7 ms·

It’s time to place the web in safer hands

100 points by Flemlord 15y ago

metajack 15y ago
First time I've ever been to this site, and immediately a giant pop up appears over the content. I doubt I'll be back.
nate_meurer 15y ago
I don't see how this can be fixed. I have yet to see a single proposal for internet governance that makes me feel "safer" than the current arrangement. Whatever entity is given control of the global name or number spaces has extraordinary power. Any such organization will be subject to corruption, both from within (the subject of the article) and without (e.g. SOPA). Moving governance up to higher levels of government (like the U.N.) isn't any better. Do we really want France or the WIPO to have any input, much less China or Russia? That's a rhetorical question for anyone concerned about censorship. I think it inevitable that the Internet will continue to splinter along national boundaries. Ultimately, the internet will consist of national networks, separate and insular to varying degrees. The challenge for hackers will be how to connect to the networks outside of our own respective countries.
- dantheman 15y ago
  I'd much rather have a fractured internet with pockets of freedom than a globally censored and controlled internet.
- gldalmaso 15y ago
  >> Ultimately, the internet will consist of national networks, separate and insular to varying degrees. That's where it's heading indeed, maybe it will even come to mimick real boundaries and require visas from those that want to cross them.
cypherpunks01 15y ago
This is a nice complaint against ICANN, but I'm disappointed that it didn't explain any potential solutions to the problem. Whose hands should DNS oversight be in? What alternative solutions are out there?
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  DNS should be distributed. Eventually as the shadow P2P DNS system grows in response to the mainstream one being increasingly controlled and factionalized, it will become the dominant DNS system.
  - gorloth 15y ago
    I've seen the idea of a distributed DNS system mentioned a few times but I still don't see how it would work out. What happens in the case of multiple people wanting the same domain? How are disputes between what foo.com points to resolved? With no central authority who collects payment? and without payment of some kind what it to stop someone from gathering up an inordinate number of domains as there is no cost to do so.
  - astrodust 15y ago
    It stands a good chance of becoming the registry of choice for casual use, especially if it gets an official TLD, but otherwise it's a bit crazy to think it'd ever be used for serious concerns. It's way too shady.
  - cypherpunks01 15y ago
    What distributed DNS systems are out there or being developed? I only know of namecoin (the bitcoin fork).
- astrodust 15y ago
  Make the stakes much, much higher for a new TLD, but make the chance of getting one almost assured if you make it through a more rigorous screening process. The junk that's out there now is embarrassing. .aero? .museum? Are these jokes? It took more than ten years to establish the blindingly obvious .xxx domain while they were flirting with the idea of a .store or .shop domain instead. Domains are growing increasingly irrelevant when search-engines are the only reliable method for channelling people to what they want, but the namespace pollution we have to endure forever will be a constant source of irritation. I have almost no idea what the current TLDs are, and even Mozilla, which needs to know this for security reasons, is having trouble keeping up. Regional registrars seem to change their mind as to how they will assign domains without any sort of official notification, no paperwork at all, which seems reckless for a TLD.
woodrow 15y ago
While I don't advocate for breaking up ICANN, this article "Fixing DNS -- how to break up ICANN" (http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/fix.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/fix.html) presents a decent approach to the TLD 'problem' that would not focus on useless branding TLDs but instead encourage only TLDs that were going to add value to the Internet. In short, the idea is to only allow non-generic TLDs to be registered to force the TLD operator to differentiate their TLD from others, rather than just being the first one to register '.bank'. It doesn't offer a solution to the complaint in the article that organizations will have to register 'apple', 'mcdonalds', or 'cocacola' in each new TLD, but I'm less sympathetic to that concern.
- regularfry 15y ago
  Who would get .nissan?
  - jpitz 15y ago
    Whoever pays first. Or, more, maybe.
sukuriant 15y ago
non-latin TLD's? I really hope no one takes omicron for a new .com ...
- astrodust 15y ago
  There's a lot of Arabic and Chinese TLDs already.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    I did not know this. I suppose that removes my argument.
jaylevitt 15y ago
Why, oh why, does everyone assume that a plethora of TLDs implies that all those TLDs must contain a complete copy of .com? I claim the problem with the first big expansion - .pro, .info, etc - is that it WASN'T wholesale. Yes, if half the Internet thinks that only .com exists, and you add .biz, every corporation has to go register .biz as well. If you add a thousand real, active, well-used TLDs, they don't, simply because that is no longer how the Internet works. We already see the start of this with ccTLDs; Apple (a pretty aggressive trademark defender) does not own http://www.apple.fm http://www.apple.fm, and nobody expects them to, and nobody is confused that they don't. I'm sure my grandmother sometimes confused Elvis Costello with Elvis Presley, but nobody thought the one was impersonating the other, because people have last names, and that's how it works, and that's normal. Five years ago, the average American non-technologist's mental model of the Internet was "you type the company name and .com, except sometimes it's .net and I don't know why". Now it's probably a little more nuanced - but only a little, because .com is still Where Everything Is. If you change that, you've changed that. Because you changed it. So it's not the same.
- Jach 15y ago
  I'm in complete agreement except this: > Five years ago, the average American non-technologist's mental model of the Internet was "you type the company name and .com, except sometimes it's .net and I don't know why". Now it's probably a little more nuanced - but only a little, because .com is still Where Everything Is. I would say it's even worse now. Many people's mental model is "I type it into Google and they take me there" or "I share this clickable text around and don't have to type anything".
  - jaylevitt 15y ago
    I think their use case is worse, but their mental model probably includes other TLDs - or at least they've probably GONE to other TLDs. Some (More? many? most?) people just prefer to type URLs into Google for some ungodly reason. I watched a junior web designer do it today, and she certainly knows what URLs are; it's just How You Do That. For you and me, it seems like an extra hop, but for her, the extra hop would be to realize "I already know this URL" and override her muscle memory. Then again, I set up an alias called "gwssh" that goes to our EC2 gateway machine and then to the target machine, and more than once I've typed "gwssh gate" because I'm too "lazy" to type "ssh gate".

100 points by Flemlord 15y ago

First time I've ever been to this site, and immediately a giant pop up appears over the content. I doubt I'll be back.

I don't see how this can be fixed. I have yet to see a single proposal for internet governance that makes me feel "safer" than the current arrangement. Whatever entity is given control of the global name or number spaces has extraordinary power. Any such organization will be subject to corruption, both from within (the subject of the article) and without (e.g. SOPA). Moving governance up to higher levels of government (like the U.N.) isn't any better. Do we really want France or the WIPO to have any input, much less China or Russia? That's a rhetorical question for anyone concerned about censorship. I think it inevitable that the Internet will continue to splinter along national boundaries. Ultimately, the internet will consist of national networks, separate and insular to varying degrees. The challenge for hackers will be how to connect to the networks outside of our own respective countries.

dantheman 15y ago
I'd much rather have a fractured internet with pockets of freedom than a globally censored and controlled internet.
gldalmaso 15y ago
>> Ultimately, the internet will consist of national networks, separate and insular to varying degrees. That's where it's heading indeed, maybe it will even come to mimick real boundaries and require visas from those that want to cross them.

cypherpunks01 15y ago

This is a nice complaint against ICANN, but I'm disappointed that it didn't explain any potential solutions to the problem. Whose hands should DNS oversight be in? What alternative solutions are out there?

dreamdu5t 15y ago
DNS should be distributed. Eventually as the shadow P2P DNS system grows in response to the mainstream one being increasingly controlled and factionalized, it will become the dominant DNS system.
- gorloth 15y ago
  I've seen the idea of a distributed DNS system mentioned a few times but I still don't see how it would work out. What happens in the case of multiple people wanting the same domain? How are disputes between what foo.com points to resolved? With no central authority who collects payment? and without payment of some kind what it to stop someone from gathering up an inordinate number of domains as there is no cost to do so.
- astrodust 15y ago
  It stands a good chance of becoming the registry of choice for casual use, especially if it gets an official TLD, but otherwise it's a bit crazy to think it'd ever be used for serious concerns. It's way too shady.
- cypherpunks01 15y ago
  What distributed DNS systems are out there or being developed? I only know of namecoin (the bitcoin fork).
astrodust 15y ago
Make the stakes much, much higher for a new TLD, but make the chance of getting one almost assured if you make it through a more rigorous screening process. The junk that's out there now is embarrassing. .aero? .museum? Are these jokes? It took more than ten years to establish the blindingly obvious .xxx domain while they were flirting with the idea of a .store or .shop domain instead. Domains are growing increasingly irrelevant when search-engines are the only reliable method for channelling people to what they want, but the namespace pollution we have to endure forever will be a constant source of irritation. I have almost no idea what the current TLDs are, and even Mozilla, which needs to know this for security reasons, is having trouble keeping up. Regional registrars seem to change their mind as to how they will assign domains without any sort of official notification, no paperwork at all, which seems reckless for a TLD.

woodrow 15y ago

While I don't advocate for breaking up ICANN, this article "Fixing DNS -- how to break up ICANN" (http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/fix.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/fix.html) presents a decent approach to the TLD 'problem' that would not focus on useless branding TLDs but instead encourage only TLDs that were going to add value to the Internet. In short, the idea is to only allow non-generic TLDs to be registered to force the TLD operator to differentiate their TLD from others, rather than just being the first one to register '.bank'. It doesn't offer a solution to the complaint in the article that organizations will have to register 'apple', 'mcdonalds', or 'cocacola' in each new TLD, but I'm less sympathetic to that concern.

regularfry 15y ago
Who would get .nissan?
- jpitz 15y ago
  Whoever pays first. Or, more, maybe.

sukuriant 15y ago

non-latin TLD's? I really hope no one takes omicron for a new .com ...

astrodust 15y ago
There's a lot of Arabic and Chinese TLDs already.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  I did not know this. I suppose that removes my argument.

jaylevitt 15y ago

Why, oh why, does everyone assume that a plethora of TLDs implies that all those TLDs must contain a complete copy of .com? I claim the problem with the first big expansion - .pro, .info, etc - is that it WASN'T wholesale. Yes, if half the Internet thinks that only .com exists, and you add .biz, every corporation has to go register .biz as well. If you add a thousand real, active, well-used TLDs, they don't, simply because that is no longer how the Internet works. We already see the start of this with ccTLDs; Apple (a pretty aggressive trademark defender) does not own http://www.apple.fm http://www.apple.fm, and nobody expects them to, and nobody is confused that they don't. I'm sure my grandmother sometimes confused Elvis Costello with Elvis Presley, but nobody thought the one was impersonating the other, because people have last names, and that's how it works, and that's normal. Five years ago, the average American non-technologist's mental model of the Internet was "you type the company name and .com, except sometimes it's .net and I don't know why". Now it's probably a little more nuanced - but only a little, because .com is still Where Everything Is. If you change that, you've changed that. Because you changed it. So it's not the same.

Jach 15y ago
I'm in complete agreement except this: > Five years ago, the average American non-technologist's mental model of the Internet was "you type the company name and .com, except sometimes it's .net and I don't know why". Now it's probably a little more nuanced - but only a little, because .com is still Where Everything Is. I would say it's even worse now. Many people's mental model is "I type it into Google and they take me there" or "I share this clickable text around and don't have to type anything".
- jaylevitt 15y ago
  I think their use case is worse, but their mental model probably includes other TLDs - or at least they've probably GONE to other TLDs. Some (More? many? most?) people just prefer to type URLs into Google for some ungodly reason. I watched a junior web designer do it today, and she certainly knows what URLs are; it's just How You Do That. For you and me, it seems like an extra hop, but for her, the extra hop would be to realize "I already know this URL" and override her muscle memory. Then again, I set up an alias called "gwssh" that goes to our EC2 gateway machine and then to the target machine, and more than once I've typed "gwssh gate" because I'm too "lazy" to type "ssh gate".