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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

#51

Post by chungy »

ourmandave wrote: post #40
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…

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.

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

#52

Post by xmprt »

gr33nq wrote: post #37

I went through the process of registering a .gov domain recently and it definitely takes a couple of months. It requires a letter of intent, wet signatures from elected official(s) on official letterhead, a phone call to a publicly listed number of an elected official, 2FA enrollment for the management of DNS/WHOIS, and a period of time in between some of these steps for some behind-the-scenes verification to take pl…

What type of organization are you operating where you'd need a .gov? Is this a government organization (like a local government or city hall)? Or is it possible for even random non-government related non-profits to have legitimate uses for .govs?

Edit: I was mostly commenting on this.

> In fact, the most difficult part is convincing management that we should make the full migration to the .gov

It sounds like the most difficult part of getting a .gov is having a legitimate government entity and having a purpose that needs one.

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

#53

Post by School-Cotton »

kanbara wrote: post #33
pc86 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had another country had a primary role in inventing the internet, they would probably have it (or more likely, the US would be .gov.us and everyone else would be whatever they are today).

CERN / Switzerland would like a word

The WWW was invented at CERN in 1990, whereas the .gov TLD dates from 1985.

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

#54

Post by samwillis »

Teever wrote: post #32
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…

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-the-United-Kingdom-have-the...

That's settled, we're even.

> Why doesn't the United Kingdom have the name of the country on its stamps?

> Because the United Kingdom had the privilege of being the first country in the world to introduce postage stamps, meaning that they did not need to be identified as coming from that country, especially when used domestically.

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

#55

Post by smeyer »

xmprt wrote: post #52
gr33nq wrote: post #37

I went through the process of registering a .gov domain recently and it definitely takes a couple of months. It requires a letter of intent, wet signatures from elected official(s) on official letterhead, a phone call to a publicly listed number of an elected official, 2FA enrollment for the management of DNS/WHOIS, and a period of time in between some of these steps for some behind-the-scenes verification to take pl…

What type of organization are you operating where you'd need a .gov? Is this a government organization (like a local government or city hall)? Or is it possible for even random non-government related non-profits to have legitimate uses for .govs? Edit: I was mostly commenting on this. > In fact, the most difficult part is convincing management that we should make the full migration to the .gov It sounds like the most…

I would hope that random "non-government related non-profits" aren't using .gov domains. Isn't the whole point of the domain that it's just for government entities?

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

#56

Post by nickname-derail »

seeknotfind wrote: post #2

We need a government root CA more than a government TLD. Domain names aren't even the only thing we should attest.

I was pretty sure there is already one for the US Gov but according to [1] only the Gov of HK, Spain, Netherlands and Turkey [2] have one.

[1] https://ccadb.my.salesforce-sites.com/mozilla/IncludedCACert... [2] There seems to be a Mozilla applied constraint for .tr only

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

#57

Post by retrac »

pests wrote: post #27
pc86 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's under a cctld that clearly affiliated to and managed by that government. Maybe this is my latent American nationalism showing, but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government? I think this bit was added as an edit or maybe I just missed it: > an inherently international .gov domain .gov is not inherently international for all the reasons in this subthread (and probably others as well)

I don't think thats clear at all. We have three people in this thread already confused on the issue. I think the poster wasn't talking of the US government but of knowing which government a domain is related to by just looking at it. ".gov" is not clear while ".gov.uk" is clear due to the ccTLD. > but isn't .gov "clearly affiliated to and managed by" the US government I would say no. What makes it clear to you?

I suspect it depends on whether you know your early Internet history. The Internet was a US research and military project at first. It was US-centric for a long time. The original top level domains are all US-centric. Walmart.ca is Walmart Canada. Walmart.com is Walmart America. Similarly, .mil, .edu are for the US military and American universities. .gov fits into that scheme and if you know the rest it would follow that it's for the US gov.

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

#58

Post by bombcar »

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…

.com and .net and .org are only "internationally available" because the registrars didn't care to restrict them (IIRC, one of them was moderately restrictive in the beginning, perhaps .org requiring an actual organization of some sort).

.mil is also US only.

The real hotness is to host on .arpa - https://blog.fhrnet.eu/2019/03/13/fun-with-arpa-domains/

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

#59

Post by toast0 »

Abekkus wrote: post #25
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.

Does our CA/browser infrastructure prevent the government from registering a trusted .gov CA instead of a trusted root CA?

NameConstraints seem to be well supported now, although the farther away from browsers you go, the harder it is to know for sure. That said, I'm not aware of any active use. Some root programs constrain some of the roots within, but afaik, not by having an x.509 cert with name constraints.

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

#60

Post by jabroni_salad »

Caligatio wrote: post #7
seeknotfind wrote: post #2

We need a government root CA more than a government TLD. Domain names aren't even the only thing we should attest.

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.
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