probably would try to freeze or delete
Keep in mind, though, ISO 3166-1 doesn't require political independence for a region to have a geographic code, because it's still useful for "distant regions" to have their own codes for non-Internet purposes (like air travel and shipping). There are completely uninhabited islands that still have ISO codes! As long as people are living on Niue (and New Zealand doesn't ask for deletion), the ISO will probably leave nu on the list.
Proud to be / Smiley-free / Since Nineteen / Ninety-Three