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.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipOPEnglish
      513·
      6 days ago

      edit:

      I didn’t really promise that. I would’ve delivered it but couldn’t find one. But you can check TLDs individually on wikipedia, as I wrote.

      I don’t think packaged solution delivery is the role of YSK - it’s more about raising awareness.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    .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.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipOPEnglish
      10·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
        7·
        6 days ago

        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.

        • Klear@piefed.worldEnglish
          5·
          6 days ago

          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.

        • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 days 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.

      • ricdeh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        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.

        • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipOPEnglish
          3·
          6 days 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.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipOPEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      when push comes to shove, be prepared to use alternative namespaces such as the one operated by opennic [1]

      I already do but autistici.org isn’t reachable through OpenNIC either. The explanation is, essentially, that they cannot edit existing entries from the lists they get from upstream (something about DNSSEC) and that they cannot legally hand out .org domains themselves.

      But yeah, I think autistici/inventati will evtl. use a TLD that isn’t under US control.

      In any case, we, i.e. the non-US parts of the world, will have to tackle these things evtl. because even if things get better in the USA, I don’t think they’re going to roll back to before the Patriot Act.

      1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenNIC#OpenNIC_namespaces ↩︎

        • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipOPEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Why would they use a TLD that isn’t recognized by most DNS providers for e.g. their email services?

          People generally want their email addresses to be reachable. They don’t just use it for super secret activism.

            • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              6 days ago

              We need for Trump et all¹ to make some larger mistakes and do some really stupid things that cause a significant percentage of people to seek alternative ways of access, i.e. enough stupid shit to cause people to set up alternate root DNS systems.

              Of course, people with the capacity to do that are like Google et all, who - in that specific example - have set up 8.8.8.8 (etc) and currently seem to be acting pretty decently, but who knows how long that would last, and if a real battle of DNS started up, you’d want stuff hosted by people in other countries anyway, soooo…

              But it seems like we’re very far out from that war.

              ¹ i.e. the fascists

  • djhandsome@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    isn’t there a solution for a decentralized dns? Like DHTs or so? Maybe just switch your dns to a more open one. DNS over https could be better. Run your own dns roor server?

  • drath@lemmy.drath.ruEnglish
    22·
    5 days ago

    … all of them? Pretty much all the root DNS servers are run by USA or US-based companies. The only place where uncle Sam’s hand won’t reach you are the countries that took precautions to isolate themselves like Russia, China, North Korea, etc, but you’d have other hands to worry about, or neo-DNS systems like .onion, .i2p and that crypto thing I don’t remember the name of.

  • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    6 days ago

    Not to defend this bullshit action (by the US government) in any way, but it seems like panic might be premature - whereas caution is always a good idea.

    As far as I can tell, this bullshit reason about “antifa” (which is US fascism bullshit¹) is, so far, unprecedented. This is the first time.

    Is this the last time? Sure, that seems unlikely.

    And again, I emphasize that I think caution is advised.

    So sure, if you’re starting up an organization or otherwise running one that might piss of the fascists, making sure you’re running it on a TLD (or ccTLD) that is not controlled by a US organization is not a bad idea.

    But if you’re making those sorts of plans, definitely look at other ways of communication that also don’t rely on US-controlled orgs, because as pointed out, ICANN is a US org, so if they can put pressure on a registrar, they can put pressure on ICANN for sure.

    ¹ as opposed to “terrorism”, which is at least debatable and probably often valid and only somewhat abused