A couple years back, the trolls discovered that you could widen the page by posting long strings of characters with no spaces. Widening the page by posting a comment like that would make the entire Slashdot story basically unreadable for those without the patience to continuously scroll right and then left again for each line.
Malda implemented a new feature that prevented any strings longer than 50 characters from being posted by inserting a space after the 50th character. The trolls found various ways to get around this and widen the page anyway (some of which only widened Internet Explorer), but over time they've all been disabled in various ways.
Your best bet is to simply make a href link instead of trying to paste the link into the message text. Either that, or shorten the link. The link in the post you replied to would have been space-free if the http:// were stripped off.
Everybody should be required to read this book. I admit I bought it solely because of the title, thinking it would be good wanking material. In terms of wanking potential, it would up being rather sub-par, but as social critique is was fucking superlative.
Some bits just from the first chapter...
It leaves out the ways in which girls are under systematic pressure not to feel, know, or act on their sexual desire. It covers up both our consistent refusal to offer girls any guideance for acknowledging, negotiating, and integrating their own sexual desire... The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, a network of over two thousand relgious leaders from over twenty-five denominations, in its 2001 declaration recognizes "sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality." Sexuality is so often thought of only in negative terms, so frequently clustered with problem behaviors such as smoking and drinking, in our minds as well as in our research, that it is easy to forget that while we are not supposed to become smokers or drinkers in adolescence, we are supposed to develop a mature sense of ourselves as sexual beings by the time we have reached adulthood. Without a clear or sanctioned path, developing this sense is even harder for girls...
How far our conceptions of male and female adolescent sexuality diverges came into startling focus one night at a dinner party I attended with some friends who have teenage children. A man I had not met before began bragging about how his teenage son showed every sign of being a "ladies' man"... His pleasure that his son was a heartbreaker was evident. Later in the evening, the same man spoke about his fifteen-year-old daughter. A different picture of the terrain of adolescent sexuality came to the fore. On the one hand, he was clearly proud that his daughter was considered and attractive and desirable date by her male peers; on the other, he was uncomfortable when she actually went out with them. While he understood that she wanted to have a boyfriend, which he ascribed to her desire to be like her friends, he preferred that she bring boys home rather than be out with them...
To wit, in 1998, a film entitled Coming Soon, about white, middle-class, heterosexual adolescent girls who seek to have sexual experiences on their own terms, was shown only at film festivals... because no distributor would pick it up... We remain distrubed when forced to face the possibility that girls, too, might be engaged in a process of sexual maturation that involved more than developing breasts and getting their periods...
Seriously, though, you're a sexually-repressed puritan and you're missing out on the finest that life has to offer. Have fun with your wrinkly old hags.
> Where I live, it is legal for women to go topless in the summer
Does that include teenage girls, or only to women over 18? If teenage girls are allowed to go topless as well, I'm moving there. Is it legal to take pictures of topless teenage girls?
"Ink (colour+b&w) costs nearly as much as the printer" is a gross understatement.
I was at my local Wal-Mart recently, and checked some prices.
New Lexmark printer: $36 Black ink cartridge for it: $35 Color ink cartridge for it: $38
So a pair of cartridges costs TWICE as much as the printer.
You might think that throwing out the printer whenever you run out of ink and buying a new one is the best bet, but you're missing one important element: the printers come with "starter" ink cartridges, which contain considerably less ink than the retail cartridges -- I'd guess they come about 1/4 full.
I've been following this story from the start, and it's been fascinating. Pets Warehouse is still up and operating. Novak switched over to a new domain shortly after the turnover of the domain was ordered, so he's managed to avoid any downtime despite losing his old domain. It's now located at Pets-Warehouse.com (Novak just added a dash). Maybe it'll soon be gone too, but Novak has been through a couple of bankruptcies already. I hope he's learned a lesson, at least.
Re:Who modded this Insightful?!
on
Water Flows Uphill
·
· Score: -1, Redundant
1) You think up a new invention 2) You market this invention (exclusively, thanks to patents) 3) MONEY!!
The uniting of humanity is not Gendo's aim, but rather his dead wife's (Shinji's mother). Gendo's aim is to be reunited with her; everything else is secondary for him. The reason for her attempt was to ensure that humanity survived effectively forever (at least until the heat-death of the universe).
While this is essentially true, I really don't appreciate people trying to talk about me behind my back like this. I do have feelings, you know.
Second, I hate the American spelling of my name. Help a brother out and spell it right.
No. Any photograph becomes the intellecual property of the photographer (not the subject or model) the moment it is taken. Depending on circumstances, there may be restrictions or limitations on using photographs of someone for commercial purposes (especially in advertising) without permission, and that's why "model release forms" exist, but a photographer still has complete copyright on all photographs he takes.
I'm using the beta-test of this system now, so I know the news article doesn't describe it very well.
Here's the internal description of the service, which, by the way, is always going to be optional -- users have to turn it on manually. So fears of mass confusion from users when Earthlink turns this system on are a bit unfounded.
What is Suspect Email?
With some messages, only you can decide whether they are junk. When you turn on Suspect Email Blocking in addition to Known spam Blocking, you'll only receive messages from senders who are in your TotalAccess or Web Mail Address Book. Other messages will be temporarily held in your Suspect Email folder, and the unknown senders will receive an automatic reply message telling them how to ask to be added to your Allowed Senders list.
This is what the automated reply looks like:
From: automated-response@earthlink.net To: user@somedomain.net Subject: Re: How are you doing?
This is an automatic reply to your e-mail message to earthlinker@earthlink.net.
This email address is protected by Earthlink spamBlocker. Before earthlinker@earthlink.net can receive your message, your email address must be added to a list of allowed senders.
Click the link below to ask earthlinker@earthlink.net to add you to this list: http://webmail.earthlink.net/wam/addme?a=ea rthlink er@earthlink.net&id=xxxyyyzzz
And finally a more detailed description they supply:
Suspect Email Blocking is disabled by default, and includes Known spam Blocking. You must activate it yourself if you wish to use it.
With Suspect Email Blocking, spamBlocker examines any message that Known spam Blocking has not intercepted. If the sender's email address or Company (Domain) (i.e., the portion of the email address after the @ symbol, such as earthlink.net) appears in your Address Book, spamBlocker allows the message to reach your Inbox normally.
If the sender's address or Company (Domain) does not appear in your Address Book, spamBlocker does three things:
Intercepts the message and stores it online in your Suspect Email folder (which you can open by clicking the Suspect Email tab in the spamBlocker interface). Automatically replies to the sender with instructions on how to ask to be added to your Address Book Notifies you about the intercepted message in a summary you'll receive periodically via email (see spamBlocker Settings for more about email summaries) Note: Messages in your Suspect Email folder remain on EarthLink's incoming email server and count toward your 10MB mailbox storage limit. spamBlocker automatically deletes Suspect Email messages that are more than 14 days old.
Suspect Email Blocking practically ensures that your Inbox will be spam-free. To be effective, however, Suspect Email Blocking requires that you maintain a list of email addresses and Companies (Domains) you want to receive email from in your Address Book.
Suspect Email Blocking works in conjunction with Known spam Blocking. You cannot use Suspect Email Blocking by itself.
An image? So now to stop spam you'll have Earthlink "spamming" senders with image-laden emails? Or perhaps they will display an image that is loaded from their server? The latter won't work because I (and many) people don't allow our email clients to load anything off of remote servers. And it really pisses me off when I get images embedded in emails.
It does neither. I'm using the beta-test of the Earthlink C&R system right now. The response sent to someone who e-mails me doesn't contain any images at all, just an URL that must be visited. It's there, on Earthlink's site, that the challenge is presented.
Thanks for you post. I would never have guessed i would be this involved in this. I turned on Oprah last week, and saw this evil, and i just went ballistic. What did it to me is "Uncle Curt". I see RIGHT THROUGH his little charade. and frankly, he made the WRONG guy angry with his BS.
Many many men believe in protecting children. As a matter of fact, that might be the definition of a real man. My male friends would lay down their life without thinking to protect their families.
But of course, there are men who are evil, and sexual abusers. Frankly, I am these guys worst nightmare. They are COWARDS, hiding in the shadows, full of lies, and deceit, and corruption. My own father was like this, and i saw to it that legal justice was served on him.
I was involved in the promotion of Unicefs Convention on the Rights of the Child. But i stopped being involved for some years now. But after this nightmare, i am back at it, and will soon align myself with an organization, and do my part to contribute.
Truly, the passivity, and denial being preached by those who want to sell this stuff is EVIL POISON. It truly is the banality of evil. This "Child Erotica Relationship Marketing Wonderland", is one of the worst abuses of the internet. It truly is.
It can't be allowed to continue like this. If one country can reign it in, others will follow, but some will not. but it must be beaten back as far as possible. One day soon, some powerful people will tune into this, and things will happen.
As the experts say, a pedophiles life is consumed with rationalizing his own behavior. As Uncle Curt so clearly says,
"We... sort of have our own way of talking and looking at things. It's an attitude. It's a way of life."
When the show started and I listened to this mother and uncle,I realized I was sitting with my mouth open in shock.I called my aunt and said Oprah looks like she is about to explode you have got to see this show.As soon as I hung up the phone you did(explode).Thanks Oprah you said many of the things I wanted to say to these people,I mean what is their problem that they cant see that 30 and over yr old men shouldnt be paying to look at a young girl.Here in Bham,Al. we just had a 12 yr old snatched off the street raped and beaten.Perverts look at these young girls and become aroused and then they go and hurt someone elses child.I really feel sorry for that young girl because she is being exploited and put in harms way.Her uncle(and I know I don't know anything about him really)made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.Most perverts I'm sure don't consider what they do to be perverted.I have received unsolicited emails about pornagraphy containing teens with farm animals and other filth.I never opened the email & learned real quick the games these people play when you click on unsubscribe it takes you to the site anyway and also sends your email address to other porn sites.I looked up different agencies to report this porn but never received a reply.I now just delete but it bothers me a lot.These people also send instant messages using names like scooby,powerpuff girls and other names kids are familiar with which invites you to click and view their activities on webcam.Now those I havent had a problem with lately because I told them I was a police officer and my 13yr old had received instant messgs from this person and her friends and if they didnt want to be arrested for contributing to deliquency of a minor they better stop asap.Now the emails yahoo couldnt do anything because they are not coming from their customers and its been hard to track these people down because they keep changing the info needed to lock them down.I guess I've said all this to say that what that mother and uncle are doing is putting that child and children all over the world in danger.Why would a mother want 30 or 60 yr old men looking at her child simply for pleasure?Why would you let your child model provocative clothing these perverts send?I mean this childs website so obviously has nothing to do with modeling its pathetic.I am so glad Oprah spoke out for the many of us who feel this is so very wrong and so very sick.Thanks Oprah please continue to help us protect our kids.
Human males are pre-programmed to find females to be at the peek of their attractiveness between the ages of 14 and 24, when they are at their most fertile. Notions that 15-year-olds are somehow "children" have no basis in science and are fairly new fads that are solely a product of overprotective modern culture and nothing else. Anyone who denies this is supressing natural, healthy aspects of his psyche, which is in itself unhealthy. Any man of any age who claims that there are no beautiful 15-year-old girls in the world is either lying or homosexual. So, which of those applies to you?
Actually, I can vouch for this; it's totally real. I also saw it in last month's issue of Wired, list & all. Yes, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I read Wired, but, hey, what're ya gunna do? The article on spam was really interesting and is worth a read, even if you already consider yourself an expert on the subject.
This story smells extremely fishy. I don't think we know all that's going on here. Something doesn't add up. It seems heavily slanted in favor of only one side of this dispute. Do we have any proof that this is even true? It could be misrepresentation, exaggeration, or out-and-out lying. I wish we knew what the other side of the story was.
I'd like to say this to the person facing these problems:
What aren't you telling us? People are harassing you like this for no reason whatsoever? I don't believe it. What did you do to bring this upon yourself? Did you harass them first? Did you harass friends of theirs? Did you attack their websites, mail-bomb them, or make threats against them and their families? People don't launch into campaigns of harassment unprovoked. What aren't you telling us? I'd really like to know.
For all we know, you could've been engaging for years in behavior many times worse than what's currently being done to you, and somebody finally decided to stand up to you. "Vigilante justice" indeed.
I'm not saying that whatever you've done in the past justifies what's being done to you now, but maybe you should examine your own life before you start casting stones at others.
I'm dismayed by the growing number of alternative (fake, incompatible) root servers such as OpenNIC and AlterNIC that are springing up these days. I get a continuous flood of spam trying to sell me domains in non-existent TLDs, or, rather, TLDs that DO exist, but only in one particular alternative root. You and I know better than to fall for these deceptive scans, but when an average person gets an e-mail saying "Buy an exciting.sex or.xxx domain today for just $199.95!" they won't know that their exciting new domain purchase will be inaccessible to 99.999% of Internet users. You might think that this kind of practice borders on fraud; I think that it is fraud.
Let me tell you why I think that OpenNIC and similar entities are a bad and dangerous idea.
Think of the phone system . . . when you dial a number, it rings at a particular location because there is a central numbering plan that ensures that each telephone number is unique. The DNS works in a similar way. If telephone numbers or domain names were not globally unique, phone calls or e-mail intended for one person might go to someone else with the same number or domain name. Without uniqueness, both systems would be unpredictable and therefore unreliable.
Ensuring predictable results from any place on the Internet is called "universal resolvability." It is a critical design feature of the DNS, one that makes the Internet the helpful, global resource that it is today. Without it, the same domain name might map to different Internet locations under different circumstances, which would only cause confusion.
When you send an e-mail to your Aunt Sally, do you care who receives it?
Do you care if it goes to your Uncle Juan instead? Wait a minute...do you have an Uncle Juan? Then whose Uncle Juan received it? Do you care if it reaches Aunt Sally if you send it from work but my Uncle Juan if you send it from home?
Of course you care who receives it . . . that's why you wrote it in the first place. Whether you're doing business or sending personal correspondence, you want to be certain that your message gets to the intended addressee.
If at any point the DNS must make a choice between two identical domain names with different IP addresses, the DNS would not function. It would not know how to resolve the domain name. When a DNS computer queries another computer and asks, "are you the intended recipient of this message?", "yes" and "no" are acceptable answers, but "maybe" is not.
This is where ICANN comes in . . . ICANN is responsible for managing and coordinating the DNS to ensure universal resolvability.
ICANN is the global, non-profit, private-sector coordinating body acting in the public interest. ICANN ensures that the DNS continues to function effectively - by overseeing the distribution of unique numeric IP addresses and domain names. Among its other responsibilities, ICANN oversees the processes and systems that ensure that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
Behind the scenes, the story becomes a little more complicated.
In an Internet address - such as icann.org - the.org part is known as a Top Level Domain, or TLD. So-called "TLD registry" organizations house online databases that contain information about the domain names in that TLD. The.org registry database, for example, contains the Internet whereabouts - or IP address - of icann.org. So in trying to find the Internet address of icann.org your computer must first find the.org registry database. How is this done?
At the heart of the DNS are 13 special computers, called root servers. They are coordinated by ICANN and are distributed around the world. All 13 contain the same vital information - this is to spread the workload and back each other up.
Why are these root servers so important? The root servers contain the IP addresses of all the TLD registries - both the global registries such as.com,.org, etc. and the 244 country-specific registries such as.fr (France),.cn (China), etc. This is critical information. If the information is not 100% correct or if it is ambiguous, it might not be possible to locate a key registry on the Internet. In DNS parlance, the information must be unique and authentic. Let us look at how this information is used.
Scattered across the Internet are thousands of computers - called "Domain Name Resolvers" or just plain "resolvers" - that routinely cache the information they receive from queries to the root servers. These resolvers are located strategically with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or institutional networks. They are used to respond to a user's request to resolve a domain name - that is, to find the corresponding IP address.
So what happens to a user's request to reach our familiar friend at icann.org? The request is forwarded to a local resolver. The resolver splits the request into its component parts. It knows where to find the.org registry - remember, it had copied that information from a root server beforehand - so it forwards the request over to the.org registry to find the IP address of icann.org. This answer is forwarded back to the user's computer. And we're done. It's that simple! The domain name icann.org has been "resolved"!
Why do we need the resolvers? Why not use the root servers directly? After all, they contain essentially the same information. The answer is for reasons of performance. The root servers could not handle hundreds of billions of requests a day! It would slow users down.
It is important to remember the central and critical role played by the root servers that store information about the unique, authoritative root. Confusion would result if there were two TLDs with the same name: which one did the user intend? The beauty of the Internet architecture is that it ensures there is a unique, authoritative root, so that there is no chance of ambiguity.
Anyone can create a root system similar to the unique authoritative root managed by ICANN. Many people and entities have. Some of these are purely private (inside a single corporation, for example) and are insulated from having any effect on the DNS. Some, however, overlap the authoritative global DNS root by incorporating the unique, authoritative root information, and then adding new pseudo-TLDs that have not resulted from the consensus-driven process by which official new TLDs are created through ICANN. The alternate root operators persuade some users to have their resolvers "point" to their alternate root instead of the authoritative root. Others (New.net is a recent example) also create browser plug-ins and other software workarounds to accomplish similar effects. The one uniform fact about all these efforts is that these pseudo-TLDs are not included in the authoritative root managed by ICANN and, thus, are not resolvable by the vast majority of Internet users.
There are many potential problems caused by these unofficial, alternate root efforts to exploit the stability and reach of the authoritative root. These efforts are often promoted by those unwilling to abide by the consensus policies established by the Internet community, policies designed to ensure the continued stability and utility of the DNS.
For example:
First, the names of some of these pseudo-TLDs could overlap TLD names in the authoritative root or those that appear in other alternate roots. Our familiar friend icann.org could appear in two different roots. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up with my Uncle Juan.
Second, the unknowing users might not be linked to one of these alternate roots and not be able to reach these pseudo-TLD addresses at all. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up as a dead-letter.
Third, those purchasing domain names in these pseudo-TLDs may not be aware of these and other consequences of the lack of universal resolvability. Or they may be under the impression that they are experiencing universal resolvability when in fact they are not. They may be very upset to learn that the names they registered are also being used by others, or that a new TLD in the authoritative root will not include those names.
These problems are not significant so long as these alternate roots remain very small, that is, house few domain names with little potential for conflict. But if they should ever attract many users, the problems would become much more serious, and could affect the stability and reliability of the DNS itself. Users would lose confidence in the utility of the Internet.
ICANN's mission is to protect and preserve the stability, integrity and utility - on behalf of the global Internet community - of the DNS and the authoritative root ICANN was established to manage. ICANN has no role to play with alternate roots so long as these and other analogous efforts do not create instabilities in the DNS or otherwise impair the stability of the authoritative root. But ICANN does have a role to play in educating and informing about threats to the Internet's reliability and stability.
ICANN is a consensus development body for the global Internet community, and its focus is the development of consensus policies relating to the single authoritative root and the DNS. These policies include those that allow the orderly introduction of new TLDs.
There are those-including operators of commercialized alternate roots-who pursue unilateral actions outside the ICANN consensus-development process. Many hope to circumvent these processes by claiming to establish some prior right to a top-level domain name. ICANN, however, recognizes no such prior claim. ICANN will continue to reflect the public policy consensus of the global Internet community over the private claims of the few who try to bypass this consensus.
In Short . . . . ..
Just as there is a single root for telephone numbers internationally, there must be a single authoritative root for the Internet, administered in the public interest. OpenNIC is a serious threat to the future survivability of the Internet.
I'm dismayed by the growing number of alternative (fake, incompatible) root servers such as OpenNIC and AlterNIC that are springing up these days. I get a continuous flood of spam trying to sell me domains in non-existent TLDs, or, rather, TLDs that DO exist, but only in one particular alternative root. You and I know better than to fall for these deceptive scans, but when an average person gets an e-mail saying "Buy an exciting.sex or.xxx domain today for just $199.95!" they won't know that their exciting new domain purchase will be inaccessible to 99.999% of Internet users. You might think that this kind of practice borders on fraud; I think that it is fraud.
Let me tell you why I think that OpenNIC and similar entities are a bad and dangerous idea.
Think of the phone system . . . when you dial a number, it rings at a particular location because there is a central numbering plan that ensures that each telephone number is unique. The DNS works in a similar way. If telephone numbers or domain names were not globally unique, phone calls or e-mail intended for one person might go to someone else with the same number or domain name. Without uniqueness, both systems would be unpredictable and therefore unreliable.
Ensuring predictable results from any place on the Internet is called "universal resolvability." It is a critical design feature of the DNS, one that makes the Internet the helpful, global resource that it is today. Without it, the same domain name might map to different Internet locations under different circumstances, which would only cause confusion.
When you send an e-mail to your Aunt Sally, do you care who receives it?
Do you care if it goes to your Uncle Juan instead? Wait a minute...do you have an Uncle Juan? Then whose Uncle Juan received it? Do you care if it reaches Aunt Sally if you send it from work but my Uncle Juan if you send it from home?
Of course you care who receives it . . . that's why you wrote it in the first place. Whether you're doing business or sending personal correspondence, you want to be certain that your message gets to the intended addressee.
If at any point the DNS must make a choice between two identical domain names with different IP addresses, the DNS would not function. It would not know how to resolve the domain name. When a DNS computer queries another computer and asks, "are you the intended recipient of this message?", "yes" and "no" are acceptable answers, but "maybe" is not.
This is where ICANN comes in . . . ICANN is responsible for managing and coordinating the DNS to ensure universal resolvability.
ICANN is the global, non-profit, private-sector coordinating body acting in the public interest. ICANN ensures that the DNS continues to function effectively - by overseeing the distribution of unique numeric IP addresses and domain names. Among its other responsibilities, ICANN oversees the processes and systems that ensure that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
Behind the scenes, the story becomes a little more complicated.
In an Internet address - such as icann.org - the.org part is known as a Top Level Domain, or TLD. So-called "TLD registry" organizations house online databases that contain information about the domain names in that TLD. The.org registry database, for example, contains the Internet whereabouts - or IP address - of icann.org. So in trying to find the Internet address of icann.org your computer must first find the.org registry database. How is this done?
At the heart of the DNS are 13 special computers, called root servers. They are coordinated by ICANN and are distributed around the world. All 13 contain the same vital information - this is to spread the workload and back each other up.
Why are these root servers so important? The root servers contain the IP addresses of all the TLD registries - both the global registries such as.com,.org, etc. and the 244 country-specific registries such as.fr (France),.cn (China), etc. This is critical information. If the information is not 100% correct or if it is ambiguous, it might not be possible to locate a key registry on the Internet. In DNS parlance, the information must be unique and authentic. Let us look at how this information is used.
Scattered across the Internet are thousands of computers - called "Domain Name Resolvers" or just plain "resolvers" - that routinely cache the information they receive from queries to the root servers. These resolvers are located strategically with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or institutional networks. They are used to respond to a user's request to resolve a domain name - that is, to find the corresponding IP address.
So what happens to a user's request to reach our familiar friend at icann.org? The request is forwarded to a local resolver. The resolver splits the request into its component parts. It knows where to find the.org registry - remember, it had copied that information from a root server beforehand - so it forwards the request over to the.org registry to find the IP address of icann.org. This answer is forwarded back to the user's computer. And we're done. It's that simple! The domain name icann.org has been "resolved"!
Why do we need the resolvers? Why not use the root servers directly? After all, they contain essentially the same information. The answer is for reasons of performance. The root servers could not handle hundreds of billions of requests a day! It would slow users down.
It is important to remember the central and critical role played by the root servers that store information about the unique, authoritative root. Confusion would result if there were two TLDs with the same name: which one did the user intend? The beauty of the Internet architecture is that it ensures there is a unique, authoritative root, so that there is no chance of ambiguity.
Anyone can create a root system similar to the unique authoritative root managed by ICANN. Many people and entities have. Some of these are purely private (inside a single corporation, for example) and are insulated from having any effect on the DNS. Some, however, overlap the authoritative global DNS root by incorporating the unique, authoritative root information, and then adding new pseudo-TLDs that have not resulted from the consensus-driven process by which official new TLDs are created through ICANN. The alternate root operators persuade some users to have their resolvers "point" to their alternate root instead of the authoritative root. Others (New.net is a recent example) also create browser plug-ins and other software workarounds to accomplish similar effects. The one uniform fact about all these efforts is that these pseudo-TLDs are not included in the authoritative root managed by ICANN and, thus, are not resolvable by the vast majority of Internet users.
There are many potential problems caused by these unofficial, alternate root efforts to exploit the stability and reach of the authoritative root. These efforts are often promoted by those unwilling to abide by the consensus policies established by the Internet community, policies designed to ensure the continued stability and utility of the DNS.
For example:
First, the names of some of these pseudo-TLDs could overlap TLD names in the authoritative root or those that appear in other alternate roots. Our familiar friend icann.org could appear in two different roots. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up with my Uncle Juan.
Second, the unknowing users might not be linked to one of these alternate roots and not be able to reach these pseudo-TLD addresses at all. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up as a dead-letter.
Third, those purchasing domain names in these pseudo-TLDs may not be aware of these and other consequences of the lack of universal resolvability. Or they may be under the impression that they are experiencing universal resolvability when in fact they are not. They may be very upset to learn that the names they registered are also being used by others, or that a new TLD in the authoritative root will not include those names.
These problems are not significant so long as these alternate roots remain very small, that is, house few domain names with little potential for conflict. But if they should ever attract many users, the problems would become much more serious, and could affect the stability and reliability of the DNS itself. Users would lose confidence in the utility of the Internet.
ICANN's mission is to protect and preserve the stability, integrity and utility - on behalf of the global Internet community - of the DNS and the authoritative root ICANN was established to manage. ICANN has no role to play with alternate roots so long as these and other analogous efforts do not create instabilities in the DNS or otherwise impair the stability of the authoritative root. But ICANN does have a role to play in educating and informing about threats to the Internet's reliability and stability.
ICANN is a consensus development body for the global Internet community, and its focus is the development of consensus policies relating to the single authoritative root and the DNS. These policies include those that allow the orderly introduction of new TLDs.
There are those-including operators of commercialized alternate roots-who pursue unilateral actions outside the ICANN consensus-development process. Many hope to circumvent these processes by claiming to establish some prior right to a top-level domain name. ICANN, however, recognizes no such prior claim. ICANN will continue to reflect the public policy consensus of the global Internet community over the private claims of the few who try to bypass this consensus.
In Short . . . . ..
Just as there is a single root for telephone numbers internationally, there must be a single authoritative root for the Internet, administered in the public interest. OpenNIC is a serious threat to the future survivability of the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
A couple years back, the trolls discovered that you could widen the page by posting long strings of characters with no spaces. Widening the page by posting a comment like that would make the entire Slashdot story basically unreadable for those without the patience to continuously scroll right and then left again for each line.
Malda implemented a new feature that prevented any strings longer than 50 characters from being posted by inserting a space after the 50th character. The trolls found various ways to get around this and widen the page anyway (some of which only widened Internet Explorer), but over time they've all been disabled in various ways.
Your best bet is to simply make a href link instead of trying to paste the link into the message text. Either that, or shorten the link. The link in the post you replied to would have been space-free if the http:// were stripped off.
Wal-Mart is my local grocery & department store.
If you'd use some common sense, things like this wouldn't have to be explained to you.
Fuck you also!
Everybody should be required to read this book. I admit I bought it solely because of the title, thinking it would be good wanking material. In terms of wanking potential, it would up being rather sub-par, but as social critique is was fucking superlative.
Some bits just from the first chapter...
It leaves out the ways in which girls are under systematic pressure not to feel, know, or act on their sexual desire. It covers up both our consistent refusal to offer girls any guideance for acknowledging, negotiating, and integrating their own sexual desire... The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, a network of over two thousand relgious leaders from over twenty-five denominations, in its 2001 declaration recognizes "sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality." Sexuality is so often thought of only in negative terms, so frequently clustered with problem behaviors such as smoking and drinking, in our minds as well as in our research, that it is easy to forget that while we are not supposed to become smokers or drinkers in adolescence, we are supposed to develop a mature sense of ourselves as sexual beings by the time we have reached adulthood. Without a clear or sanctioned path, developing this sense is even harder for girls...
How far our conceptions of male and female adolescent sexuality diverges came into startling focus one night at a dinner party I attended with some friends who have teenage children. A man I had not met before began bragging about how his teenage son showed every sign of being a "ladies' man"... His pleasure that his son was a heartbreaker was evident. Later in the evening, the same man spoke about his fifteen-year-old daughter. A different picture of the terrain of adolescent sexuality came to the fore. On the one hand, he was clearly proud that his daughter was considered and attractive and desirable date by her male peers; on the other, he was uncomfortable when she actually went out with them. While he understood that she wanted to have a boyfriend, which he ascribed to her desire to be like her friends, he preferred that she bring boys home rather than be out with them...
To wit, in 1998, a film entitled Coming Soon, about white, middle-class, heterosexual adolescent girls who seek to have sexual experiences on their own terms, was shown only at film festivals... because no distributor would pick it up... We remain distrubed when forced to face the possibility that girls, too, might be engaged in a process of sexual maturation that involved more than developing breasts and getting their periods...
Be a mysogynist if you want, but keep in mind that people like you will be first against the wall when the Patriarchy falls.
-2: Sexually-Repressed Puritan
Seriously, though, you're a sexually-repressed puritan and you're missing out on the finest that life has to offer. Have fun with your wrinkly old hags.
Fuck you.
> Where I live, it is legal for women to go topless in the summer
Does that include teenage girls, or only to women over 18? If teenage girls are allowed to go topless as well, I'm moving there. Is it legal to take pictures of topless teenage girls?
"Ink (colour+b&w) costs nearly as much as the printer" is a gross understatement.
I was at my local Wal-Mart recently, and checked some prices.
New Lexmark printer: $36
Black ink cartridge for it: $35
Color ink cartridge for it: $38
So a pair of cartridges costs TWICE as much as the printer.
You might think that throwing out the printer whenever you run out of ink and buying a new one is the best bet, but you're missing one important element: the printers come with "starter" ink cartridges, which contain considerably less ink than the retail cartridges -- I'd guess they come about 1/4 full.
I've been following this story from the start, and it's been fascinating. Pets Warehouse is still up and operating. Novak switched over to a new domain shortly after the turnover of the domain was ordered, so he's managed to avoid any downtime despite losing his old domain. It's now located at Pets-Warehouse.com (Novak just added a dash). Maybe it'll soon be gone too, but Novak has been through a couple of bankruptcies already. I hope he's learned a lesson, at least.
1) You think up a new invention
2) You market this invention (exclusively, thanks to patents)
3) MONEY!!
4) ???
5) Profit!
> Gendou had exceedingly good intentions, despite his cruel actions
:-/
Hey, thanks for understanding! Most people just think I'm an asshole.
The uniting of humanity is not Gendo's aim, but rather his dead wife's (Shinji's mother). Gendo's aim is to be reunited with her; everything else is secondary for him. The reason for her attempt was to ensure that humanity survived effectively forever (at least until the heat-death of the universe).
While this is essentially true, I really don't appreciate people trying to talk about me behind my back like this. I do have feelings, you know.
Second, I hate the American spelling of my name. Help a brother out and spell it right.
No. Any photograph becomes the intellecual property of the photographer (not the subject or model) the moment it is taken. Depending on circumstances, there may be restrictions or limitations on using photographs of someone for commercial purposes (especially in advertising) without permission, and that's why "model release forms" exist, but a photographer still has complete copyright on all photographs he takes.
Here's the internal description of the service, which, by the way, is always going to be optional -- users have to turn it on manually. So fears of mass confusion from users when Earthlink turns this system on are a bit unfounded.
This is what the automated reply looks like:
And finally a more detailed description they supply:
An image? So now to stop spam you'll have Earthlink "spamming" senders with image-laden emails? Or perhaps they will display an image that is loaded from their server? The latter won't work because I (and many) people don't allow our email clients to load anything off of remote servers. And it really pisses me off when I get images embedded in emails.
It does neither. I'm using the beta-test of the Earthlink C&R system right now. The response sent to someone who e-mails me doesn't contain any images at all, just an URL that must be visited. It's there, on Earthlink's site, that the challenge is presented.
Thanks for you post. I would never have guessed i would be this involved in this. I turned on Oprah last week, and saw this evil, and i just went ballistic.
What did it to me is "Uncle Curt". I see RIGHT THROUGH his little charade. and frankly, he made the WRONG guy angry with his BS.
Many many men believe in protecting children. As a matter of fact, that might be the definition of a real man. My male friends would lay down their life without thinking to protect their families.
But of course, there are men who are evil, and sexual abusers. Frankly, I am these guys worst nightmare. They are COWARDS, hiding in the shadows, full of lies, and deceit, and corruption. My own father was like this, and i saw to it that legal justice was served on him.
I was involved in the promotion of Unicefs Convention on the Rights of the Child. But i stopped being involved for some years now. But after this nightmare, i am back at it, and will soon align myself with an organization, and do my part to contribute.
Truly, the passivity, and denial being preached by those who want to sell this stuff is EVIL POISON. It truly is the banality of evil. This "Child Erotica Relationship Marketing Wonderland", is one of the worst abuses of the internet. It truly is.
It can't be allowed to continue like this. If one country can reign it in, others will follow, but some will not. but it must be beaten back as far as possible. One day soon, some powerful people will tune into this, and things will happen.
As the experts say, a pedophiles life is consumed with rationalizing his own behavior. As Uncle Curt so clearly says,
"We... sort of have our own way of talking and looking at things. It's an attitude. It's a way of life."
When the show started and I listened to this mother and uncle,I realized I was sitting with my mouth open in shock.I called my aunt and said Oprah looks like she is about to explode you have got to see this show.As soon as I hung up the phone you did(explode).Thanks Oprah you said many of the things I wanted to say to these people,I mean what is their problem that they cant see that 30 and over yr old men shouldnt be paying to look at a young girl.Here in Bham,Al. we just had a 12 yr old snatched off the street raped and beaten.Perverts look at these young girls and become aroused and then they go and hurt someone elses child.I really feel sorry for that young girl because she is being exploited and put in harms way.Her uncle(and I know I don't know anything about him really)made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.Most perverts I'm sure don't consider what they do to be perverted.I have received unsolicited emails about pornagraphy containing teens with farm animals and other filth.I never opened the email & learned real quick the games these people play when you click on unsubscribe it takes you to the site anyway and also sends your email address to other porn sites.I looked up different agencies to report this porn but never received a reply.I now just delete but it bothers me a lot.These people also send instant messages using names like scooby,powerpuff girls and other names kids are familiar with which invites you to click and view their activities on webcam.Now those I havent had a problem with lately because I told them I was a police officer and my 13yr old had received instant messgs from this person and her friends and if they didnt want to be arrested for contributing to deliquency of a minor they better stop asap.Now the emails yahoo couldnt do anything because they are not coming from their customers and its been hard to track these people down because they keep changing the info needed to lock them down.I guess I've said all this to say that what that mother and uncle are doing is putting that child and children all over the world in danger.Why would a mother want 30 or 60 yr old men looking at her child simply for pleasure?Why would you let your child model provocative clothing these perverts send?I mean this childs website so obviously has nothing to do with modeling its pathetic.I am so glad Oprah spoke out for the many of us who feel this is so very wrong and so very sick.Thanks Oprah please continue to help us protect our kids.
You were rude to SexyKelly. Damn misogynist. Couldn't get a date so you decided to harass women on Slashdot?
Human males are pre-programmed to find females to be at the peek of their attractiveness between the ages of 14 and 24, when they are at their most fertile. Notions that 15-year-olds are somehow "children" have no basis in science and are fairly new fads that are solely a product of overprotective modern culture and nothing else. Anyone who denies this is supressing natural, healthy aspects of his psyche, which is in itself unhealthy. Any man of any age who claims that there are no beautiful 15-year-old girls in the world is either lying or homosexual. So, which of those applies to you?
Actually, I can vouch for this; it's totally real. I also saw it in last month's issue of Wired, list & all. Yes, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I read Wired, but, hey, what're ya gunna do? The article on spam was really interesting and is worth a read, even if you already consider yourself an expert on the subject.
This story smells extremely fishy. I don't think we know all that's going on here. Something doesn't add up. It seems heavily slanted in favor of only one side of this dispute. Do we have any proof that this is even true? It could be misrepresentation, exaggeration, or out-and-out lying. I wish we knew what the other side of the story was.
I'd like to say this to the person facing these problems:
What aren't you telling us? People are harassing you like this for no reason whatsoever? I don't believe it. What did you do to bring this upon yourself? Did you harass them first? Did you harass friends of theirs? Did you attack their websites, mail-bomb them, or make threats against them and their families? People don't launch into campaigns of harassment unprovoked. What aren't you telling us? I'd really like to know.
For all we know, you could've been engaging for years in behavior many times worse than what's currently being done to you, and somebody finally decided to stand up to you. "Vigilante justice" indeed.
I'm not saying that whatever you've done in the past justifies what's being done to you now, but maybe you should examine your own life before you start casting stones at others.
I'm dismayed by the growing number of alternative (fake, incompatible) root servers such as OpenNIC and AlterNIC that are springing up these days. I get a continuous flood of spam trying to sell me domains in non-existent TLDs, or, rather, TLDs that DO exist, but only in one particular alternative root. You and I know better than to fall for these deceptive scans, but when an average person gets an e-mail saying "Buy an exciting .sex or .xxx domain today for just $199.95!" they won't know that their exciting new domain purchase will be inaccessible to 99.999% of Internet users. You might think that this kind of practice borders on fraud; I think that it is fraud.
.org part is known as a Top Level Domain, or TLD. So-called "TLD registry" organizations house online databases that contain information about the domain names in that TLD. The .org registry database, for example, contains the Internet whereabouts - or IP address - of icann.org. So in trying to find the Internet address of icann.org your computer must first find the .org registry database. How is this done?
.com, .org, etc. and the 244 country-specific registries such as .fr (France), .cn (China), etc. This is critical information. If the information is not 100% correct or if it is ambiguous, it might not be possible to locate a key registry on the Internet. In DNS parlance, the information must be unique and authentic. Let us look at how this information is used.
.org registry - remember, it had copied that information from a root server beforehand - so it forwards the request over to the .org registry to find the IP address of icann.org. This answer is forwarded back to the user's computer. And we're done. It's that simple! The domain name icann.org has been "resolved"!
.
Let me tell you why I think that OpenNIC and similar entities are a bad and dangerous idea.
Think of the phone system . . . when you dial a number, it rings at a particular location because there is a central numbering plan that ensures that each telephone number is unique. The DNS works in a similar way. If telephone numbers or domain names were not globally unique, phone calls or e-mail intended for one person might go to someone else with the same number or domain name. Without uniqueness, both systems would be unpredictable and therefore unreliable.
Ensuring predictable results from any place on the Internet is called "universal resolvability." It is a critical design feature of the DNS, one that makes the Internet the helpful, global resource that it is today. Without it, the same domain name might map to different Internet locations under different circumstances, which would only cause confusion.
When you send an e-mail to your Aunt Sally, do you care who receives it?
Do you care if it goes to your Uncle Juan instead? Wait a minute...do you have an Uncle Juan? Then whose Uncle Juan received it? Do you care if it reaches Aunt Sally if you send it from work but my Uncle Juan if you send it from home?
Of course you care who receives it . . . that's why you wrote it in the first place. Whether you're doing business or sending personal correspondence, you want to be certain that your message gets to the intended addressee.
If at any point the DNS must make a choice between two identical domain names with different IP addresses, the DNS would not function. It would not know how to resolve the domain name. When a DNS computer queries another computer and asks, "are you the intended recipient of this message?", "yes" and "no" are acceptable answers, but "maybe" is not.
This is where ICANN comes in . . . ICANN is responsible for managing and coordinating the DNS to ensure universal resolvability.
ICANN is the global, non-profit, private-sector coordinating body acting in the public interest. ICANN ensures that the DNS continues to function effectively - by overseeing the distribution of unique numeric IP addresses and domain names. Among its other responsibilities, ICANN oversees the processes and systems that ensure that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
Behind the scenes, the story becomes a little more complicated.
In an Internet address - such as icann.org - the
At the heart of the DNS are 13 special computers, called root servers. They are coordinated by ICANN and are distributed around the world. All 13 contain the same vital information - this is to spread the workload and back each other up.
Why are these root servers so important? The root servers contain the IP addresses of all the TLD registries - both the global registries such as
Scattered across the Internet are thousands of computers - called "Domain Name Resolvers" or just plain "resolvers" - that routinely cache the information they receive from queries to the root servers. These resolvers are located strategically with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or institutional networks. They are used to respond to a user's request to resolve a domain name - that is, to find the corresponding IP address.
So what happens to a user's request to reach our familiar friend at icann.org? The request is forwarded to a local resolver. The resolver splits the request into its component parts. It knows where to find the
Why do we need the resolvers? Why not use the root servers directly? After all, they contain essentially the same information. The answer is for reasons of performance. The root servers could not handle hundreds of billions of requests a day! It would slow users down.
It is important to remember the central and critical role played by the root servers that store information about the unique, authoritative root. Confusion would result if there were two TLDs with the same name: which one did the user intend? The beauty of the Internet architecture is that it ensures there is a unique, authoritative root, so that there is no chance of ambiguity.
Anyone can create a root system similar to the unique authoritative root managed by ICANN. Many people and entities have. Some of these are purely private (inside a single corporation, for example) and are insulated from having any effect on the DNS. Some, however, overlap the authoritative global DNS root by incorporating the unique, authoritative root information, and then adding new pseudo-TLDs that have not resulted from the consensus-driven process by which official new TLDs are created through ICANN. The alternate root operators persuade some users to have their resolvers "point" to their alternate root instead of the authoritative root. Others (New.net is a recent example) also create browser plug-ins and other software workarounds to accomplish similar effects. The one uniform fact about all these efforts is that these pseudo-TLDs are not included in the authoritative root managed by ICANN and, thus, are not resolvable by the vast majority of Internet users.
There are many potential problems caused by these unofficial, alternate root efforts to exploit the stability and reach of the authoritative root. These efforts are often promoted by those unwilling to abide by the consensus policies established by the Internet community, policies designed to ensure the continued stability and utility of the DNS.
For example:
First, the names of some of these pseudo-TLDs could overlap TLD names in the authoritative root or those that appear in other alternate roots. Our familiar friend icann.org could appear in two different roots. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up with my Uncle Juan.
Second, the unknowing users might not be linked to one of these alternate roots and not be able to reach these pseudo-TLD addresses at all. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up as a dead-letter.
Third, those purchasing domain names in these pseudo-TLDs may not be aware of these and other consequences of the lack of universal resolvability. Or they may be under the impression that they are experiencing universal resolvability when in fact they are not. They may be very upset to learn that the names they registered are also being used by others, or that a new TLD in the authoritative root will not include those names.
These problems are not significant so long as these alternate roots remain very small, that is, house few domain names with little potential for conflict. But if they should ever attract many users, the problems would become much more serious, and could affect the stability and reliability of the DNS itself. Users would lose confidence in the utility of the Internet.
ICANN's mission is to protect and preserve the stability, integrity and utility - on behalf of the global Internet community - of the DNS and the authoritative root ICANN was established to manage. ICANN has no role to play with alternate roots so long as these and other analogous efforts do not create instabilities in the DNS or otherwise impair the stability of the authoritative root. But ICANN does have a role to play in educating and informing about threats to the Internet's reliability and stability.
ICANN is a consensus development body for the global Internet community, and its focus is the development of consensus policies relating to the single authoritative root and the DNS. These policies include those that allow the orderly introduction of new TLDs.
There are those-including operators of commercialized alternate roots-who pursue unilateral actions outside the ICANN consensus-development process. Many hope to circumvent these processes by claiming to establish some prior right to a top-level domain name. ICANN, however, recognizes no such prior claim. ICANN will continue to reflect the public policy consensus of the global Internet community over the private claims of the few who try to bypass this consensus.
In Short . . . . .
Just as there is a single root for telephone numbers internationally, there must be a single authoritative root for the Internet, administered in the public interest. OpenNIC is a serious threat to the future survivability of the Internet.
I'm dismayed by the growing number of alternative (fake, incompatible) root servers such as OpenNIC and AlterNIC that are springing up these days. I get a continuous flood of spam trying to sell me domains in non-existent TLDs, or, rather, TLDs that DO exist, but only in one particular alternative root. You and I know better than to fall for these deceptive scans, but when an average person gets an e-mail saying "Buy an exciting .sex or .xxx domain today for just $199.95!" they won't know that their exciting new domain purchase will be inaccessible to 99.999% of Internet users. You might think that this kind of practice borders on fraud; I think that it is fraud.
.org part is known as a Top Level Domain, or TLD. So-called "TLD registry" organizations house online databases that contain information about the domain names in that TLD. The .org registry database, for example, contains the Internet whereabouts - or IP address - of icann.org. So in trying to find the Internet address of icann.org your computer must first find the .org registry database. How is this done?
.com, .org, etc. and the 244 country-specific registries such as .fr (France), .cn (China), etc. This is critical information. If the information is not 100% correct or if it is ambiguous, it might not be possible to locate a key registry on the Internet. In DNS parlance, the information must be unique and authentic. Let us look at how this information is used.
.org registry - remember, it had copied that information from a root server beforehand - so it forwards the request over to the .org registry to find the IP address of icann.org. This answer is forwarded back to the user's computer. And we're done. It's that simple! The domain name icann.org has been "resolved"!
.
Let me tell you why I think that OpenNIC and similar entities are a bad and dangerous idea.
Think of the phone system . . . when you dial a number, it rings at a particular location because there is a central numbering plan that ensures that each telephone number is unique. The DNS works in a similar way. If telephone numbers or domain names were not globally unique, phone calls or e-mail intended for one person might go to someone else with the same number or domain name. Without uniqueness, both systems would be unpredictable and therefore unreliable.
Ensuring predictable results from any place on the Internet is called "universal resolvability." It is a critical design feature of the DNS, one that makes the Internet the helpful, global resource that it is today. Without it, the same domain name might map to different Internet locations under different circumstances, which would only cause confusion.
When you send an e-mail to your Aunt Sally, do you care who receives it?
Do you care if it goes to your Uncle Juan instead? Wait a minute...do you have an Uncle Juan? Then whose Uncle Juan received it? Do you care if it reaches Aunt Sally if you send it from work but my Uncle Juan if you send it from home?
Of course you care who receives it . . . that's why you wrote it in the first place. Whether you're doing business or sending personal correspondence, you want to be certain that your message gets to the intended addressee.
If at any point the DNS must make a choice between two identical domain names with different IP addresses, the DNS would not function. It would not know how to resolve the domain name. When a DNS computer queries another computer and asks, "are you the intended recipient of this message?", "yes" and "no" are acceptable answers, but "maybe" is not.
This is where ICANN comes in . . . ICANN is responsible for managing and coordinating the DNS to ensure universal resolvability.
ICANN is the global, non-profit, private-sector coordinating body acting in the public interest. ICANN ensures that the DNS continues to function effectively - by overseeing the distribution of unique numeric IP addresses and domain names. Among its other responsibilities, ICANN oversees the processes and systems that ensure that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.
Behind the scenes, the story becomes a little more complicated.
In an Internet address - such as icann.org - the
At the heart of the DNS are 13 special computers, called root servers. They are coordinated by ICANN and are distributed around the world. All 13 contain the same vital information - this is to spread the workload and back each other up.
Why are these root servers so important? The root servers contain the IP addresses of all the TLD registries - both the global registries such as
Scattered across the Internet are thousands of computers - called "Domain Name Resolvers" or just plain "resolvers" - that routinely cache the information they receive from queries to the root servers. These resolvers are located strategically with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or institutional networks. They are used to respond to a user's request to resolve a domain name - that is, to find the corresponding IP address.
So what happens to a user's request to reach our familiar friend at icann.org? The request is forwarded to a local resolver. The resolver splits the request into its component parts. It knows where to find the
Why do we need the resolvers? Why not use the root servers directly? After all, they contain essentially the same information. The answer is for reasons of performance. The root servers could not handle hundreds of billions of requests a day! It would slow users down.
It is important to remember the central and critical role played by the root servers that store information about the unique, authoritative root. Confusion would result if there were two TLDs with the same name: which one did the user intend? The beauty of the Internet architecture is that it ensures there is a unique, authoritative root, so that there is no chance of ambiguity.
Anyone can create a root system similar to the unique authoritative root managed by ICANN. Many people and entities have. Some of these are purely private (inside a single corporation, for example) and are insulated from having any effect on the DNS. Some, however, overlap the authoritative global DNS root by incorporating the unique, authoritative root information, and then adding new pseudo-TLDs that have not resulted from the consensus-driven process by which official new TLDs are created through ICANN. The alternate root operators persuade some users to have their resolvers "point" to their alternate root instead of the authoritative root. Others (New.net is a recent example) also create browser plug-ins and other software workarounds to accomplish similar effects. The one uniform fact about all these efforts is that these pseudo-TLDs are not included in the authoritative root managed by ICANN and, thus, are not resolvable by the vast majority of Internet users.
There are many potential problems caused by these unofficial, alternate root efforts to exploit the stability and reach of the authoritative root. These efforts are often promoted by those unwilling to abide by the consensus policies established by the Internet community, policies designed to ensure the continued stability and utility of the DNS.
For example:
First, the names of some of these pseudo-TLDs could overlap TLD names in the authoritative root or those that appear in other alternate roots. Our familiar friend icann.org could appear in two different roots. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up with my Uncle Juan.
Second, the unknowing users might not be linked to one of these alternate roots and not be able to reach these pseudo-TLD addresses at all. Your e-mail to Aunt Sally could end up as a dead-letter.
Third, those purchasing domain names in these pseudo-TLDs may not be aware of these and other consequences of the lack of universal resolvability. Or they may be under the impression that they are experiencing universal resolvability when in fact they are not. They may be very upset to learn that the names they registered are also being used by others, or that a new TLD in the authoritative root will not include those names.
These problems are not significant so long as these alternate roots remain very small, that is, house few domain names with little potential for conflict. But if they should ever attract many users, the problems would become much more serious, and could affect the stability and reliability of the DNS itself. Users would lose confidence in the utility of the Internet.
ICANN's mission is to protect and preserve the stability, integrity and utility - on behalf of the global Internet community - of the DNS and the authoritative root ICANN was established to manage. ICANN has no role to play with alternate roots so long as these and other analogous efforts do not create instabilities in the DNS or otherwise impair the stability of the authoritative root. But ICANN does have a role to play in educating and informing about threats to the Internet's reliability and stability.
ICANN is a consensus development body for the global Internet community, and its focus is the development of consensus policies relating to the single authoritative root and the DNS. These policies include those that allow the orderly introduction of new TLDs.
There are those-including operators of commercialized alternate roots-who pursue unilateral actions outside the ICANN consensus-development process. Many hope to circumvent these processes by claiming to establish some prior right to a top-level domain name. ICANN, however, recognizes no such prior claim. ICANN will continue to reflect the public policy consensus of the global Internet community over the private claims of the few who try to bypass this consensus.
In Short . . . . .
Just as there is a single root for telephone numbers internationally, there must be a single authoritative root for the Internet, administered in the public interest. OpenNIC is a serious threat to the future survivability of the Internet.