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."
www.slashdot.nu is still available! Only 60euro/2 years! Think of the fun we could have. Uh, we could make, um. hm. A fresh nu slashdot. That'd be fun.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
"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."
A tradgedy, to be sure, but 1. this free wireless network was probably smaller than a few of our free *city* networks, and 2. why is this a separate country in the first place? Admittedly I've only taken a cursory glance at the situation, but it seems like the idea of them being a nation is more *cool* than it is practical or feasible -- especially given the degree to which a cyclone can destroy the place.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
I would highly doubt that the tld will go away, just as I doubt Niue will give up it's independence.
Hey, maybe I should move there and telecommute.
Isn't that something? The country can just close up shop. They just give two weeks' notice to the UN and start planning the retirement party. Will attending nations please contribute five dollars for drinks and a small gift.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
King Arthur: .. Ni!
Aide: Nu!
Arthur: Nono -- you're doing it wrong! n_I_
Aide: Ni!
Both together: Ni! Ni! Ni!
</sorry>
US is now divided as the "Red" and "blue" states. Red States = communist countries. Coincidence? I think not
Just a reminder to those Debian users in Niue, the mirror.debian.nu apt-get server will be down until further notice. It seems we were prepare for the Slashdot effect, but not a big fucking cyclone effect. Thank you, Local Debian Mirror Administrator
Niue - Cia world factbook info
This link is for people like me who had never heard of this place before and is full of intresting facts such as.
"The sale of postage stamps to foreign collectors is an important source of revenue."
I read the several linked articles, and visited the .NU Registrar. I don't see anywhere that suggests buying a .NU domain would in any way help relief efforts.
It sounds like that request might be misguided philanthropy. If you want to help the people of Niue, I'd imagine some sort of direct financial contribution might be more effective.
It all goes downhill from first post
meaning their fortuitous ccTLD could go the way of .su
.nu TLD?
1500 people have had their homes and their community destroyed and the tragedy is that we might lose the
NO CARRIER
I find it hard to believe that I'm even saying this; I would welcome the chance to be an even smaller country of one. But I wouldn't be holding out my hands expecting others to be taxed to pay for it, and I doubt that I would expect other slashtot readers to pitch in to make it happen either.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.
"nu" means "now" in dutch and a .nu is cheaper than a .nl
From the looks of it, after this event, the entire set of data will have to be overhauled, including:
.nu, we should have a .dc too. It's not a state after all...
Area - comparative:
1.5 times the size of Washington, DC
Now...
Area - comparative:
1.2 times the size of Washington, DC (erosion effect).
Seriously, if we can have a
Well, Sealand doesn't exactly qualify as a recognized nation in the international scene. For smallest official independent state, I think Vatican City (Holy See) qualifies for that award.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Who says theyre witout a wireless setup?
What ive seen theyre wireless, roofless, treeless, homeless..
-- Jim.
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
Consider a comparable situation. Japanese insurance companies run their spreadsheets in the Earth Simulator supercomputer and preemptively wind up the USA, rather than go through all that tedious Greenhouse/cleanup business.
--
make install -not war
What good is the internet and the information age if everything *should* be like the network tv news?
A few minutes of street crime, a few minutes on a local thing, a few minutes on international stuff, some chit-chat, then sports and weather. No thanks.
There's nothing wrong with a 'news for nerds' site and playing the morality card is unconvincing and someone can *always* find a more desperate and dire news item to make you seem like the frivolous type.
Nitpicking your nitpick, .fm is the Federated States of Micronesia. Malaysia is .my , which might also be fun, if it weren't restricted to third-level domains (foo.com.my) and even that only for Malaysian-registered entities.
Cheers,
-j.
.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
For those of you thinking of registering a .nu domain to assist Niue, don't. First, because there are better ways to fund your donation dollars, as has been pointed out by other posters.
.nu ccTLD. While both sides have their versions of the story, a telling fact is that the UN recognized government is locked out of their own web site (www.gov.nu). They can be found instead at www.niuegov.com. You will note that the updates on the gov.nu site stopped in October and continue on at the niuegov.com site, which is hosted by a UN agency (UNDP-APDIP to be exact).
.nu ccTLD registrar will reach the government. The registrar may assist in other ways, but it will not likely be through official channels.
The second reason is that there is a dispute going on between the government of Niue and the companies that control the
Because of this, I truly doubt that any money spent with the
One version of the dispute between the government and the registrar can be found here.
G.nu is Not Usable
:-/
".NU Search Results for "g.nu"
Your domain name, including ".nu", must contain between 6 and 65 characters. "
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
New Zealand is obliged (morally, if not contractually) to provide it
You make some very solid arguments here. I feel I should clarify this point however; Under the 1974 agreement (which is in fact a mutually agreed addition to the Statute of Westminister) New Zealand is contractually obligated to provide assistance.
The relationship between NZ and the various pacific island nations is a close one. For instance, most nationals of those countries are afforded NZ citizenship as a birthright and many of them use the NZ currency. Assistance and aid (despite the grandparent comment) are gladly provided by NZ to those nations, and their contribution to our collective culture is generally appreciated.
I couple of years ago I was hunting around for a cheap place to register my domain...I had a poke around the local area (I'm in Australia) and consider Christmas Island, Heard and McDonald Island, and then noticed the Cook Islands was _really_ cheap and thought hey that's neat...turns out the Cook Islands follow the same naming convention as New Zeland and the UK: .ac.ck for ACademic institutions .net.ck for NETwork types
.co.ck for COmpanies
:-)
and then it hit me why they were so cheap...
I'm really surprised that no-one has registerd
www.big.co.ck etc.
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
Peter Jackson and the ONE RING.