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The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

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Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#181

Post by Accujack »

Joeri wrote: post #144
evross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the former ICANN CEO, Fadi Chehadé is highly involved in this sale. This timeline also seems to suggest that current members of ICANN are also biased towards the sale of the .org domain, ICANN may not be interested in the views of the people who currently have .org domains. From https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2019/11/isoc-pir-... . : "March 2019: ICANN receives 3,300 comments unifor…

So basically ICANN itself is corrupt and must be replaced wholesale with a proper public interest steward? Maybe people are protesting the wrong thing. The sale of .org is a symptom, the underlying cause is a bad regulatory framework for internet names.

Exactly. Internet naming is a situation where artificial value is assigned to a nearly valueless resource for the purpose of collecting rent.

There's no technical reason we can't have multiple systems for translating names into addresses. There's no longer any technical reason for having neatly organized dot separated addresses based on TLDs.

Allowing the translation of any text string into an address is entirely possible with present day computing power, and a truly distributed system similar to the global routing table would work to organize different providers announcing their own name domains.

Maintaining the old DNS TLD domains is stupid and subject to manipulation by corporations and corrupt politicians.

Like this sale.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#182

Post by Accujack »

detaro wrote: post #109
syshum wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS is a US Military Asset, 100% owned and operated by the US Military. They allow civilian use of a part of the GPS system during peacetime If another World War breaks out, or major conflict that the military deemed necessary they can and will cut off all Cilivian access to the GPS Network This is why Russia has its own, and China is in the process of Deploying its own, and the EU has considered deploying their own…

EU is also in the process of deploying its own: Galileo.

And there are chipsets now capable of simultaneously using GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou (Chinese system) for greater accuracy. Any ability of the US government or military to "cut off" GPS has been nullified.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#183

Post by Accujack »

jacquesm wrote: post #153

Isn't there a technical resolution possible here where outsiders set up a new root for .org and people can change their allegiance and leave them to rot? That way Ethos capital (what a disingenuous name) paid $1B for nothing at all.

Yes, you just have to get everyone who might want to access a .org address or their DNS provider to recognize the new root.

That's the problem - you have to get organizations - some of whom are deeply invested in making money off of DNS - to agree to not do so.

Or you just ignore the existing system and build a new one... once enough desirable sites are in the new one, then the old one will fade away.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#184

Post by LegitShady »

cryptonector wrote: post #177
LegitShady wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you did was state that their previous actions aren't proof of the future, when we are talking about them having sold .org already. Their abdicating stewardship to a group that doesn't have a duty to steward is evidence enough and saying "well they used to" is off topic and not interesting. No need for new arguments when you have none.

Previous to selling it.

Who cares? The act of selling it to someone without the obligation to steward is an abdication of that obligation.

and talking about precious years is just off topic and unrelated to the issue at hand.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#185

Post by stkdump »

Accujack wrote: post #181
Joeri wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically ICANN itself is corrupt and must be replaced wholesale with a proper public interest steward? Maybe people are protesting the wrong thing. The sale of .org is a symptom, the underlying cause is a bad regulatory framework for internet names.

Exactly. Internet naming is a situation where artificial value is assigned to a nearly valueless resource for the purpose of collecting rent. There's no technical reason we can't have multiple systems for translating names into addresses. There's no longer any technical reason for having neatly organized dot separated addresses based on TLDs. Allowing the translation of any text string into an address is entirely pos…

I heard this argument a few times now. But are domain names not important for internet security? Https certs prove that the entity you expect communicates with you, given that you know the domain name of that entity.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#186

Post by zrm »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #179
zrm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's reverted back to non-profit then prepaying is still a bad proposition because then you're paying today the same amount you would be able to pay years from now -- and paying it to the for-profit entity now instead of the non-profit entity later. And I don't see any reason to expect the annual probability that it's transitioned back to a non-profit to be a lot different in the future than it is right now, which…

Isn't the price like $12 a year? So prepaying 10 years would be $120? That's not an insignificant amount, but it's not like you're going to make a life-changing profit by investing it either. Locking down [your-name].org for 10 years carries its own value proposition beyond the mere calculation of price today vs in the future.

> Isn't the price like $12 a year? So prepaying 10 years would be $120? That's not an insignificant amount, but it's not like you're going to make a life-changing profit by investing it either.

For most people there aren't a lot of individual decisions that will cause you to make a life-changing profit on their own, but it's making little decisions again and again that adds up.

> Locking down [your-name].org for 10 years carries its own value proposition beyond the mere calculation of price today vs in the future.

The premise is that you're going to immediately migrate away from using the domain. Which means that any further use of the old domain just keeps you invested in it, and it's not worth a whole lot if you're not going to use it for anything.

There is also something to be said for minimizing the profits of the entity screwing you over, even if it's only by a little, because that adds up too.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#187

Post by Accujack »

stkdump wrote: post #185
Accujack wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Internet naming is a situation where artificial value is assigned to a nearly valueless resource for the purpose of collecting rent. There's no technical reason we can't have multiple systems for translating names into addresses. There's no longer any technical reason for having neatly organized dot separated addresses based on TLDs. Allowing the translation of any text string into an address is entirely pos…

I heard this argument a few times now. But are domain names not important for internet security? Https certs prove that the entity you expect communicates with you, given that you know the domain name of that entity.

It's one way to do that... but the present format and management of the domain name system isn't important. You can create a security certificate for any form of text string and use it to validate the other end of the connection.

The certificates are essentially a trusted authority saying cryptographically "we have verified this is really the person you think this name is" and that can be done for any identifier. Also, this system was set up before public key encryption became common, and there are plenty of other ways to accomplish the same function with PK crypto.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#188

Post by stkdump »

Accujack wrote: post #187
stkdump wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard this argument a few times now. But are domain names not important for internet security? Https certs prove that the entity you expect communicates with you, given that you know the domain name of that entity.

It's one way to do that... but the present format and management of the domain name system isn't important. You can create a security certificate for any form of text string and use it to validate the other end of the connection. The certificates are essentially a trusted authority saying cryptographically "we have verified this is really the person you think this name is" and that can be done for any identifier. Als…

Ok, but how is a domain name essentially different from 'any form of text string'? There needs to be some central registry, unless you are ok with such long strings that nobody will effectively double check, that they are correct.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#189

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

zrm wrote: post #186
pythonaut_16 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the price like $12 a year? So prepaying 10 years would be $120? That's not an insignificant amount, but it's not like you're going to make a life-changing profit by investing it either. Locking down [your-name].org for 10 years carries its own value proposition beyond the mere calculation of price today vs in the future.

> Isn't the price like $12 a year? So prepaying 10 years would be $120? That's not an insignificant amount, but it's not like you're going to make a life-changing profit by investing it either. For most people there aren't a lot of individual decisions that will cause you to make a life-changing profit on their own, but it's making little decisions again and again that adds up. > Locking down [your-name].org for 10 y…

If you stop leasing a domain, you should be very sure that you changed your e-mail address at all the services you ever used and informed all the contacts of your new e-mail address. Because the second you let your domain expire, someone else might gobble it up and receive all the e-mail addressed to you. If you keep leasing for multiple years even after migration, you can be sure to catch any services/people still mailing you at the old address.
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