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Government URLs that don't end in .gov

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Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#82

I think it's particularly interesting that the US use .gov and not .gov.us (as a Brit). I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, but for example here in the UK .gov.uk domains have a strict application process [0] managed by central government. It just seems to me that it would be more secure, and more reassuring to citizens and visitors that they are on the correct si…

[deleted]

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#83

Title should state "US Government..."

It's kind of implied, right? Since .gov is only for the US.

> It's kind of implied, right?

No. https://gov.uk is a "government URL" and it's one that doesn't end in ".gov".

The title should be "US government URLs that don't end in .gov"

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a decent idea until you realize that means one of two options: - A US Government controlled CA root preinstalled on computers. Privacy advocates would be in arms. - Constant untrusted CA warnings when trying to access any government site.

The pentagon takes approach 2. Most people never need to access a .mil anyways, but if you need to work with their office (I had a dealership leasing cars to them needing to use a web portal) then you have to install their cert bundle.

I am unfortunately aware. To make matters worse, the preferred install mechanism is a .exe that adds all of the opaquely named DOD CAs to your machine.

Regardless, this puts you back at a US Government controlled CA being on your machine.

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#85
post #19

I think it's particularly interesting that the US use .gov and not .gov.us (as a Brit). I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, but for example here in the UK .gov.uk domains have a strict application process [0] managed by central government. It just seems to me that it would be more secure, and more reassuring to citizens and visitors that they are on the correct si…

.gov is managed by the US government in the exact way you describe. There is nothing "inherently international" about it. It isn't meant for anyone outside of US government agencies.

Let's be specific though: .gov is available for any government within these United States, whether it be federal, state, local municipality, territorial, or tribal government. In fact, all major cities I just spot-checked have .gov domains. I wonder how many are clinging to ..us? At least as a CNAME? ...none of those which I just spot-checked.

Plenty of exceptions abound, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.gov#Use

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#86
post #68
post #12

I got an official email from New York State's Office Of The Comptroller with a link to osc.state.ny.us. It came from an email address @osc.ny.gov. I don't understand why they couldn't use an official TLD in the URL too.

state.$STATE.us is an official domain, too. In the before times, .gov was intended for the US Federal government, and states were expected to use space within .us. It got rather messy when the Feds started letting states get delegations under .gov and .us was opened to registration of second level domains and new multilevel delegates became discouraged or disallowed.

state.ny.us and www.state.ny.us don't even resolve though. What a mess.

The net result is that the Comptroller's new program trying to get everyone their missing funds is sending email that exclusively arrive in people's spam folders.

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pentagon takes approach 2. Most people never need to access a .mil anyways, but if you need to work with their office (I had a dealership leasing cars to them needing to use a web portal) then you have to install their cert bundle.

I am unfortunately aware. To make matters worse, the preferred install mechanism is a .exe that adds all of the opaquely named DOD CAs to your machine. Regardless, this puts you back at a US Government controlled CA being on your machine.

You might not be up to date, you are now able to run the executable without admin privileges to do a local user only installation.

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#89

I think it's particularly interesting that the US use .gov and not .gov.us (as a Brit). I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain, but for example here in the UK .gov.uk domains have a strict application process [0] managed by central government. It just seems to me that it would be more secure, and more reassuring to citizens and visitors that they are on the correct si…

The UK doesn't put the country of origin on their postage stamps, because they invented them [1], so there were no ambiguities to lift.

That's the same reason the US is +1 country code and holds .gov

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_hist...

Re: Government URLs that don't end in .gov

#90
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do .gov's have to be renewed every year with ICANN? What if a dept lets theirs lapse and some squatter swoops in and takes it? We'll start the bidding at $1B USD...

the gov TLD is managed by the US government. It's very rare that you renew anything with ICANN, since you're almost always going at least to the entity that manages a TLD (unless you run a TLD, then I guess there'd be an ICANN fee). If you have a .com domain, you're renewing with VeriSign, the company that owns the com TLD.

Currently, the .gov sTLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
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