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ICANN Limits Terms Of VeriSign Domain Control 111

Posted by timothy from the sir-don't-you-want-the-rest-of-the-gold? dept.
Pinky3 points to this story on Yahoo! which says: "In the much-awaited decision, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) limited the term of VeriSign rights to the .org name to the end of 2002, and the .net name to the start of 2006. VeriSign, the operator of the world's largest domain name registries, would keep rights to the lucrative .com name through November 10, 2007, and have the right to renew this agreement for a new four-year term if it meets certain criteria." VeriSign has the .com domain locked up pretty well already, at least until 2007, and now (for Internet time at least) indefinitely. In 2011, I bet VeriSign will point out the awful mess (think of the risk!) of trying to redistribute control of .com to anyone else.
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ICANN Limits Terms Of VeriSign Domain Control More

ICANN Limits Terms Of VeriSign Domain Control

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  • Um, doesn't ICANN still own CCTLDs too? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    .cx still belongs to ICANN. As do all the other country code TLDs. Sure they're renewed regularly, but if ICANN should choose not to, I see no way anyone could force them too. ICANN owns the final ".", the one no one writes in all FQDNs.

  • you are confusing a registrar with a registry. There is only one .com registry, and every registrar has to pay it for service, and everyone depends on the registry to do little things like release expired domain names on schedule and develop an equitable way to deal with non-ascii names.

    Don't you wonder how cheap Ghandi could be if they didn't have to pay $9 out of your $10 to the registry?
  • Damn, that could get confusing:

    deb http://netbase-4.05.deb/debian woody main

    :)
  • They already have run into that on a small scale, with some TLDs clashing with alternic (another alternate naming group) -- they worked it out amicably, and (I believe) mirror each other. Whether InterNIC will be that cool is doubtful, however. :P
  • Yup, already doing it. OpenNIC [unrated.net].

  • The system you want does exist. It's called the Open Directory Project [dmoz.org]. You can access it via a defined network protocol (HTTP) and it has an easy way to add and change entries (web forms). I think it just allows name collisions at the moment, but really that's fine since the kind of names you're proposing (descriptions of real world names) are not necessarily unique.

  • ...why don't those hackers get it over with already and create .sux?

    Because the first names registered would be those such as "microsoft.sux"

    At this point, it might very well be "icann.sux", "networksolutions.sux", "verisign.sux". At least, those would be the ones I would register first.

    But it should be pointed out that the only real restriction right now on starting your own TLD and getting away from all this crap is the fact that you'll need to convince enough people to use your nameserver as a new root-level server... Otherwise, there'd already be more popular TLDs...

    If we could convince package authors for Linux/*BSD systems to include alternate root servers in their bind/genericdnsfoo packages, a large part of the problem would transparently be solved. Maybe...
    --
  • Interesting concept. I'm not sure how you'd get around one company/organization running the centralized directory for this, though.

    I saw in Verisign Usurps .com [slashdot.org] someone was working on a DNS system that used Freenet [freenetproject.org] to distribute DNS around the net, but then it becomes a chicken-and-egg problem (again).

    --
  • Personally, I'd want to have ".deb"... :-)

    Actually, there ARE a few fairly inexpensive registrars out there, such as Joker [joker.com] and Gandi.net [gandi.net]. Both are only 12 Euros/year, which at today's exchange rate is about $10-$11 US. I've had some fairly good experience with Joker, others have with Gandi. It just depends if you want to use a German or a French registrar (if that matters to you). Both have most/all of their pages in english, so for the great unwashed ignorant masses in the US (myself included), it's painless.

    But I really think it would be great if the free/opensource OSes got together and formed their own root nameservers. All the cool TLDs, like .nym (one of my personal favorites) could then be made available as well. And if enough sites support alternate roots by default, then for the majority of folks, it would be completely transparent. It might even make VeriSign/NSI sit up and take notice. Not that I'll be holding my breath for THAT to happen.

    But given the success of these OSes/philosophies in general, even really cheap (read $5/year or so) costs, coupled with a more intelligent name policy, would hopefully make great inroads...

    --
  • Sorry! I didn't mean to slight debian. It was the second distro I tried. :) Don't forget .bsd too.


    Well, probably .fbsd, .nbsd, .obsd, .bsd386, .... :-)

    I did the stupid thing. I didn't have any money and I registered my name with namezero. Now I'm not sure if they will let me have it back.


    Ouch. Tough break. I kept putting it off, and putting it off, and then a friend went a registered a .com with his last name, and, damn, wouldn't you know it? Both .com and .net for mine were taken by others. One was a quasi-squatter that sells/gives away firstname@ accounts, the other's just a flat out squatter from what I can tell ("If you'd like to purchase..."). Fortunately, .org was still available, and I'll be damned if I let anyone take that from me, especially since I'm non-profit too.


    --
  • Aside from the somewhat confusing (to someone like my gf who doesn't know anything at all about DNS, yet registered a domain) web pages, I've been fairly happy with Joker [joker.com], which is also 12 Euros a year. I should probably compare them to gandi.net, since I have an easier (read any chance) of understand untranslated French than I do German (and some of Joker's pages never got translated the last time I was there).

    --
  • Pretty simple -- with a http: url, after the // and before a /, anything before an @ will be considered a HTTP basic authentication username:password combo, or if there's no colon, it's an account with no password.

    So, in this case, it's calling to the server 195.224.253.26, using the username "www.microsoft.com&item=q209355" and requesting the document Q209355.asp.

    Make sense?

  • I hope that the current domain structure ceases to be the primary addressing tool used by everyday people on the internet. We have seen that it has serious limitations and causes many conflicts. We have also seen that its namespace is quickly exhausted, it isn't internationalizable, and the rules for the big three top level domains are not followed well.

    I hope that it is replaced in the next year or two by a more sane directory structure. If I am trying to find a web page for a business, I imagine looking up the entry for Businesses/ACME Tools (of Hayward, California, USA), not www.acmetools.com, or maybe acme-tools.com, or haywardacme.com, or even getsometools.com! I can imagine looking up the entry for Publications/The Onion: America's Finest News Source.

    If a system suh as this existed with 1) a defined network protocol, 2) an easy way to add and change entries, and 3) a widely-accepted algorithm for solving naming conflicts, I think it would handily replace the DNS as the primary lookup system. Of course DNS would still be used, for namenumber translation and whatnot.

  • Risk? (Score:5)

    by "Zow" ( 6449 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:01PM (#319897) Homepage
    I bet VeriSign will point out the awful mess (think of the risk!) of trying to redistribute control of .com to anyone else.

    Would that be the risk that they freely give away microsoft.com to any yahoo who claims to be a Microsoft employee and forks over a few hundred dollars?

    -"Zow"

  • Re:But what about new gTLDs? (Score:4)

    by jimhill ( 7277 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:23PM (#319898) Homepage
    I think the point is that no matter how many gTLDs are created, BigCompany is going to insist that it hold all combinations of BigCompany.gTLD and they will use the capitalist running-dog lackeys of WIPO to get them.

  • That'd be an excellent TLD. It'd also leave a lot of scope for some of the international organizations. Many of the UN groups would benefit.
  • Well, regardless, .com's will be like 212 numbers in new york, and 800 toll-free numbers... Just sort a sign that you've been around long enough to have gotten one of those numbers/addresses. It's not much, i know, but every little bit of added credibility counts... "look, this place has been around for at least 10 years, since they stopped doling out .com's in 2005" they'll say one day...
  • And I bet companies like Network Solutions will still be charging $70 per year.

    Quite some time ago, you'd realize that Verisign bought Network Solutions. They're one and the same...
  • Could result in something like this [195.224.253.26].

    It's not nasty, I promise.

  • Rocket monkey (Score:3)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @09:37PM (#319903)
    I'm wondering if by 2011 the DNS system will still even be relavant to 90% of the internet. By then I think we'll see a much higher peer presence on the net where we log onto a directory server at the ISP which lets people connect to our personal web server appliances. Well for the most part this is a pipe dream. However I do think DNS might not survive the next decade. It is already fairly dated which causes about a bajillion workarounds just to enable dynamic internet connections. I think we'll only see more and more dynamic network nodes due to the fact half of the things in your home will end up being internet aware. Would you rather adapt DNS in order to get a permenant address for your PDA (which will eventually end up being a true personal assistant with a silicon rather than carbon based brain) or merely have your ISP do the work by providing directory access to you.

  • DNS rebellion (Score:5)

    by mattbee ( 17533 ) <matthew@bytemark.co.uk> on Monday April 02, 2001 @04:21PM (#319904) Homepage
    If ICANN really is as corrupt and mismanaged as all that, I can well believe in a scenerio that The Register put forward a while ago: an alternative and fair(er) root DNS system set up by a consortium of the larger ISPs. Alternate DNS systems aren't a new idea, what with Alternic and all that, but the idea that a hacker-led initiative such as this could ever gain the support of the rest of the world (because this is a diplomatic rather than technical challenge) is fairly remote. No, think about it... how many representatives of the enormous backbone carriers would need to gather in a room to agree on such a solution, and give the finger to ICANN? Not a great deal, I'd imagine-- they'd have the money and motivation to set up the necessary committees, registration systems and technical infrastructure, and if they did it fairly, any ISP's involvement in such a `fixing' of the DNS system would gain them brownie points with the community. Heck, even if they didn't do it fairly, it's not as if it could be much worse than the current setup.

    It might sound like pie-in-the-sky language, but given the outrageous conduct we're witnessing, it seems increasingly possible.
  • And they will only make $XXX million in that time frame. Remember that there's tons of names going every day, and eventually the selection will be extremely limited to anything but the most unique names, so the potential for profit of the future owners would be greatly limited.

    Yes, but what about the millions of domain name holders paying $$ for renewal each and every year? Those renewal fees soon mount up to a pretty tidy sum with very little effort on Verisign's part.
  • Here's how to find a .pdf of Wrong Turn in Cyberspace: Using ICANN to Route Around the APA and the Constitution, 50 Duke L.J. 17 (2000) [miami.edu]. It is also available in HTML [miami.edu].

    Ongoing coverage of ICANN issues in a Slashdot-like format can be found at ICANNWatch.org [icannwatch.org]. In addition to today's coverage, note the interesting letters from Senator Burns [icannwatch.org] to the Dept. of Commerce and to the GAO.

  • Everyone here should listen to Karl on this, after all he is one of the most progressive (not to mention honest and ethical) ICANN Board members. And one of a small minority that was actually elected to the board.

    In other words: He's one of the good guys .

    He also was one of a small minority of board members who opposed today's ICANN action.

  • Re:Bottom-up illusion (Score:3)

    by WilliamX ( 22300 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @05:13PM (#319908)

    The problem with this is that .org was never intended for non-profit organizations, it was intended as the catch all domain for those who didn't fit into the others.

    Further, the enforcement of such a provision would drive the cost and prices of domains up into the hundreds of dollars per year.

    Lastly, when the TLD has been in use, and has millions of registered domain names in use, for as many years as .org has been running in this fashion, it would be grossly inappropriate to change the policy now. The harm to existing domain owners alone is a reason why this particular move should be blocked.

    There are some excellent comments in the DNSO GA list for March 2001 that describe the problems with this change in policy in detail. Please take the time to read them before jumping to the conclusion that this change would be a good thing.

    The archives are here [dnso.org], make sure you fast forward up to March 2001 (they start in Nov 2000).

  • Re:Bottom-up illusion (Score:4)

    by WilliamX ( 22300 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:24PM (#319909)

    I guess some browsers have problems with that large domain name.

    You can reach the site at http://www.disgrace.org/ [disgrace.org] also.

    Also, the DNSO statements to ICANN are at:

    http://www.icann.org/melbourne/dnso-input-verisign -revisions-28mar01.htm [icann.org]

    The ICANN propoganda about the agreement is at:

    http://www.icann.org/melbourne/info-verisign-revis ions.htm [icann.org]

  • Bottom-up illusion (Score:5)

    by WilliamX ( 22300 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @01:34PM (#319910)

    ICANN was facing a real problem with this issue. They need the additional money Verisign/NSI will be paying them under this contract compared to the old one, but in a rare instance, nearly all of the organs of the Domain Name Supporting Organization opposed the new contract. The Constituencies, except the one of which Verisign is the sole member and the Intellection Property one who is counting on getting commercial activity in .org prohibited and the ccTLDs who are hoping this means less money from them to ICANN, indicated strong and vociferous opposition to the new contract. The General Assembly also came out strongly against the new contract. The Names Counil was slightly less strong on the point, but still came out against the new contract by a clear and indisputable majority.

    So how could ICANN adopt the new contract without abandoning their pretense that they were a bottom up consensus organization?

    Get some very minor concessions in the last 24 hours that address some of the more irrelevant points raised by the constituencies, and then use those changes to say that they addressed the concerns of the DNSO and that justifies their ignoring the consensus of the DNSO that the original contract should have remained in effect.

    They have shown similar patterns in the past, including during their startup when the Department of Commerce mandated that they address concerns raized by the Boston Working Group and the Open Root Server Confederation. They made some minor token changes and then proceeded to do business as usual.

    Under this contract the only type of organization who can run the .org registry is a non-profit organization, thus setting the framework for disenfranchising millions of .org domain name holders by changing the registration policy for .org. Even if the existing .org holders get to keep their domains, they face some serious disadvantages as a result of any change of .org from an unrestricted catch all gTLD, as it was intended, to a non-profit only TLD.

    They say the change to .org is not for certain, do you believe them?

    Have a .org domain? Join the protest.

    http://www.ORG-domain-name-owners-lobby-against-IC ANNs-sellout-to-VeriSign.ORG [org-domain...risign.org]
  • :
    : If you don't like Verisign, then don't buy
    : domains from them.

    The issue here is about who has control over the .com TLD, not who issues registrations in that TLD.

    I do appreciate the tip about Ghandi, tho!
  • And I forgot to mention: there is nothing stopping a "commercial entity" like Slashdot from using the .org domain. The RFC does not say anything about .org being restricted to non-profits organizations.

  • .org was always a catch-all domain name. It has not been abused. Read the RFC.

  • OpenTLD, anyone? (Score:3)

    by Xofer D ( 29055 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @04:20PM (#319914) Homepage Journal

    There's really no reason I can think of that the top level domains have to be managed by those who handle it so poorly. This is a great oppportunity for an open-source style community effort. That is after all how come the root servers are spread all over the place.

    The name service uses a nice flexible protocol. It would be a cinch to add a new server to one's hints file, or to switch completely to using a separate group of top-level servers.

    Top-level name servers of the new system would probably need some serious connectivity, but we could spread that out easily enough.

    I'm already looking at doing this for the MetaLAN, a virtual network of home users' internal networks using FreeS/WAN - we're going to set up our own DNS system to use the .meta TLD for all of our internal IP space. I'd be interested in helping with setting up a similar alternate community-based DNS system. Anyone know of people already doing this? If not, want to start one? I do.

  • Care to mention a company with a .com address that would be happy letting someone else get the .firm? Or a company that would settle for the .firm knowing that a good portion of their traffic would end up going to the .com? .flop, I think.
    Exactly!

    So if you had a .com, along with the .firm, and .net, and .whatever, and suddenly there was a problem over redistributing just .com's, would it really matter that much to you?

    ---
  • I think timothy is being a little short-sighted.
    I bet VeriSign will point out the awful mess (think of the risk!) of trying to redistribute control of .com to anyone else.
    By the time 2011 roles around, there will [most probably] be an onslaught of new generic top level domains (like .firm, etc.) If that is in fact true (as seems to be the case from this slashdot article [slashdot.org], then redistributing .com names might just be a moot point.

    ---

  • ".NGO" (Score:2)

    by hey! ( 33014 )
    Org for "organization" is perfect for a catch all kind of tld -- any kind of organization not necessarily a business. Redefining it would only cause confusion.

    For non-profits, ".NGO" would match their own native argot -- they often call themselves "non-governmental-organizations" to indicate that they are working on issues of public importance but they aren't government sponsored.

  • the man in the corporate suit (Score:4)

    by seanw ( 45548 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @01:36PM (#319918)

    I guess this sounds like a good thing, but I seriously mistrust corporations with this much power. I mean, they change the rules, but they can always change them back. And, as long as the powers that be have the word "corporation" in their name, capitalism dictates that their decisions will have more to do with profit margins than the continued, healthy growth of the internet.

    sean
  • Well, well, well... looks like the free economy doesn't work at all


    ACTUALLY, when John Postel and the universities ran it -- "for free" -- it worked great.

    - - - - -

  • Re:But what about new gTLDs? (Score:4)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @04:05PM (#319920) Homepage
    Oh, LORDY, is Verisign/Netsol SLACK about dealing with the .US domain. I'm the registrar for one domain, and they hav a single email form, which no longer fills itself out from whois, for all chanes of any type. All requests must be made by email, and will be answered within six weeks! The service is 1000% poorer than when one secretary ran it at ISU. Netsol makes no money from the .US domain, and therefore doesn't give a fried fart about maintaining it.

    Suppose you make a mistake on the form. Wait up to six weeks for feedback, and then resubmit. Repeat! Fuckers! I have a situation right now where the primary DNS for a .us domain is located in a company that's undergoing bankruptcy. I have to get it moved out. Moving the equipment and/or zone is easy. But I have to wait up to six weeks for Network Delusions to yank their coporate thumb out of their subsidized butthole for the domain to be fixed. Contrast this to pretty much ANY OpenSRS registrar (such as DomainMomnger), where I could make the change in 5 minutes by myself. I even called NetSol's US domain "department" and the only help available is a recorded message saying everything must be handled via email. WHAT A PATHETIC COMPANY!

    Verisign/Netsol needs to be voted off the island! With a baseball bat!



    - - - - -
  • I put one of those alternative DNS servers at the top of resolv.conf on my home machine, then forgot about it. The result was that DNS lookups got significantly slower, and eventually that server went down and I was wondering why I was getting DNS timeouts all the time. That's when I rediscovered what I put in resolv.conf.

    For something like this to work, it'd have to be at the ISP level.
    --
    Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.

  • Where are non-organizations supposed to go? (Score:3)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:37PM (#319922)
    > Under this contract the only type of organization who can run the .org registry is a non-profit organization,

    Can anyone comment on where people who need an unique domain name, but don't have a organization are supposed to go??

    e.g. I have a domain name for family use.

    Thank you for the link, I'm adding my domain name to the petition.
  • I'm surprised I didn't see reference to the other TLD that Verisign controls - .us

    We've been trying to deal with them to clean up .us subdomains that are being camped on by companies in different parts of the country from the region they're supposed to be handling (a violation of the .us AUP, but apparently unenforced by Verisign).

    Perhaps they're over their head?

    *scoove*
  • Since the .org domain has been wildly abused over the last couple years, exactly how is this to-be-announced non profit organization re-establish control over the .org domain, and make sure that it is used for its original purpose?

    This is going to get ugly...... I sincerely hope they let existing .org owners keep their domain names......
  • That sounds like what new.net [new.net] is doing.

    --

  • It's really sad that something people think is really a classic success of open architechure like teh internet is really owned by a bunch of corporations.

    thank you america, long live capitalism. :&

    As lots of people have said, capitalism isn't good for people.

    http://www.hyperpoem.net
  • If we don't get .sux soon...

    THERE WON'T BE ANY FREE SPEECH TO DEFEND.

  • Re:It's Too Broken To Fix (Score:3)

    by isaac_akira ( 88220 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @05:20PM (#319928)
    but http://i.want.chocolate too! so whose server does it point to? or if you are suggesting that a list of sites come up when you type that in, whose name is at the top of that list? how do i tell someone how to find my site? "search for http://i.want.chocolate and then click to the second page of results. i'm usually about 4 or 5 names down the list". excellent system!

    the problem with all the domain name replacement ideas i've seen (RealNames being the most popular one) is that they have most of the same faults as the old one. it's a tough problem, since the name NEEDS to be unique, but many people will want the same name (and the names need to be relatively short and easy to remember -- otherwise we could just use IP addresses).
  • They've been saying that for years. Still hasn't happened.

    .biz was suppose to be around 4 years ago.. still hasn't happened.
    --

  • Okay, I can see why they shouldn't have .org or .net. But they are a business. Why would they ever loose the .com domain? And what criteria do they have to meet? The do business on the net, isn't that enought? If they don't have .com/.org/.net then what do they use? If ICANN says you can't use .com after 2011 then arn't they just destroying a business for no good reason?

    Perhaps I'm missing some points here, if so, please fill me in.
    --

  • slashdot was a .org long before it was a .com
    --
  • Oh if only I had mod points today to nuke this twat..... *Boo-hoo*
  • Hey man - not everyone who reads this knows everything. If you look above, she does apologise. Fair play - dumb mistake, but everyone has to start somewhere...
  • I use easyspace [easyspace.com] - they seem to have a pretty good set of pricing options, and suit my website needs just fine.

    Just my 2pworth
  • so the potential for profit of the future owners would be greatly limited.

    It's not like there is no income once the names are sold. You still have to pay a yearly fee. The new owners will be even better off since they can mostly handle renewals and not have to go searching for new business.

    Nate Baxley
  • ...why don't those hackers get it over with already and create .sux? Software designers are so infatuated with the fact that they can, that they don't stop to think if they should. Am I the only one who reads the .sigs around here? With a .sig like that, you ask why hackers don't just create .sux. Why should they? Sounds like lawsuits waiting to happen (bad things). Also, there are plenty of other ways to exercise your free speech, making this obscure method a bit on the "why should they" side...

  • Can anyone comment on where people who need an unique domain name, but don't have a organization are supposed to go??

    How does a subdomain of .cjb.net [cjb.net] not fit your needs?

  • Monopoly.

    You're tired of Slashdot ads? Get junkbuster [junkbusters.com] now!
  • Thanks for the link! I wish I found Gandi when I registered my domain last month. :(

    Could've saved $30 a year, PLUS they have free email forwarding (1 address). I will no doubt keep them in mind.
  • What exactly does this mean for those of us who have domains registered with registrars other than Verisign? Or am I mixing my terminologies and issues?
  • I guess we're either supposed to go to .name (whenever it opens) or fight the cybersquatters in .com.
  • Come on, what woud YOU do were you in their position?

    DanH
    Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
  • *cough* .slk
    I wish I had something more relivent to say than my pro-slackware stance... :P

    --Josh
  • > I imagine looking up the entry for Businesses/ACME Tools (of Hayward, California, USA)

    How is this different from the following -

    I want to find the website (www) for the BBC (bbc) company (co) in the UK (uk)... www.bbc.co.uk.

    Just because the system has been bastardized by this top-level domain insanity doesn't mean it wasn't designed correctly (by some very smart people) many years ago.

    The answer does *not* lie in the introduction of more top-level domains and if it happens it will be yet another triumph of marketing bullshit over solid internet engineering practices (something ICANN seems to be rather good at).

    Si

  • Re:It's Too Broken To Fix (Score:4)

    by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @08:41PM (#319945) Homepage
    The problem with replacing hierarchical domain names with a global string, however it's assigned, is that it breaks one of the advantages of the current system: You own a block, not a string.

    Go over to dhs.org [dhs.org]. There, you can register a 3rd level domain for yourself off of the dhs.org or wox.org domains, which they own. I have two such domains, and host them off of my Linux server which has a DNS server running. By doing so, ANYTHING.mydomain.dhs.org is mine. I can add one system, I can add a hundred systems. I can even dynamically assign them if I want to. That's not the case if it's simply one big string. I have to pray that a.mydomain.dhs.org is available, which is not guaranteed just because I am using b.mydomain.dhs.org.

    While me running my own little domain for ego's sake is not the most important reason in the world to use a given standard, the same advantage exists for larger organizations. Everyone who uses AOL has a domain name assigned to them when the log on, based on their IP. It's something like dialup45-pool22.aol.com, or something equally obscure, but still unique. More importantly, still having symantic meaning of its own. You can tell right off that it's an AOL system (.com not meaning much any more), and that it's a temp dialup connection in modem pool #22. If everything was random strings, they couldn't do that, unless they registered EVERY possible permutation of *aol* just to make sure that no one else did. Can you imagine fuckme.aol.com, or ihate.ibm.com? Right now, those don't and can't exist (unless someone at IBM's network center is having an arguement with his boss).

    It's the same logic behind IP address blocks. My university owns its own class B, so 123.456.*.* (real numbers withheld, of course) will always be something here at the school. That makes administration far easier, and makes tracking down a hacker far easier as well.

    Even phone numbers use the same hierarchical system. Country Code, Area Code, Exchange (somewhat muddled now), and Extension.

    And yes, even your own name is a hierarchical naming system, specifically because it's easier to understand. If your name is Frank Johnson, then you can name your kids pretty much any first name you want, but their last name will almost always be Johnson. It's then much easier to identify you as their father/mother, and vice-versa.

    Hierarchical naming and numbering systems are so prevalent because they are so useful. It makes it very easy to control a given block, to determine what a given string really means by its component parts, and to whom it belongs, and even sometimes where they are (.uk). See also: Linux/Unix file system.

    --GrouchoMarx

  • Even if you don't buy from the Verisign "registrar" the underlying "registry" services are performed by Versign.

    So don't think that because you register through Gandi that you are avoiding Verisign - they get $6 of that $10 you paid.

  • Your elected ICANN representatives from Europe and from North America voted against this contractual change.

    Maybe if ICANN were to open itself up to more elected representatives such decisions would go the "right" way.

    However, ICANN has a "study" under way in which the basic existance of publicly elected members of the board is being questioned.

    Unless folks work hard to demand the continued existance and expansion of ICANN's "at-large" we can foresee the day when the vote for such things isn't 12-for vs 3-against but will be unopposed because there will be no one present who represents the public interest.

  • Re:Bottom-up illusion (Score:3)

    by karl.auerbach ( 157250 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @05:23PM (#319948) Homepage

    I agree with you that this kind of decision making does render claims that ICANN is a "bottom-up consensus body" somewhat hard to believe.

    But there is an issue that I want to raise - the credibility of some of the comments that are submitted.

    I'd find it a lot easier to point to the mass of public comment on an issue if that comment were expressed in more felicitious form - better formed arguments, less profanity, more substance, less personal attack, etc.

    Remember, when making comments to ICANN you are not doing so so much to convince me - I tend to take the public-interest position - but to convince the other folks within ICANN. And those other folks are, for the most part, rather more put-off by some of the less tactful forms of expression.

    Sure, it's fun write an emotional outburst. But it tends to not carry much weight.

    We've got a real uphill fight with ICANN. It will help a lot if the public comments to ICANN were more articulate.

  • If you don't like Verisign, then don't buy domains from them. They are not the best, nor are they even the cheapest. I get mine from Gandi, [gandi.net]c for about 10 dollars, US. I've not had a single problem.

  • ...why don't those hackers get it over with already and create .sux?

    Because the first names registered would be those such as "microsoft.sux", and then would come the big company, DMCA in hand, to the nearest court house.
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  • Oh yeah, .aero is the future, man! Just think of the possible advertising campaigns; "Soar into the future with .aero!"
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  • You're kidding, right?

    Slashdot started as a .org, and that's where the .com will point you anyway, so, I suggest looking at your URL bar.
    --

  • Gee, what a harsh "limit".... (Score:5)

    by EvlPenguin ( 168738 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @01:34PM (#319953) Homepage
    (from the article) In the much-awaited decision, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) limited the term of VeriSign rights to the .org name to the end of 2002, and the .net name to the start of 2006.

    And they will only make $XXX million in that time frame. Remember that there's tons of names going every day, and eventually the selection will be extremely limited to anything but the most unique names, so the potential for profit of the future owners would be greatly limited.

    Under the new agreements, VeriSign would provide $5 million to the nonprofit group that takes over .org, invest at least $200 million in research and development, pay its full share of ICANN expenses, to charge equal fees for registering names and eliminate the one-time $10,000 new registrar and other fees.

    And I bet companies like Network Solutions will still be charging $70 per year. Personally, I use gandi.net [gandi.net], which charges about 12 Euros (about $10-11 USD, along with the best ownership agreement) per year, and have yet to find a better deal. The dropping of the $10,000 "new registrar" fee will not bring the prices for end users down any lower than maybe $10, or else how will the registrars turn a worthwhile profit?
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  • The only difference in the renewal of my certificate last week was that it took about three times as long. Even though they said (when I inquired what the hell was taking so long) they had to talk to me on the phone, they issued the certificate a few hours later, and I've never gotten the phone call.
  • Almost anyone can register a .org or a .net even if they're not an Internet service provider or a non-profit organization (hehe slashdot comes to mind)Also if they start to crunch down on domain names how would they regulate who obtains these and proove that they're a non-profit and such as non-profits probably have a lot of different meanings depending on what country you're located in
  • That's a great trick!!!

    what is the "&item=q209355@195.224.253.26/Q209355.asp" ?
    Or in other words, "how does this work?"
  • I know that it would be a total netfsck to local networks and the like, but what about removing the .com/net/org/whatever? That way we dont have Big Industries trying to block new TLD's for fear of someone else getting their trademarked name as a domain.

    There's little thing called subdomains that could and should be used for internal networks at these companies to segregate inside from out.

    Personally, I would rather browse to http://ford or http://buisness.harvard than having to remember the correct TLD extension.
  • Thanks, I signed as well and will be adding a link to disgrace.org (and that great long one as well) to my site. Moderators please mod parent and grandparent up so everyone can sign!
  • By the way - my org's were added almost instantly. Yours can be too (where's slashdot?)
  • What about domains that have been licensed like .cc and .la (formerly Laos, now for Los Angeles, bastards)?

    Who owns them?
  • Thats a shame... It's the TLD that these fights should be fought in... .com should be for evil multinationals. :P
  • "Desire for a decent operating system"

    bwahahahahahahahahaha
  • Sorry for the above post but I always love these MS alike pages :-)
  • Nice JavaScripten, eh? But I dislike the idea of popping-up windozes.

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  • Don't look at it. About 2 pop-ups per second flooding your display.

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  • I have registered a .ppp and the only thing I miss is a DNS server that points it to my DynDNS
    (and an entry pointing the DNS server of the .ppp to my DynDNS ...)

    Why do not the ISPs migrate to the alternative namespace?

    URI:



    --
  • She didnt. There was no reply. If you look at it in "light mode" (user prefs) and with different date settings it's easier to see.

    --
  • owns the final ".", the one no one writes in all FQDNs.
    When I set up a DNS server the final point belongs to me!

    --
  • Yeah, Imagine the possibilities! /. Or !/. (where we could write a script to blow up their computer!)

  • What I'm wondering is... (Score:5)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @01:31PM (#319970)
    ...why don't those hackers get it over with already and create .sux?
  • > and .net tendered to interested companies, the > ICANN said in a statement.

    Well...I wonder..._which_ company _could_ be interested in a ".net" domain name.

    Oh...I get it now ;)
  • and what exactly does `sux` legally mean? is it in the dictionary?

  • For your family example: That's exactly what .name is intended for. (disclaimer: I'm co-founder of the company that was awarded it) You'll be able to register your-firstname.your-lastname.name, and optionally get e-mail forwarding for your-firstname@your-lastname.name. This scheme also has the advantage that if you have a common lastname, and want an address on the format mentioned, you won't block others with the same lastname from also getting that kind of address.
    .name will be the only TLD that require that a name that's registered is the name of a person or a fictional character, and not a company or product name etc.

    Nope, that won't work. Here's an easy example, from family history, but luckily I have a unique name variant myself.

    Let's say that my grandfather is William Jefferson Clinton. Called Bill. And my other grandfather is William Marcus Rodham. And I was named after my grandfather, so I'm William Jefferson Clinton (a totally legal name). Called Will. My other grandpa was called Willy.

    My grandfather, the president, registered both bill@clinton.name and william@clinton.name and william.jefferson@clinton.name - since he's famous he gets it (trust me on this one). I try to register my name, on my birth certificate, as william@clinton.name - rejected, cause he has as much (if not more) right to it, since I'm a green party member and I'll send email and cause scandals.

    But it's my name!

    Flawed, flawed, flawed, flawed. Names are not unique.

    Luckily for me, I have a unique hyphenated name myself, and only two people in the world have that name - my son and myself, and he has a different first name.

    But if you're Tom Jones, forget it.

  • The problem is that some of the ICANN proposals have them charging higher fees and requiring national or international registration for .org - .com was pretty much a done deal, due to the amount of money the corporations spent to have their control enforced.

    Not that this affects me, I run a legit .org myself, with a national registration. But think about the effect on anarchist organizations, zine publishers, radicals, organizations opposed to their national government. Hint - Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority will just refuse to recognize contrary groups.

    And what if you want to do .net for a family, since one of your relatives snapped up .com since he's a star, and another got .org for his fan club, and the rest of you are frozen out. I didn't choose the name I was born with, and it's way easier to do something like bill@gates.net than it would be to william.zander.michael@gatesinseattle.net - fits on the business cards too.

  • Yeah, take that! It's a good thing verisign is in charge otherwise we might have half-assed companies in place that would grant a certificate to anyone who claimed to be a Microsoft employee...

  • It's Too Broken To Fix (Score:3)

    by MagikSlinger ( 259969 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @01:45PM (#319979) Homepage Journal

    With all this discussion about the control of top-level domains, I notice it is still based on the monopoly model where one company will "own" a domain. Surely we can do better these days?

    Why not a search system based on Google's engine so you can chose whatever arbitrary name you want and serve the IP address back quickly? For example, http://i.want.chocolate. It's just a string to look up. Each top level DNS company has the same database of namesIPaddress mappings. New ones are bulletins that are circulated to all the top-level companies.

    The point I'm trying to make here is we've spent so many years building this intricate DNS infrastructure based on nearly 20 year old assumptions about computing hardware and network bandwidth, but has anyone stopped to ask, "Isn't there a better way by now?"

    Insanity is doing the exact same things over and over again, but each time expecting a different result.
  • .cx still belongs to ICANN. As do all the other country code TLDs. Sure they're renewed regularly, but if ICANN should choose not to, I see no way anyone could force them too. ICANN owns the final ".", the one no one writes in all FQDNs.

    No, the CC TLDs are only owned by ICANN in its imagination. ICANN may own the dot (whatever that is) but if they try to close down country codes they will find the ISPs switching to another root very quickly.

    In fact ICANN does not own the dot, the Department of Commerce does, ICANN has temporary control of the dot - for details see Michael Froomkin's icannwatch.org.

    This situation is known to the ICANN board which is why it is not going to do anything really stupid. In fact I doubt that the .org proposal is going to go anywhere. Checking for 'non-profit status' would increase the cost of registration significantly.

  • like .firm, etc

    Care to mention a company with a .com address that would be happy letting someone else get the .firm? Or a company that would settle for the .firm knowing that a good portion of their traffic would end up going to the .com? .flop, I think.

  • For your family example: That's exactly what .name is intended for. (disclaimer: I'm co-founder of the company that was awarded it) You'll be able to register your-firstname.your-lastname.name, and optionally get e-mail forwarding for your-firstname@your-lastname.name. This scheme also has the advantage that if you have a common lastname, and want an address on the format mentioned, you won't block others with the same lastname from also getting that kind of address.

    .name will be the only TLD that require that a name that's registered is the name of a person or a fictional character, and not a company or product name etc.

  • If you seriously think that it's "just paying someone to enter your name in a database", then I'm glad you're not going to be handling a gTLD anytime soon.

    Some of the issues involved are: Legal hassles involved with disputes of ownership, serving the zone files for the TLD (which is certainly not trivial, nor cheap), providing fault tolerance in all systems (multiple fault tolerant servers in multiple locations worldwide), etc.

    I happen to be Head of Development for the company that will be handling .name, so I do know what kinds of amounts that are involved, and it's not a pretty sight.

  • Growth of .com popularity makes .com irrelevant (Score:4)

    by sleeper0 ( 319432 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:04PM (#319989)
    I'm not particularly concerned with someone's control over .com. Consider the path that we've taken in the last 7 years, where we went from having to explain what the internet was, to dot-bomb being a common media expression. A lot happens in 7 years.

    If you've registered a domain name recently you know how hard it is to get a good .com name. The scarcity is already and will continue to drive people to alternative tld's. My feeling is that in another 7 years (or less) you won't care at all who controls registration for .com. I would imagine that i would rather be a registrar that controlled access to an appealing alternative TLD. There are many great names left to sell. Verisign will end up selling less and less .com registrations as every possible reasonable one will have been taken.

    Competition among registrars and many TLD's will also likely drive the average price of a domain name way down. I wouldn't be surprised if VeriSign's revenues get driven down by this.

    Honestly, there are plenty of businesses i'd rather be able to get a crack at than baby sitting some root servers.

  • IP Addresses anyone? (Score:3)

    by dev!null!4d ( 414252 ) on Monday April 02, 2001 @02:19PM (#319994) Homepage
    Personaly I think we should scrap the whole DNS idea and resort to typing dotted quads instead, or even better IPv6 addresses!

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