ICANN Considers Using '127.0.53.53' To Tackle DNS Namespace Collisions

angry tapir writes "As the number of top-level domains undergoes explosive growth, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is studying ways to reduce the risk of traffic intended for internal network destinations ending up on the Internet via the Domain Name System. Proposals in a report produced on behalf of ICANN include preventing .mail, .home and .corp ever being Internet TLDs; allowing the forcible de-delegation of some second-level domains in emergencies; and returning 127.0.53.53 as an IP address in the hopes that sysadmins will flag and Google it."

Comments

hacky

[dmitrygr]

Seems like a very hacky solution...

Re:hacky

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you think that a browser getting a 127.0.53.53 won't return a meaningful and very descriptive error? It is a special case worth flagging if ever their was one.

Re:hacky

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Once you start down the dark path... Forever will it dominate your destiny.

It's not as though TLDs were ever a particularly shining moment in the history of information classification; but, after the remnant factions of the Ontology wars (remember when URLs were totally going to express useful data about the world and whatnot by being insufferably long and hierarchical?) retired or were driven into hiding, they mostly slumped, if more by erosion than sound structural engineering, into a vaguely safe and predictable structure.

And then they decided that it was just sickeningly adequate as it was and they started grafting on... things... things that should not be...in places that out not to have things there. Nothing could possibly go wrong. And oh boy, does it look like it will, good and hard.

Re:hacky

[hcs_$reboot]

I'm sorry the Internet is a production network. Time for amateur hour expired with the 20th century

I'm sorry, I feel the time for amateur hours exploded in the 21th century. Competency was diluted among the many so-called experts answering the huge demand of engineers. It seems in bigger companies IT management is confined to ensure IT services work fine - meaning in most cases implement the fewer changes as possible - "don't fix what isn't broken". Most teams are not used anymore to hacking, customizing, improving, innovating. When something a bit trickier than usual rears its nose on the horizon, they're lost. DNS implementation is one of these trickier thing.

Re:hacky

[Stalks]

How do you put up a parking page that listens on loopback?

Re:hacky

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a better solution
Refuse to resolve any of the new gTLDs. Start petitions and stuff get you isps to refuse to resolves them. Get distros to patch their networking code to refuse to resolve them. Make them worthless.

emergency response options

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition the report recommends emergency response options, which will be employed only in situations "where there is a reasonable belief that the DNS namespace collision presents a clear and present danger to human life".

In other words, the DNS will be used for political oppression.

Why bother?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Surely something as visible, and rife with opportunity for outrageous comedies of error, as DNS namespace collisions can simply be allowed to work itself out, through the time tested, enjoyable(for spectators), and reliable methods of endless risible fuckups followed by stilted non-denials from people who should have known better and vicious mockery from everybody else? Have we lost all sense of tradition? Taste? Humor?

(Perhaps more importantly: wouldn't it be neat if there were some sort of super cool, totally futuristic, security mechanism? One that used a secret number, that the server never told anyone, but still managed to prove that it knew, because number theory, instead of just relying on the URL being right? I bet that I'd have to go, like -25 years into the future to see a system that advanced...)

STOP

[WaffleMonster]

The proliferation of TLDs has no positive effect on the Internet community whatsoever short of enriching ICANN and it's seedy network of bottom feeders.

Well ok say it helps scamming phishers and enables organizations to part with even larger sums of cash in any efforts to protect their brands.

Lighting up names with a loopback address like this "127.0.53.53" garbage is about the level of crap we can come to expect from the total idiots at ICANN. If you need to associate an A record pick an address guaranteed to be black holed not one that causes machines to resolve to thyself... extraordinarily moronic...

In my view DNS operators should take responsibility to prevent damage to their customers by not blindly delegating * to root zone operators. Only delegate known TLDs and require manual blessing of all operators before admitting any new TLDs.

Better yet, no new TLD

[Anonymous Coward]

The best solution here is to simply stop this TLD madness because it provides no value at all. A new TLD can be created each time the UN recognizes a new country's existence, but for no other reason.