Government URLs that don't end in .gov • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by gumby » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

samwillis wrote: post #11

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…

> I'm sure there are oversights on who can acquire an inherently international .gov domain,

There's .INT if you have a use for one.

> turns out .gov is exclusively for the US, not sure I feel good about that, particularly as .com and .net are very much not just for the US.

This goes back to when the DNS was designed in the late 70s. Things were different back then (remember the big-endian british addresses, gb.corp.foo IIRC).

And I see you haven't learnt about .MIL yet either...

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

#102

Post by brown » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

My favorite URL oddity has to be "id.me" for U.S. Citizen identity services.

Seems a bit odd to use a Montenegro domain, doesn't it?

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

#103

Post by bbno4 » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

caseyohara wrote: post #79

xn--cr8h wrote: post #72

Sort of funny that the README never mentions which government they're talking about. Classic USA trying to make sure everyone knows they're the most important country in the history of planet Earth

It's implied which government they are talking about because 1) .gov is only used by the US; and 2) The GitHub account is GSA - U.S. General Services Administration.

It's only implied if you're from America and know that GSA (which does not contain US in the acronym) is US.

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

#104

Post by debugnik » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

ulrischa wrote: post #88

Gov is a horrible because it is exclusively for US. It would be better if all governmental intitutions in the world could have a gov domain. Much better trust and verification

The word for government in most languages doesn't start with gov-, so no thanks.

I'd personally suggest the opposite, the US switching to .gov.us and .edu.us, but consensus in this thread seems to be that "everyone" already knows those are US-only anyway, where "everyone" of course means Americans; even "too late to change" is a better argument than that, IMO.

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

#105

Post by abeyer » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

brown wrote: post #102

My favorite URL oddity has to be "id.me" for U.S. Citizen identity services. Seems a bit odd to use a Montenegro domain, doesn't it?

There was another one (census, maybe? can't recall which agency it was) using a .gd for a while, too... don't see it on the list anymore. Not sure who signed off on putting government services behind the "control" of a country we've invaded before.

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

#106

Post by 8organicbits » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

thiht wrote: post #78

ourmandave wrote: post #40

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...

You’re confusing TLDs and domain names.

ICANN has lots of rules around TLD assignment, so squatting .gov doesn't seem possible. But some have recurring cost. Here's gTLDs:

> a fixed fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter; (b) and a transaction fee of US$0.25. [1]

.gov is not a gTLD, I'm not sure what financial relationship exists, if any.

[1] https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs...

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

#107

Post by tamimio » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

syncsynchalt wrote: post #98

The most egregious of these to me is moneyfactory.com (the Bureau of Engraving & Printing). It reads as very low-rent considering it's the printing press of the US Dollar. If they reached out to me I'd think it was a weak scam.

[flagged]

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

#108

Post by cesarb » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

somat wrote: post #94

Caligatio wrote: post #7

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.

Have you seen the state of the root ca bundle? As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US. Do you really trust the turkish government with the ability to sign for any domain. Some days I consider tearing out the whole thing and rebuilding with the 3 CA's I actually care about. but then I usually give up as too much hassle.

> As far as I can tell it has every national CA except the US.

Annoyingly, it doesn't have my country's national CA hierarchy (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438825).

Why is it annoying? Because it means you have to add it manually, and manually added root certificates have more power than the root certificates that come with the browser! In particular, they can bypass HPKP (security.cert_pinning.enforcement_level defaults to 1).

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

#109

Post by zokier » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

thiht wrote: post #80

vladharbuz wrote: post #13

Always found it arbitrary that .gov is only for use by the US.

Other countries could create their gTLD as they see fit: .gouv, .ukgov, etc. They instead prefer using a SLD (like .gouv.fr) because they’re complete owner of their ccTLD. ccTLDs are not affiliated in anyway with ICANN. I’m guessing .gov is a special case nowadays, and probably considered like a ccTLD from the ICANN point of view, I’ll have to look into it Edit: it seems like gov is considered as a Sponsored TLD[1] (…

> ccTLDs are not affiliated in anyway with ICANN

ccTLDs delegations are managed by IANA, who are owned by ICANN

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

#110

Post by tamimio » Sun, Jul 23, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

xn--cr8h wrote: post #72

Sort of funny that the README never mentions which government they're talking about. Classic USA trying to make sure everyone knows they're the most important country in the history of planet Earth

Same here, it took me few seconds to realize it was a US only. Usually this is the mindset of “Murricans”, on the internet or otherwise, where sometimes you ask someone “where are you from?” And they proceed to mention the state or worse, the state nickname/short name as if you are living in US, it’s hilarious when they are meeting with people who aren’t in the Americas continent at all :)