Why: so your site can't be taken down by the USA.

At least one .org website that I know of has been shut down because the USA pressured the US organisation that controls the .org domain into doing so.

They could repeat this at will for quite a number of sites.

An immediate step to prevent this possibility, if you run a website, is to register a domain that is controled outside the US.

I have not found one article that just lists them all, and who controls them, but most TLDs have their own wikipedia article, e.g. .org (US controled), .eu (not US controled, yay) etc.

Ultimately ICANN controls all of this, and that's a US orga too, and Trump could bully them into doing shit, too. But the people who know about these things don't seem to think that's a likely threat right now. Also ICANN seems to defer a lot of tasks to exactly these TLD orgas. After all the internet still is (somewhat) decentralized.

Context

https://web.archive.org/web/20260829204913/https://www.inventati.org/campaign/press

Further reading

https://blog.apnic.net/2023/01/13/who-controls-the-internet/
https://netmeister.org/blog/tlds.html

List of all most TLDs created with this script.

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[–] 8 points 1 day ago (1 child)

.EU still falls under icann manglement but at a remove, so yes the fascist can still mess with .EU domains.

It may be delegated to an EU register, but it still has to follow ICANN policy. Just like .au has to.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    I addressed this issue in my post; I don't disagree, but people who know far more about this than I do not seem to see this as an immediate threat. See the autistici/inventati press release and some comments under my posts, e.g. from people at OpenNIC. ICANN seems to defer responsibilities, so they cannot - afaiu - pick and choose to block sites as per The Don's will.

    If that was a realistic option I think we'd have seen far more shutdowns already.

    Of course, ultimately all of DNS is controled by ICANN, a US orga. Trump could effectively shut down the whole internet, we'd have to revert to numerical IPs. A scary thought.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    DNS is controled by ICANN, a US orga. Trump could effectively shut down the whole internet

    dude. dont put this in print, he might find out. the guy has zero boundaries, ethics or morals.

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  • [–] 3 points 19 hours ago

    It would cause chaos, yes, like other stupid things he's done.

    But in addition to the chaos, people would spin up solutions, and as things settled down and everyone got back online again, the result would be a decentralized internet.

    So it's sort of the same as wishing for a civil war, or wishing against one: Either way, the result might end up with things in a much better state, although the pain would be real in the meantime. (and lives lost in the case of civil war - and in both cases, not guaranteed to be better, although if things got to that point, they probably would end up being better).

    Don't think I'm wishing he'll do it, mind. But if he does stupid things… that will be the result.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    And it's a well-known fact he and his admin spend most of their time scouring Lemmy for ways to fuck with the world.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Of course, ultimately all of DNS is controled by ICANN, a US orga. Trump could effectively shut down the whole internet, we’d have to revert to numerical IPs. A scary thought.

    I understand the sentiment but that is not effectively possible. It is not ICANN that de facto controls domain name resolution, it is the name servers that are spread around the world. A supranational organisation such as the European Union, or countries like Russia and China, can have their DNS servers continue to resolve domain names to the correct IP addresses regardless of what decisions ICANN or other TLD ownership entities make.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 day ago*

    that is not effectively possible

    It would be impractical, yes.

    it is the name servers that are spread around the world

    But the nameservers get their lists from elsewhere - i.e. PIR in this case - and while it's technically possible to amend these lists, they don't typically do so. The few that do, just add a few tlds, but don't edit existing entries in the lists they get.

    But I agree that is something the rest of the world will need to look into rather sooner than later.

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  • [–] 1 point 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

    who's to say these supranational organizations won't impose their own requirements? let alone stand for a free and open internet?

    who's to say they will propagate to (self-purported) external entities at all?

    that is not effectively possible.

    Consider a catastrophic breakdown of the root system caused by a geopolitical incident. I think you will find that as the situation changes so too will the postures and standpoints of these supranational organizations and therefore the digital landscape, and that which you have previously held effectively impossible can very rapidly become not just a possibility but a likelihood.

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