Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

benmetcalfe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 200 posts

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#81

Post by davidw »

andreross wrote: post #52

All the Lybians did now was scare American and other Western entrepreneurs from getting anywhere near their domain. I was about to have my new startup set up with .ly domain, but now I will move to a much friendlier .it domain (in fact, I would stay away from any Muslim country domain, just in case, including .io). Those who say "oh, we don't own the Internet, how arrogant of us to even think we do..." I want to tell…

.it is not that 'friendly' either:

http://padovachronicles.welton.it/2007/08/18/confronting-the...

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#82

Post by jdminhbg »

njharman wrote: post #78

> it sets a precedent that all websites running on a .ly domain must comply with Libyan Islamic/Sharia Given that Libya is a sovereign nation and .ly is their TLD, not a playground for you to create cute domains that seems 110% reasonable.

Reasonableness is orthogonal to dangerousness. It's reasonable that playing with a wild grizzly bear might end in serious injury.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#83

Post by maukdaddy »

piramida wrote: post #76
semanticist wrote: post #9

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

Agreed on general point, however the sad truth is that Internet is soon to become Chinese (with their ipv6 progress and economic status), so we better be ready to translate .com rules into chinese to be good citizens ;)

Sounds like you've been listening to too much Glenn Beck.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#84

Post by conover »

zumda wrote: post #44
semanticist wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record: I'm not American, and while I don't self-identify as 'European', Scotland/the UK is considered part of Europe. I know that it's a lingua franca, and that there is a certain expectation that important information online will be in English - but even as someone who only speaks/reads English I think that's an unfair and unreasonable expectation. Regardless of country, if you can't read and understand the…

So sum it up: If you don't know a rule, it still applies to you. If you register a domain in Libya you have to play by their rules and it is your responsibility to try and understand them.

The concept of strict liability comes to mind.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#85

Post by jinushaun »

Finally. I was wondering when somebody was going to crack down on all those .ly domain names. Web 2.0 startups with their cute domain names tend to forget that those TLDs are actually controlled by someone. I remember a while back when Italy started restricting .it domain names because so many Americans were registering .it domain names.

Funny how many on here complain about Libya and their sharia requirement instead.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#86

Post by njharman »

jdminhbg wrote: post #82
njharman wrote: post #78

> it sets a precedent that all websites running on a .ly domain must comply with Libyan Islamic/Sharia Given that Libya is a sovereign nation and .ly is their TLD, not a playground for you to create cute domains that seems 110% reasonable.

Reasonableness is orthogonal to dangerousness. It's reasonable that playing with a wild grizzly bear might end in serious injury.

Fair enough, and true.

I was more responding to the entitled and shocked tone that someone(entity) would act in their self interests even when they, OMG!, conflicted with petty interests of "your" own.

I also have a serious twist in my nickers over abusing TLDs to get cutesy domain names.

I also have a very serious twist about people who go out of their way to violate custom / abuse a system and then whine about when it doesn't work just they way they want.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#87

Post by kloncks »

semanticist wrote: post #9

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer.

Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles:

1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access to resources). 6. The right to the protection of human dignity.

That's it. At its base, eerily similar to the bill of rights. The term "shariah law" is a misnomer, because shariah is not law, but a set of principles.

Controversial laws like stoning people or requiring women to be totally covered aren't in the Sharia. Those are custom interpretations by certain sects. That's why say Islamic-based laws in Saudi Arabia are radically different from those in Egypt.

Just thought I'd share that. It really irked me this summer when everyone was throwing around arguments against "infecting the constitution with Sharia" even though no one actually knows what Sharia is.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#88

Post by mcknz »

semanticist wrote: post #80
NathanKP wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, it is even unsafe for Americans who do read Arabic, because if the site has user generated content, and one of the users submits content which is against the Islamic rules, they may use it as an excuse to seize the valuable domain.

I don't think this is about 'seizing the valuable domain', or the first one they'd've done was bit.ly. I strongly doubt that this sort of action by NIC.ly is about money, it's about them - probably after having received political pressure - wanting to enforce their local moral/ethical standards on their ccTLD domains, particularly those held by people from outside Libya.

If they go after the highest profile sites, they call attention to themselves and risk a backlash. Reclaiming from the bottom up establishes a precedent, and allows NIC.ly to own domains before they become too popular to grab.

The moral/ethical stance is a complete pretext. If Libya was really worried about morality, they'd do something about their atrocious human rights record.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#89

Post by jff »

Cutesy domain names considered harmful.

As somebody pointed out earlier in the thread, del.icio.us was really a terrible name. When you try to say it out loud (or even think it in your head) it comes out as "dell dot icky-o dot us"; the whole "oh, that's cute, it spells delicious" is pretty shortlived. delicious.com is way easier to say and looks better.

The same thing goes for your personal sites. bob.jon.es sounds pretty stupid when you try to tell somebody "Just go to bob dot jon dot es" or "bob dot j-o-n dot e-s".

Just say no to cutesy domain names. bobjones.net, not bob.jon.es; delicious.com, not del.icio.us.

Re: The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

#90

Post by MartinCron »

kloncks wrote: post #87
semanticist wrote: post #9

While I'm as against Sharia law as the next privileged westerner/godless heathen, I found the complaint that the rules weren't in English really amusing. Why should a country's national ccTLD rules be in English? It's a domain space for that country, not for making convenient short URLs for Americans to use on Twitter. Why would a country run under Sharia law want to allow services like bit.ly and others to use their…

I will only comment on your use of the term Sharia law. The term's widely misunderstood, especially after the events in NYC this summer. Just so that you know, Sharia "law" is just six principles: 1. The right to the protection of life. 2. The right to the protection of family. 3. The right to the protection of education. 4. The right to the protection of religion. 5. The right to the protection of property (access t…

Thanks for sharing this, I'll no longer use "Sharia" as a denigrating term, as I probably have in the past.
Post reply on HN