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Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

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Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#11

Post by rmk2 »

drucken wrote: post #8
rmk2 wrote: post #4

I think the article forgot its own criteria half way through... > Countries with military mutual defense agreements (NATO, etc). And then he continues to name both Sweden and Norway...Norway is a NATO-member (though not part of the EU, just the EEA), and while Sweden is not a NATO-member, it is an EU member state, which means it is involved in EU-defence just as well...(and even though Iceland's economy has recovered…

Yes, I would not have thought countries gets much smaller than Iceland! :) Small countries are a poor choice for many reasons, not least because too much can change too quickly and it does not require much capital (monetary or political) to capture such a state. Though, obviously, they can be useful for redundancy. That said, it could be the author meant the list more as optimization criteria rather than a firm check…

Oh, I agree, it's not so much that either country is a bad choice per se. And pointing out that a country subject to various bilateral treaties might provide problems down the road is also fair.

Just thought i'd point it out for those that might not know about their degree of international collaboration.

However, especially Sweden is ambiguous at best in my opinion, given their recently enacted strong wiretapping laws. They might not be a problem yet, but they provide the basis for future trouble.

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#12

Post by pessimism »

Speaking of gandi, a while ago, I ran into some problems logging in to their site, and I—finally—got this response from them by e-mail:

    Hello again pessimism,
    
    Our password field supports only passwords up to 16
    characters at this time. All longer passwords
    are truncated.
    
    If you have any further questions, please let me know.
    
    Sincerely,
    
    [redacted]
    Tier 1 Tech Support
    Gandi US
I checked in with @theharmonyguy who says this is a pretty bad thing, and I originally intended to do an Ask/Tell HN post about it, but life got in the way.

What are your thoughts on this and its implications for using gandi?

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#13

Post by icebraining »

pessimism wrote: post #12

Speaking of gandi, a while ago, I ran into some problems logging in to their site, and I—finally—got this response from them by e-mail: Hello again pessimism, Our password field supports only passwords up to 16 characters at this time. All longer passwords are truncated. If you have any further questions, please let me know. Sincerely, [redacted] Tier 1 Tech Support Gandi US I checked in with @theharmonyguy who says…

The worrying thing about that limit isn't the limit itself, but whatever process they are using to process passwords that imposes that limit.

I mean, if they're hashing the password as they should, why the limit? It's stored as fixed length string anyway...

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#15

Post by Gigablah »

rmk2 wrote: post #11
drucken wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I would not have thought countries gets much smaller than Iceland! :) Small countries are a poor choice for many reasons, not least because too much can change too quickly and it does not require much capital (monetary or political) to capture such a state. Though, obviously, they can be useful for redundancy. That said, it could be the author meant the list more as optimization criteria rather than a firm check…

Oh, I agree, it's not so much that either country is a bad choice per se. And pointing out that a country subject to various bilateral treaties might provide problems down the road is also fair. Just thought i'd point it out for those that might not know about their degree of international collaboration. However, especially Sweden is ambiguous at best in my opinion, given their recently enacted strong wiretapping law…

I disagree with the .sg suggestion too. Singapore is an ACTA signatory and the government is in discussions with the MPAA for tougher IP legislation (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/vi...).

Not to mention it's a "small" country (you can't get much smaller than an island)

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#16

Post by SkyMarshal »

pessimism wrote: post #12

Speaking of gandi, a while ago, I ran into some problems logging in to their site, and I—finally—got this response from them by e-mail: Hello again pessimism, Our password field supports only passwords up to 16 characters at this time. All longer passwords are truncated. If you have any further questions, please let me know. Sincerely, [redacted] Tier 1 Tech Support Gandi US I checked in with @theharmonyguy who says…

Good find. I use Gandi for some domains, and was curious how they truncate passwords (wtf?) so I tested it by creating a new account with a spare gmail address. The registration page says your pwd must be between 6 and 16 characters, so I tested what happens if you register with a pwd > 16 chars.

I registered the 26 letters of the alphabet for my password, and then tested re-logging in with the full 26 char version, the 26 char version + 1 char (a), the first 17 characters, the first 16 chars, and the first 15 characters.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

abcdefghijklmnopq

abcdefghijklmnop

abcdefghijklmno

None but the original 26 character password worked, so apparently they don't truncate passwords at all, they're probably just hashing it down to 16 characters or whatever in the database, then comparing hashes on login attempt.

Their support guy is just playing fast and loose with the word truncate.

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#17

Post by drats »

I think a distributed .alt where people can have a "backup" of their domain would be nice. gun.io with gun.io.alt running concurrently on the distributed system. It would be a nice reference to the alt.* Usenet split in response to attempts to control it. The underlying technology and how to arrange it is another question though. Edit: Mcantelon's reference elsewhere in the thread to namecoin looks like a good start http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#18

Post by shingen »

A lot of this comes down to how badly the Feds want you. Another domain might buy you a thin buffer of protection, but if you're doing anything that really irks the US Government they'll go to great lengths to get you. They got the Swiss to burn a lot of their treasured banking privacy customs just to flush out off shore accounts. If you can get the Swiss to do that, you can get most any country to seize a local domain with a fraction of the pressure.

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#19

Post by anateus »

redthrowaway wrote: post #9

I take issue with the author's criticism of .is. They've recently told most of the world to go fuck themselves, and one of their members of parliament is a Wikileaks spokesperson. I'm thinking they're pretty pro-freedom.

I believe he meant that despite their intentions their size and precarious economic state leaves them open to pressure relative to countries of similar cultural values.

Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

#20

Post by lunarscape »

redthrowaway wrote: post #9

I take issue with the author's criticism of .is. They've recently told most of the world to go fuck themselves, and one of their members of parliament is a Wikileaks spokesperson. I'm thinking they're pretty pro-freedom.

As an Irish citizen I must admit I'm a little envious of how Iceland has faced down the rest of the world, even if I don't agree 100% with what they did. I think the authors criticism is primarily an economic one. Like Ireland, Iceland is economically weak and can't afford to annoy major trade partners. Would the government concede certain things if subtly threatened with sanctions, even unofficial ones, over IP etc? Maybe, maybe not. Ireland certainly would fold immediately.
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