3 ms·

Unfortunately, you do not own your email address either. TLDs are managed by governments or government-adjacent organizations. Domains are managed by the TLD m

Unfortunately, you do not own your email address either. TLDs are managed by governments or government-adjacent organizations. Domains are managed by the TLD manager. Email addresses are managed by the domain manager. I've never had a phone number or a domain name taken from me, but I've heard of more cases of the latter than of the former.

grishka 5y ago
There are now those custom TLDs that are not managed by a government-related organization. Your domain is managed by whoever you registered it at. You can transfer your domain between registrars too. Your email address is managed by you because you control the domain. You can use someone else's email service with your domain, or you can host your own. You can switch between one and the other without anyone noticing. I've heard stories of how a US carrier issued a replacement sim card to a fraudster. I've also heard stories of how a Russian carrier intercepted someone's SMS messages to break into their Telegram account.
- quesera 5y ago
  But unless you operate the TLD, you do not "own" your email address. Donuts can choose to cancel your domain registration, or to hand it to someone with a more compelling trademark claim, etc. Legal niceties vary by jurisdiction, but at the end of the day you "own" nothing but a contract where you are the subordinate party. SIM swapping is a big problem, but that is more equivalent to DNS hijacking of your domain than to the concept of legal/contractual "ownership" or rights to operation. But semantics aside, the important question is how easy would it be for a malfeasant to interfere with your quiet enjoyment of your public identifier (phone number or email address). SIM swapping is way too easy. Domain hijacking isn't hard either, and sometimes one attack can leverage the other.

3 ms·

Unfortunately, you do not own your email address either. TLDs are managed by governments or government-adjacent organizations. Domains are managed by the TLD m

by quesera 5y ago

grishka 5y ago
There are now those custom TLDs that are not managed by a government-related organization. Your domain is managed by whoever you registered it at. You can transfer your domain between registrars too. Your email address is managed by you because you control the domain. You can use someone else's email service with your domain, or you can host your own. You can switch between one and the other without anyone noticing. I've heard stories of how a US carrier issued a replacement sim card to a fraudster. I've also heard stories of how a Russian carrier intercepted someone's SMS messages to break into their Telegram account.
- quesera 5y ago
  But unless you operate the TLD, you do not "own" your email address. Donuts can choose to cancel your domain registration, or to hand it to someone with a more compelling trademark claim, etc. Legal niceties vary by jurisdiction, but at the end of the day you "own" nothing but a contract where you are the subordinate party. SIM swapping is a big problem, but that is more equivalent to DNS hijacking of your domain than to the concept of legal/contractual "ownership" or rights to operation. But semantics aside, the important question is how easy would it be for a malfeasant to interfere with your quiet enjoyment of your public identifier (phone number or email address). SIM swapping is way too easy. Domain hijacking isn't hard either, and sometimes one attack can leverage the other.