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Taliban Shuts Down 'queer.af' Domain, Breaking Mastodon Instance (www.404media.co)
submitted 9 months ago by thejevans@lemmy.ml to c/technology@beehaw.org
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/11820406

Do not use 2 letter country TLDs!

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[-] davehtaylor@beehaw.org 63 points 9 months ago

People have been using country TLDs as cute URLs for years, and somehow it almost always ends up as a problem, or it furthers harms against the countries who own the TLDs (.io for example). Sure .tv or .io or .af sound fun, (anyone remember del.icio.us?) but it's just not worth it.

[-] master5o1@lemmy.nz 25 points 9 months ago

How does the use of ccTLDs furthers harms against the countries?

[-] davehtaylor@beehaw.org 32 points 9 months ago
[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago

That's a horrible thing the British government have done

I'm not sure that's a good reason not to use the domain though, if we didn't use anything that horrible people had a hand in making we wouldn't be talking here right now

[-] amju_wolf@pawb.social 7 points 9 months ago

They're two separate(ish) issues.

But it's still a bad idea to use national TLDs for stuff that has nothing to do with that nation.

Granted, is ICANN wasn't just a money-grabbing machine with no forward thinking they wouldn't give nations clearly "generally desirable" gTLDs, but since they did already that doesn't mean they should be misused.

[-] davehtaylor@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's really frustrating in general how TLDs have been misused and abused over the years. They used to have very specific meanings and usages. Now anyone can register a .net or .org, and don't have to prove they're a network service provider or a non-profit.

People also forget that URLs designate a hierarchy, reading from right to left. For example, take the URL app.foobar.com This designates

. -> There's an understood period at the end that's not typed. But it designates the root (or, well, top in this case) of the hierarchy
com -> The commercial space (hence top level domain)
foobar -> Company named Foobar in the commercial space
app -> The app site/service/etc from Foobar

If you're using a domain like foobar.tv, you're saying you're an organization called Foobar based in Tuvalu. There's still plenty of restricted TLDs (.gov and .mil e.g.), but everything has been thrown to the wind for the sake of cleverness, and spammers have ruined anything else that's not .com for your average user. Your personal info site generally isn't a commercial page, so .com doesn't make sense. But other gTLDs get blocked by default by so many admins, it's pointless to try.

[-] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

do they really get blocked? It doesn't make sense to block all tlds except for a whitelist imo. As of spammers can't just buy a .com domain

[-] davehtaylor@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, loads of them get blocked. Here's a site with discussion on some of the big ones: https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

Perhaps I just don't see why countries need their own extensions anyway (other than ones reserved for government websites to avoid scams, but at the point of being available for public use that kinda falls down)

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

As I understand it, this isn't a resolved conflict in the past but rather an ongoing one. So yes, it does matter if you decide to give an oppressive British company or the Taliban money. And apart from that, as a German, I'm very much aware that we are not responsible for the wrongdoings of our ancestors but are responsible not to forget and thus repeat them. People who were victims under colonialism or any other form of oppression deserve at least recognition and compensation. Just continuing to live with the current condition shaped by oppression means supporting the oppression.

[-] flashgnash@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago

By living in the UK I am giving the British government money, there's not much I can do about that short of moving to another country

Unless the people who conquered that island and are keeping it conquered are also the ones directly responsible for the domain name?

And if they are are they really keeping that area under control just for the extension? Can't imagine it makes nearly enough money to pay for the military occupation there

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

Well, obviously by living in the UK or a European country you benefit from (neo)colonialism and capitalism quite a lot. People here do have a certain responsibility, although more so in making their government and the involved economy take responsibility for their actions. It certainly is a strange position to be in, because you cannot really live ethically under capitalism. But we should still strive to change this, to abolish capitalism and to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. Just seeing that the world is unfair and continuing to exploit people for your own good is imo unethical.

Btw occupation is definitely not only based on military force but more often than not by capitalist exploitation. And occupation doesn't work in a way where you have one distinct group of people conquering some land or people. It rather is the combination of administrative and economic power, i.e. various companies exerting pressure, to maintain control over a people. So yes, if a company is benefitting from the capitalist exploitation of these people and is therefore continuing this exploitation, I would think they are in part responsible for the situation. And it would be unethical to support this domain with your money. Of course, it is a question of degree, because it certainly isn't as bad as directly giving the Taliban money but worse than giving the money to a less problematic country.

It is a bit like paying ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola or Nestlé for a hypothetical service. Do you really want to support them? If you have a choice, use something else. If you don't have a choice, protest against not having it.

[-] abbadon420@lemm.ee 22 points 9 months ago

There are other reasons for choosing certain TLD's. I remember back when, the .tk domain was very popular, because it was completely free.

[-] JCPhoenix@beehaw.org 9 points 9 months ago

And because of that .tk ccTLD is completely disreputable now. Everyone and their mother had one back in the day, which included all the spammers/phishers and their mothers. Now no one trusts .tk domains. Or at least they shouldn't!

[-] Frederic@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago

Remember goatse.cx ?

[-] derbis@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Almost always? I have some strong doubts about that. It's just that you don't see articles about "Nothing is particularly going wrong with redd.it"

[-] tal@lemmy.today 38 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml...

Do not use 2 letter country TLDs!

Well, there's another one!

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 12 points 9 months ago

It's not lost on me lol. The news site is also a .CO domain.

[-] Nath@aussie.zone 11 points 9 months ago

I think it makes a huge difference which 2-letter country. I have a couple of .au domains, and I am not stressing about that.

[-] Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You'll be stressing about it when the emus take power.

[-] Mischala@lemmy.nz 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Sir/Madame, I think you are confused.
The Emus won the war... Australia has been run by an Emu shadow government since 1932.

When the Emus finally reveal how much power they have been amassing we are going to have more to worry about than the .au TLD.

Need I remind you that Australia produces 8% of the worlds uranium.

There will be hell to pay when the Emu finally show themselves to the world.

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[-] jeremias@social.jears.at 2 points 9 months ago

I doubt my .at domains is going under, and if so I'll have bigger problems to worry about.

[-] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 34 points 9 months ago

The headline is misleading. The Taliban did not shut down queer.af. The team behind the instance decided to move away from the domain so as to not support the Taliban through domain fees. Source: https://wedistribute.org/2024/01/queer-af-is-shutting-down-due-to-taliban/

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 47 points 9 months ago

The article explains that, yes, they did plan to move...in April. The Taliban government did, in fact, shut them down ahead of that schedule.

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 30 points 9 months ago

'idiots sign domain over to government, confused when government shuts down domain'

[-] Aatube@kbin.social 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They knew it was risky AF (pun intended) but went for it anyway. It's not like they were confused, they expected this

[-] conorab@lemmy.conorab.com 23 points 9 months ago

Damn! Using .af for a LGBT+ site is insane! The country could have redirected the domain to their own servers and started learning the personal details of those on the site who I imagine wouldn’t be terribly thrilled having an anti-LGBT+ government learn their personal information (namely information not displayed publicly). Specifically, they could put their own servers in front of the domain so they can decrypt it, then forward the traffic on to the legitimate servers, allowing them to get login information and any other data which the user sends or receives.

[-] comfortablydumb@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Would they care enough to do all of this, though?

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 9 points 9 months ago

Why not use two letter country tlds? I have a few .uk ones.

[-] MostlyBlindGamer@rblind.com 16 points 9 months ago

Presumably you’re a UK citizen using .uk in accordance with the controlling entity’s terms and conditions. These folks weren’t in the same boat.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 20 points 9 months ago

No. I LARP as being British.

[-] MostlyBlindGamer@rblind.com 8 points 9 months ago

How are you liking the Brexit expansion? I felt like was overhyped and overrated.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 4 points 9 months ago

I unironically agree

[-] Aatube@kbin.social 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I thought .uk was Ukraine?

Edit: .ua is Ukraine, .uk is the UK. It seems like the register hates the ISO...

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 19 points 9 months ago

In the ISO, UA is also Ukraine. UK is reserved because it would cause confusion with the United Kingdom, which has the code "GB".... Even though "UK" would make more sense as GB on the surface seems to exclude Northern Ireland as well as a bunch of outlying islands. Apparently they didn't like the use of "United" and "Kingdom" as they are two standard nouns. Then they proceeded to give the USA "US" so.... Yeah, it's stupid.

[-] Kichae@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 months ago

Yeah, but the US is all about its exceptionalism, so it gets to be the exception.

[-] survivalmachine@beehaw.org 9 points 9 months ago

As far as I understand it, the US invented the internet (possibly through the divine inspiration of Vice President Al Gore), so it makes sense that they can make or break any rules they want.

[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 points 9 months ago

Talking about the ISO. Not the internet.

[-] MostlyBlindGamer@rblind.com 5 points 9 months ago

Some other Central and Eastern European ones are weird as well.

[-] bermuda@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago

South Africa is .za from Zuid-Africa, the dutch term for the country

[-] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

At least it makes some sense, as they are mostly based on ISO 3166, as well as:

the international vehicle code for South Africa has been "ZA" since 1936. ZAR serves as the ISO 4217 currency code for the South African rand. South African aircraft registration prefixes also start with Z.

SA is the country code for Saudi Arabia.

[-] SRo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 months ago

lol

this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
139 points (100.0% liked)

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