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Dirty Domains
EraseMe writes "Sucks. A quick whois shows that a whole slew of offensive domain names are owned by the Central District of California US District Court. Is this an attempt at using our tax dollars towards lucrative purchases, or simply a censorship of our global freedom?" The second, but not in the way that you think. The court holds the domains because there's an ongoing suit which is challenging Network Solutions' refusal to register domains based on the Pacifica "seven dirty words" case. It was covered a few months ago in various news outlets.
Even more interesting is NSI's practice of refusing registrations to some registrants but granting them to others. Various registrants tried to register "nigger.com", and were refused, before NSI permitted the NAACP to register it (although why the NAACP wants to be associated with nigger.com is hard for me to grasp). Why do some organizations get special treatment for registering domain names?
(although why the NAACP wants to be associated with nigger.com is hard for me to grasp).
/., but perhaps not. Anyway, they are registering domains like this in order to prevent hate sites from registering them.
I read about this recently, I thought on
The cake is a pie
What I find laughable about this whole arguement is that NSI is claiming it doesn't want to "advertise" for these dirty words. The only way to get to one of these sights would be to type it into a browser, just like any other site. The don't want to "promote" these dirty words, yet they will register domain names that are more offensive (see any of the racist/homophobic sites) and they will register sites that they know will be used to luring unsuspecting people into porn sites (see www.whitehouse.com). I wouldn't care as much if they would just register domains that were offensive in general, instead of pointing the finger at 7 words, which aren't considered all that shocking anymore.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Well, I can see why NSI wouldn't allow some of them, but there's really no policy that can be applied globally, given language variance, even American English vs British English vs Australian English. NSI's allowed the NAACP to register 'nigger.com' but turned down others. Where's the line drawn? godhatesfags.com was allowed, would godhatesblacks.com be? Or would they only allow (e.g.) the NAACP to register it to present their side of it?
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The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
It seems as if most of the people complaining are people in America.
Solution: 1) Create new nic handles for certain "businesses." eg:
*.sex for Adult Oriented pr0n sites. *.h4c for all the geocities hax0r groups. *.sec for true blue Security sites. *.own for sites that lack security. *.cus for those who want domains like. fuck.* or bitch.*...
2) Just let someone register the domain and get over all this political correctness.
3) Line up the people over at NSI and this District Court of Whereever, audit their PC and say "AHA... Dirty words huh? WHATS THIS pr0n ON YOUR PC."
I'm sure after the embarassment they'll definitely get over their childishness on dirty words.
Want Root?
I tried to register fuckyou.com, and was rejected. I put up a quick and dirty web page calling NSI a bunch of hypocrites.
A couple of days ago, and AOLuser writes me claiming that it is the NSF that has the seven dirty words policy, not NSI. He claims to be an employee [of NSI?], and that he therefore is so much better clued than the rest of the world.
If it is the NSF with the policy, why is NSI in court over it?
http://www.best.com/~cknight-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
Take a step back people.
/. are all bitching and moaning about not being able to register a domain name with the big bad man.
Not everything is about curtailing your personal freedom.
We do live in a civilized (so I'm told) society with rules and values and norms. Not everyone is supposed to be allowed to run around and say whatever they want about anyone. Just becasue I can say "Eat shit and die" does not mean I'm supposed to. Just because there can be hard core porn on the net doesn't mean there should be. Just because the net can be used for just about anything does not mean that it should. We are giving access to our kids and third world countries here. Not everyone has the right to be anonymous.
I'm not saying to start stomping all over the 1st ammendment, just to think about what you people are talking about. Not being able to register donkeysack.com or whatever is NOT the same as being shot because you say you hate the government. That's real censorship. There's real people in this world being opressed for real beliefs and people on
-Rich
Frankly, I think any combination of symbols allowed by the DNS protocol should be legitamate.
The semantics of those symbols is irrevalent.
Unlike the radio where you are a captive audience
on the internet you have to dileberately choose
to go somewhere. True there are exceptions such
as automatic redirects but generally speaking no one is forcing you to go anywhere.
If you find it offensive, simply dont go there.
-N
Last time I checked, the Internet was a place to communicate and exchange ideas. Now, I, personally, am completely against hate groups and the such, but they still have a right to express their opinion, no matter how bigoted it may be. But where does anybody get the right to say who can name their site what? If it's a problem of decency for, say, AOL, or protecting children, then the individual ISPs providing those families with service can choose to not allow access to those sites. But the government has no right to do that. Let the parents and the ISPs decide what's proper.
so THAT's why I couldn't register gerbilfuck.com....
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
What exactly is the problem with these domain names? Who is it that is injured if they are allowed to be registered?
There seems to be a notion that domain names can be divided into two subsets, offensive and acceptable. Across all languages and cultures. Perhaps they should submit the complete list for public approval first. Will they allow sexforkids.com? This smells like a bureaucracy where each new domain name has to pass thru a dozen cultural "experts" who measure it's offensiveness. No wonder it takes months.
You don't want to see offensive domain names? Then don't type them into your browser. If you're on a page with a link to one, chances are you're already offended. If your kid is typing in www.handjob.com, they could undoubtedly manage www.yahoo.com, and search from there for the same material. The domain name registrars should concentrate on proper syntax and leave the semantic checking to others.
COREnic will happily register whatever domain-name you put in front of them.
For example:
...
~ > whois fuckme.com@whois.corenic.net
[whois.corenic.net]
berkens michael (template COCO-395) CORE-78
po box 4756
seminole, fl 33775 US
Domain Name: fuckme.com
Status: production
The domains are in the root-servers just like any other .com/.net/.org/etc. There was an article on this several months ago, mocking how the whole NSI case was useless because the competitive registries will allowing exactly what NSI was forbidding.
www.kidsforsex.com
www.littlekidsex.com
www.killblacks.net
www.ihatejews.net
www.analkiddiesex.com
www.nakedkidsfucking.com
I am bored at work... How can you not be able to register fuck.com and be able register these atrocious domains?
DISCLAIMER!!!!!!
I am not saying that I want to register these domains myself. I don't want children to have sex. I am not racist. I am jewish myself. I am just trying to make my point that these are allowed by network solutions.
Just ignore those guys. I have an e-mail address at www.fuckyou.co.uk (no, sorry, no e-mail listing here 8) - can't recall where I heard about it originally... go have fun if you're into it...
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
>You or anyone else could have registered nigger.com. Nobody stopped you.
Ah... No. Reread the story up top: NSI refused it to others before allowing the NAACP to register it.
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
I'm sorry, did I read more into the comments above than I should have? What I read seemed to imply that other groups tried to register nigger.com first and were refused but when the NAACP tried to register it, they were successful.
If this was, in fact, the case, then how do you propose that he/she would have had more success registering it than anyone else?
Just wonderin'...
I think I'd prefer to see NSI hold the names and refuse to register them, than to see the government seize them.
What happens next? Will fuck.com be offered to the first bozo who tried to register it? Or is the government bound to sell it to the highest bidder? My guess is the latter. Either way, somebody stands to make a windfall that they don;t deserve.
As I pointed out in another post this week, there is censorship in the US, there always has been censorship, and there will always be censorship. There's not very much of it, and as a nation we're pretty vigilant about letting it extend itself (e.g. this discussion). So, you know, I'd rather not see those domains registered than to see them auctioned off and promoted commercially. Seven words. Period. And you know, the list will not grow; any other words that may become "obscene" in the future are probably already registered. Nigger.com belongs to the NAACP. That's a perfect private solution to the problem. I'd rather let the other seven words go than to see the government get involved in seizng domain names.
And you never know, maybe NSI will need the 35 bucks someday, and the whole censorship thing will become moot.
When you can see sex and murder on TV, how important is it to ban the word "piss"?
Excellent point.
A couple of days ago, the USA Network here in the States was running "The Godfather Saga", which is a combined version of Francis Ford Copolla's first two Godfather films, re-edited so that all of the material is in chronological order. There's a classic scene where Al Pacino goes to have dinner with an enemy of the family, ostensibly to make peace with him. In reality, the family plants a pistol in the bathroom of the Italian place that they're eating at; the plan is that Pacino is to excuse himself to go to the bathroom, retrieve the gun, and blow the guy away.
In the setup scene, James Caan urges his associate (Clemenza) to take extra care when planting the gun. "I don't want my brother coming out of that bathroom with just his dick in his hands," he comments. Now, for the USA Network showing, that line of dialogue was edited. In its place, the line "I don't want my brother coming out of that bathroom with just his *stick* in his hands." The replacement was unbelievably cheesy; the sound was all wrong, and it was a strange mixture of funny and insulting all at the same time.
However, when it comes time for Pacino to pull the trigger, the USA Network showing was virtually unedited. In graphic detail, Pacino's unsuspecting victims get a bullet hole through their forehead, with streams of blood flowing out. They drop to the floor, Pacino drops the gun, and runs out.
Moral of the story? It's all right to show a couple of guys take bullets between the eyebrows, but the word "dick" is unacceptable, and must be replaced with the word "stick." Such hypocrisy is staggering.
(For the record, I'm not at all opposed to violence in films. I for one think that the graphic violence in The Godfather was mandatory; without it, the portrayal of the brutality, inhumanity, and lack of respect for human life in the Mob would not have been believable. I am, however, opposed to hypocrisy.)
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground