See Ya .su 219
Sarkastro writes "Wired has this story on the pending death of the .su domain. Since the Soviet Union broke up a decade ago, all of the former members now have their own ccTLDs. Now, some people are ready to see .su be put to rest, including ICANN who is quite firm in their stance. Others within the former Soviet Union would like to see it stick around as a geopgraphical area domain. Currently, .su domains cost $15,000 (.ru cost less than $30), so there are only about 28,000 registered. It's especially interesting to watch how the Internet reacts to geographical boundaries that no longer exist. It's easy to add a ccTLD, but much much harder to remove one."
$15'000 for a domain? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$15'000 for a domain? (Score:5, Informative)
.ux (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:.ux (Score:2, Informative)
And this after the Iron Sheik won the Royal Rumble (Score:2, Funny)
Cybersquatting? (Score:3, Funny)
If you're a cybersquatter such as Microsoft or PETA, price isn't a problem, now is it?
Now, there's the matter of actually wanting a domain like that. I don't even think either of them are capable of such wasteful spending... then again...
Okay, I'm going to sleep. Having no sleep is hazardous to your health, and causes you to make posts like this one.
not $15,000 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not $15,000 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:not $15,000 (Score:4, Funny)
But it's $15,000 according to your creditcard bill; nic.ru 'forgot' to include the cost a new car that's needed to bribe to
cheapest domain name? (Score:1)
Nico
Re:cheapest domain name? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:cheapest domain name? (Score:1)
Re:cheapest domain name? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:cheapest domain name? (Score:1)
Re:cheapest domain name? (Score:2)
Sounds like a scam (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be pretty pissed if someone took away my $20 domain. I can't imagine what I'd do if someone took away a domain I just paid 15 grand for just because a few people in ICANN think .su should be obsolete.
Re:Sounds like a scam (Score:2)
how about?.... (Score:5, Funny)
diahat.su
goat.su
stfu.su
my-betty.
15000-is-way-too-much-for.su
ugh.. need sleep
How about Layers (Score:1)
I-will-help-u.cu
Who-do-you-want-to.cu
Re:how about?.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:how about?.... (Score:2, Funny)
(we could force all law firms to register in the
The Man in Black says: (Score:2, Funny)
a.boy.named.su
It's going to keep happening. (Score:5, Insightful)
Many countries are going to change their names in the future. The article doesn't really go into it, but I'm sure the name has some political overtones for many people in Russia. Some other names with political ramifications are .tw (taiwan) .cs (Czechoslovakia) .kp and .kr (Koreas) etc.
Maybe we should move to something more flexible.
Re:something more flexible (Score:3, Insightful)
cheers
dave
Re:something more flexible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:something more flexible (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't like it, for the love of God, don't try to make everyone else unhappy with DNS. Set up your own "keyword" server, add a patch to Moz and IE, and let people use *that* naming system.
If that's what people really want, people will use it.
Re:It's going to keep happening. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's going to keep happening. (Score:1, Troll)
There is also Hong Kong and Yugoslavia which still have top level domains. There is also the issue of what to do about occupied countries, especially where the occupier claims them as part of their own, e.g. Chechnia, Tibet, Hawaii and Palestine.
Hawaii? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hawaii? (Score:2)
When a choice was given between becomming a state and remaining a US territory. Either way control would remain with the Washington government thousands of miles away.
The citizens of Hawaii are fully represented in the U.S. government. With 4 electoral votes, they have more representation than Alaska, Deleware, D.C., Montana, North & South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
How many of these examples are of independent and internationally recognised (including by the USA, which formally recognised the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1826) nation states, which the US occupied as a colonial power in the process supressing the existing government (in violation of the Hague convention of 1907, BTW)? The answer is zero.
As for the 1959 vote this was supposedly held under article 73 of the UN charter. Problem is that this would have required 3 options, to remain a territory, to become part of the trustee country or to become independent. There are problems even here, since the US had placed Hawaii on a list of non self-governing territories, amongst US administered territories which had never been the entirity of a nation state.
A more valid historical comparison would be with cold war Easten europe, the only one which comes to mind involving a non land border is the British occupation of Ireland.
1959 isn't the latest in the story from the US Government side anyway. In 1988 the DOJ concluded that the US had no authority to annex Hawaii by joint resolution of Congress. On November 23, 1993, President Clinton signed United States Public Law 103-150, which amongst other things, acknowlages that sovereignty of Hawaii was never surrendered, to the US or any other nation.
In 1999 the UN confirmed that the 1959 vote as non binding, since it violated article 73.
Re:Nice troll. (Score:2)
Re:It's going to keep happening. (Score:2)
Quit bashing DNS. It's your friend. (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't just *DNS*, it's the standardized ISO country code system. It's always hard to change, it doesn't change easily, etc.
You want some good reasons to use the current system? Okay, let's go.
A) Politics. Not just a joke any more. A lot of "countries" want legitimacy (or to remove legitimacy) by getting a TLD, and political pressure has been placed on ICANN before. ICANN solved this by passing the buck onto ISO, and saying that they don't deal with political problems -- that they use only ISO country codes for regions. Unless you want Israel or Palestine bombing ICANN members, this is worth considering.
B) Stability. A naming system that fluxes constantly is *much* less useful. The idea is that IPs can change, the underlying network can move around, but names stay the same. If you move to *anything* that's easier to change, you reduce the usefulness of the naming system to end users.
C) Inherent data within the naming system. With a few annoying exceptions, you can tell where something is based just by glancing at its domain name. Now, before people start on the usual 'Net dogma "the Internet erases all boundaries and obsoletes nationalities", let me point out that we still happen to exist in the real world as well, for the time being. There's a fairly useful correlation between country name and physical distance (esp. since most educated people can tell roughly how far it is from their country to another). Unless network technology gets drastically different, this has a pretty major relationship to latency, bandwidth, *and* network cost (i.e. you're supposed to use mirrors within your own country, and it's pretty easy to tell where they are if you just glance at the TLD on the mirrors). Second, like it or not, different countries have different laws and censorship rules as relate to the Internet. If I can easily tell that a site is in China, I can figure out whether the government's likely to have sanitized the information on it.
D) It's *a* clear solution. The good thing about the current system is that there aren't quibbles. "Well, *maybe* ISO really meant *this* when they assigned the country codes" doesn't come up. If people start trying to build a
E) Trademark issues. There's a fairly clear (and, I think, reasonable) advantage to Microsoft in not letting Apple grab "microsoft.com" and redirect it to a fake site that gives people a bad impression of Microsoft. Countries already have their own trademark rules and registries set up, with a legal system in place to avoid conflicts. If you register things in
F) Potential for an alternative. DNS isn't bound into the Internet at an architectural level, though it is quite popular. It's quite replaceable by people that want to set up their own system. If you want a non-hierarchical system, without domains (i.e. keywords), *go* for it. Set up a couple of servers, a registrar, hand out patches for Mozilla and IE, and you're good to go. Just don't try to turn the *Domain* Name System into your *Keyword* Name System. If someone wanted to set up a naming system based on GPS coordinates, they could do it if they wanted to.
Re:Quit bashing DNS. It's your friend. (Score:2, Interesting)
Some examples of the exceptions:
- That whole "dot tv" bullshit. I'd say atleast half of the people with
-
- and most other domains also let you register without actually being there or in any way being related to that location. see irc server in my username/sig.
Re:Quit bashing DNS. It's your friend. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quit bashing DNS. It's your friend. (Score:2)
Also
You can find all this at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm [iana.org].
Oh, and
Re:Quit bashing DNS. It's your friend. (Score:2)
Saving Soviet domain HOW-TO: ssh icann; su root (Score:5, Funny)
I thought this was obvious? ;-)
Pangea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pangea (Score:3, Funny)
MS = Montserrat (Score:4, Informative)
Insane Price (Score:5, Interesting)
That sentence is simply insane. $15,000 dollars per domain times 28,000 domains is nearly a half billion dollars. I simply can't imagine anyone buying even one of the oh-so-valuable
What is the real story on the price? How much have most people really paid for their
Re:Insane Price (Score:5, Funny)
Like every thing with the former Soviet Union and Socialist economics in general... You just had to bribe the .ru database administrator with a loaf of bread, a roll or toilet paper, or bottle of vodka to get an .ru domain.
Re:Insane Price (Score:2)
Re:Insane Price (Score:2)
Remember.... this is $15,000 PER YEAR
stable URLs? (Score:5, Interesting)
I admit I've broken a couple minor links on my own sites, but I do try very very hard to keep old URLs working...
Re:stable URLs? (Score:2)
The internet can't remain "stable," expecially in such a changing world. It's got to evolve with the times.
Re:stable URLs? (Score:2)
So what?
If I pick up a 20-year-old book that has a .su address in it (not likely, I grant you, but work with me here), there should be no reason that it cannot still work, if the domain owner cares to keep it alive.
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
A new use for .su (Score:2, Funny)
.s(uck)u(p)
.eu (Score:3, Insightful)
Danny.
Re:.eu (Score:5, Informative)
The .eu domain was officially approved March 26, 2002; registration is expected to start early next year. The tiny difference between the Soviet Union and the European Union is that the USSR was officially dissolved over 10 years ago, while the EU is not just alive but growing.
ObURL: http://www.eu-domain-names-resource.com/ [eu-domain-...source.com]
Cheers,
-j.
Re:.eu (Score:2)
Danny.
Re:.eu (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with ICANN (Score:5, Insightful)
The pending death ( or not ) of the .su domain is yet anothe demonstration of the stupidity of ICANN.
The best policy is to let it stay around. And to add more TLDs to the list. If they need rules, they could have two letters for countries and geographic areas. Three letters ( or more ) for anything else.
All ICANN should do, is set the technical standards for setting up a TLD, and then letting anybody who meets them, setup the TLD, and maintain the root servers for that TLD. It just might mean that domain names are meaningful --- especially if the TLD granter enforces the naming policies of that TDL. [ .org would only be for non-profit organizations, as one example. ]
The register of the .su TLD does have one thing more or less right --- only trademarks can be registered. [ I think it should also allow the name of the organization, or its initials. Granted, that will eliminate personal webpages with a domain of their own. ( free.tibet [www.free.tibet]comes to mind. ( and yes that is the correct URL for that page. ) ) Allowing cities or states as the second level should also be permissible. I'm not sure I want things the way the .us domain was originally setup yourname.yourcity.yourstate.us, but it has some advantages. http://www.symphony.seattle.wa.us is a lot easier to remember than whatever the Seattle Symphony uses for their website. http://symphony.renton.wa.us is much easier to remember than whatever they use --- which isn't listed on google either. :-(
Bad example (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad example (Score:2)
lots of e-mail addresses :((( (Score:5, Informative)
Re:lots of e-mail addresses :((( (Score:2)
So he got the email address two years after the USSR fell? Makes sense, I doubt the Communist Party would have wanted its citizens to be able to talk using an uncensored western communication medium [tuxedo.org]. I wonder what was the rationale behind creating a
And why
.net.uk (Score:3, Informative)
How about this? (Score:2, Insightful)
And then.. (Score:5, Funny)
I ams Top Level Directorate of
Asks us and thinks us we are bad yet unrepentant Political Party in Russia that gathers steams in large bushels.
We are Voice of The Peoples.
To say that we have no longer a voices in top leveled domains is propaganda. We are the largest party of politics in Russia. Powerful and forceful. With clouts. We have!
We be shall returning to the International Arena with forces and large clout given to us by the Land of The Mother.
By Stalin! We shall retake Leningrad and
All U R Ship R Belong to Us.
Re:And then.. (Score:2)
It is not Top Level Directorate but High Commissariate, Central Commitee, and Higher Congress. You forgot one C in CCCP (Soyuz Sovetskikh Socialistichekikh Respublik). It is not the "we are Voice of The Peoples" but we are "The People". On what concerns "largest party of politics", do you really think that we all speak English so badly? It's "largest political party".
And now sorry for the english speaking fellows but this guy tried to play so well on grumbling its Engrus that he made a very silly mistake. So directly to him:
Vy ponyali shto napisali po angliiskii? Materniui Zemlyu!.. Rodina-Mat budet "Motherland" mat vashu.
Re:And then.. (Score:2)
su - (Score:1)
How about:
# su -
# rm ccTLD/.su
But isn't ICANN affraid... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But isn't ICANN affraid... (Score:2)
Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
They should stop allowing new registrations within
Last Chance (Score:3, Informative)
The 156'000 webpages that still use
Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) Home Page [www.ihep.su]
SunSITE Russia [cs.msu.su]
Omsk-On-Line Welcome [univer.omsk.su]
damn capitalists (Score:4, Funny)
How about... (Score:2)
2) we want to stop new registrars
3) we (well, ICANN) want to maintain a manageable set of TLDs
So,
anything.su should change to anything.su.old
Same for anything.else.cz, etc.
And you don't let people register tnew
Phasing out? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard to remove? (Score:4, Informative)
It was relatively easy to remove the .cs TLD when the former Czechoslovakia was split to the
Czech Republic (.cz TLD) and Slovakia (.sk TLD).
Why .su? (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine if the US's ccTLD was
Re:Why .su? (Score:5, Interesting)
"SR"? Don't you mean "CP"? If they're not going to use the correct alphabet, the rest is academic, no?
Anyway, it's extremely common to use abbreviations reflecting the English rather than local forms of the name, especially in cases where the local language doesn't use roman script.
Consider China (cn), India (in), Japan (jp), Egypt (eg), Jordan (jo), for example. None of those reflect how the country's name is pronounced in the local language (respectively: Zhong Guo, Hindustan, Nihon, Misr, Al-Urdan)
Those are all plenty popular. Whoever modded you insightful needs a slap in the face.
Wasn't this on the Simpsons? (Score:3, Funny)
At the ICANN Building in New York City, a meeting of nations is in progress.
Russian official: The Soviet Union will be pleased to offer amnesty to your wayward website.
American official: The Soviet Union? I thought you guys broke up.
Russian official: Yes, that's what we wanted you to think! [evil laugh] -- "Simpson Tide", Episode 3G04 [snpp.com]
No need to get rid of it. (Score:2)
It is probably a lot less work for everyone involved, and will keep people with
I want to register will.su (Score:2)
Not the 1st time (Score:2, Interesting)
So if Bush gets his way... (Score:2)
A common netizens' action to keep the SU (Score:2, Insightful)
We as users stay out of arguments about technical issues that play for
Someone dropped the ball here. (Score:2, Interesting)
A. Closing out their .su domain.
B. Transferring their name to another ccTLD in the world;
C. Transferring their name to one of the new Republics ccTLDs once they were set up;
After that was done, the .su ccTLD should have died in 1991-92 and not in 2002, a full ten years after the events happened.
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:5, Insightful)
So why not. Why not add geographical area domains as another supposed convention which nobody takes any notice of. It'll bring in more revenue for the registrars, and perhaps help relieve the artificial scarcity of the existing TLDs. In fact, any two-letter combination should be a legal TLD.
(FWIW there is the
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it just does not fit into the stupid boxes that the mindles beuraucrats try to fit them in.
The issue that people seem to be missing is backwards compatibility here. Turning off .su breaks stuff. Leaving .su on breaks nothing. So .su should not be turned off unless there is a really really good reason.
The fact that .su is no longer arround does not count. The country code is still assigned by ISO. The relevant RFC states that the assignment of the iso code is all that is relevant. Postel did that on purpose so that IANA did not need to get into stupid disputes on what was and what was not a state.
If ICANN goes this road there is a major risk of fracturing the root. Nobody much gives a hang about .su but if this move succeeds it will be used as a precedent to remove .pl which given that ICANN is far from isolated from the pro-Likud US Congress means that pragmatism is unlikely to prevail.
There are certain to be protests over any US move to throw .pl out of the root. It is exactly the type of thing that the EU are concerned about - the US using the root as an extension of its recent bugger-everyone-else foreign policy. After .pl expect .cu to be next on the list as a sop to the Miami keep-Elian-from-his dad vote.
In summary, ICANN if they had a political clue will not open up this can of worms. They will only create a precedent that can only be damaging in the long run and insert themselves directly into the international equivalent of the US abortion debate.
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:3, Insightful)
Start making decisions about whether to recognize domains and you will find it very difficult to stop.
Last I checked the US Congress were not considered in particularly high regard within the US, as a body they are particularly prone to posturing and political pandering. So one can attack the Congress without attacking the US people just as one can consider the fool in the Whitehouse a crook who bilked the investors in Harken without attacking the US.
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:1)
DNS is our *friend* (Score:2)
Now, I'd be all for another naming system if people really want another one (and I'm *sure* nothing would make MS happier than controlling their own naming system...like a global Active Directory or something), but can people stop trying to mangle DNS? It's been a nice, (relatively) straightforward system for years.
".biz". Argh. Fucking registrars.
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeahthatshorriblewhatmakesthemthinktheycancontr
someoneshouldsendthemalamenessfilteremail
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2)
Hell, I don't want to get the Belgians mad at me. They're scary!
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:1)
EU is European Union which is not a geographical but a political thing.
So what's geographically specific about the area covered by the countries of the former Soviet Union?
Some EU-related sites use
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:2)
Re:Keeping .su as an area? (Score:3, Informative)
The
No mention yet of splitting this domain: looks like it will remain
Prices expected to be on the high side (£60+ per year?), indicating that it's aimed at large organisations. Presumably european politics will stay inside europa.eu, once it loses its
Re:Sad news ... Berlin Wall dead at 55 (Score:2)
Funny and tragically relevant to the story.