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Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

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Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#71

Post by rolandukor »

null_ptr wrote: post #69
larrys wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Domain squatters are no better than investment bankers. They really do the same thing, they make money without creating anything useful.

Would you mind substantiating your generalisation that investment bankers make money without creating anything useful?

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#72

Post by scintill76 »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #43
coherentpony wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As it stands, someone typing in: >food in Chicago >will get a different URL than: >food in Chicago Why?

IDN homograph attack.

Are you sure? I just pasted both into my UTF8-encoded Linux terminal running `od -tx1` and got the same hex octets. (Also tried in Chrome's JS terminal "".split("").map(function(s) { return s.charCodeAt(0); }) ) It's quite probable I don't know what I'm doing, so I'd appreciate knowing how to do it properly.

Also, since these strings would be typed, I'm not sure the homograph attack applies. Why would someone slip in a Cyrillic letter or something while typing the URL themselves? If extended to clickable links that displayed the pre-hash text, I could see the issue, but pudquick specifically said "someone typing in" the two URLs.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#73

Post by [deleted] »

larrys wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#74

Post by Shog9 »

null_ptr wrote: post #69
larrys wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Domain squatters are no better than investment bankers. They really do the same thing, they make money without creating anything useful.

I feel like you're being unfair to domain squatters here. Yes, they're scum - but at least they're honest scum.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#75

Post by girvo »

larrys wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Squatters took the .com.au domain that I owned for my old business that didn't get re-registered due to the partnership folding. I went to get it 6 months later, and literally some squatting company had taken it and wanted to "auction it off" -- despite the fact that prior to me, no-one wanted it (its weirdly specific) and seeing as 5 years later they still have it and have just plastered it with ads, no-one still does.

Oh, and that goes against Australian domain regulations, but auDA refuse to do anything about it, sigh. Oh well, they can own a useless (to them) domain if they want to. I just think its silly.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#76

Post by TheZenPsycho »

rolandukor wrote: post #71
null_ptr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domain squatters are no better than investment bankers. They really do the same thing, they make money without creating anything useful.

Would you mind substantiating your generalisation that investment bankers make money without creating anything useful?

What on earth do you think Investment Bankers do? build playgrounds for the local children?

Creating nothing useful is in the definition of "Investment Banker".

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#77

Post by Houshalter »

larrys wrote: post #53
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Squatters are scum. They add nothing of value and make a resource artificially scarce for their own profit. If domain names had no value and people could just buy another one, then squatters wouldn't be making money in the first place.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#78

Post by glesica »

Fun story, some of the older (hehe, older as in "older than 30 or 35) people here might remember that in the 90s there was a startup that did exactly this but with a browser plugin as I recall (well, not exactly, they didn't hash the text, but they took arbitrary plain text and mapped it to a URL). The idea was to sell short sentences to companies, so "seinfeld TV show" (or whatever) in the address bar would have gone to the NBC "Seinfeld" web site, etc. I think the idea was to make "deep" links easier for people to remember, but I don't remember the details, I just remember that it existed and I probably read about it in PC Magazine.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#79

Post by nick2021 »

Houshalter wrote: post #77
larrys wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Squatters are scum. They add nothing of value and make a resource artificially scarce for their own profit. If domain names had no value and people could just buy another one, then squatters wouldn't be making money in the first place.

I guarantee every person on here complaining about squatters being scum would jump at the opportunity to buy something that could potentially be of interest to someone else later on.

Your logic is similar to a used car dealer buying cars that they don't plan to drive themselves, or grocery stores buying all of the food to resale in their own store.

If you have such a problem with this why don't you buy all of the domain names and then decide on who should be allowed to buy them from you? The short answer is your a lazy, unhappy individual who hates anyone who is more ambitious than yourself.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#80

Post by Houshalter »

Houshalter wrote: post #77
larrys wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet" "Scums of the Internet"? Oh please. Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet". I m…

Squatters are scum. They add nothing of value and make a resource artificially scarce for their own profit. If domain names had no value and people could just buy another one, then squatters wouldn't be making money in the first place.

I can't reply to you for some reason, nick2021, so replying to myself.

It's different because the squatter is essentially leeching off of everyone else. If it wasn't for them the people who wanted the domains could have gotten it for free or at least less. They add nothing of value at all.

One could argue the same for people who squat other scarce natural resources that they paid nothing for.

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