How geopolitics can alter digital infrastructure
  • @folekaule@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1•1 month ago

    I doubt this will happen, but they should just reassign it to the Mauritius authority. The citizens of the islands could then potentially see some benefit from it, not Google or ICANN or whoever selflessly offers to take it over.

    • lemmyvoreEnglish
      0•1 month ago

      Normally that would have been the preferred solution, but since IANA has experienced all kinds of shenanigans on similar occasions they have decided to not allow ccTLD’s to survive their former country anymore.

      • @folekaule@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1•1 month ago

        Yep. And for very good reasons, as explained in the article. But knowing that domains can be a significant source of income for a small nation, it does seem a shame to both waste that resource and break tons of sites in the process. I wish there were better ways to do this that didn’t mean shutting it down or even selling it off to the highest bidder (who already has enough money).

  • Draconic NEOEnglish
    0•1 month ago

    Anyone else potentially see a problem in which a single organization oversees all name usage and can arbitrarily decide to break a good majority of the internet over stupid shit like this? Or are we all just fine with a single American based entity being able to decide what domains are valid and not?

    • @NicolaHaskell@lemmy.worldEnglish
      -1•1 month ago

      Yes, Anyone Else has been seeing problems since the days of Bell up through the development and privatization of ICANN and beyond. But outrage over “a TLD is no longer delegated” is stupid shit. Where should ICANN be based and how would that influence its decision making processes?

      • Draconic NEOEnglish
        0•1 month ago

        I don’t really think ICANN should be based anywhere or really have any say, or I guess even exist at all. I’m a strong believer in a decentralized DNS system not controlled or designated by a single, all powerful entity. With how important it is and how much breaks if it gets compromised either by outside forces, or by internal corruption, it makes sense that something like this shouldn’t be so centralized and vulnerable.

        • @NicolaHaskell@lemmy.worldEnglish
          -1•1 month ago

          How do you get to lemmy.world and every.to in a world without a common, public namespace? Should lemmy.world be registered in every country? How do SSL and trust in identity play into all this?

  • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0•1 month ago

    Yeah, and this, right here, is a huge reason why I don’t buy vanity domains based on country codes. Political structures can change quickly, and I really don’t want to have to rebrand something just because some country decides it wants to restrict its country-code TLDs (e.g. the .ml TLD is owned by Mali, and they could totally push to restrict it to Malian residents).

    I stick with the normal ones, like .com, .info, or .org, or content-specific ones like .games.

    • @NicolaHaskell@lemmy.worldEnglish
      -1•1 month ago

      | The deal – reached after years of negotiations - will see the UK hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move.

      What changed quickly here? You guys are terrified of the mention of the idea of possibly having to plan to commit to a change lol “normal ones” 😂

      • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0•1 month ago

        Most people weren’t following the Chagos Islands news, and I doubt most people with .io names bothered to check any notifications here. A lot of people just pick them up and set them to auto-renew and generally don’t think about it again. Those people won’t be impacted today, but they will be once the domains get transitioned away, and it’ll be a rude awakening for a lot of people.

        The simple solution is to not buy country TLDs unless you live in that country or something.

  • @NicolaHaskell@lemmy.worldEnglish
    -1•1 month ago

    Internet journalism means you can sensationalize hypotheticals like “The IANA may fudge its own rules” and “Money talks” without having to provide a source for those claims.

    And why should I be careful choosing a TLD or interpret this as a warning? The Internet isn’t breaking, it’s changing. All this does is fear monger in favor of one Pope of the Internet.