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Forget TLDs, Keep Dot Suffix and Move On

I have been working on URL, Web address, ID’s and Namespace since quite a long time and I have my reservations about the present set up being a complete network. generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), country codes (cc), .co are all complicating the network, add to that the problem of address shortage plus other problem mentioned in comments and blogs at CircleID.

It’s time for out of the box thinking.

From the work I have done I understand that registering should not be at the dot suffix level, it should be decentralized much like signing up on services and portals. This could solve a lot of problems of location; multiple users should be allowed to have the same Namespace, which could solve the John Smith problem once and for all and also of cyber squatting. ICQ was the first service which allowed multiple users to have the same Namespace but could not stand the test of time. The number they allotted was a mile long and not easy to remember. Nor did it solve the location and Domain problem (by Domain I mean communities and not TLDs).

Further we are nowhere near convergence a network for technologies and competing services, which could also cover cloud computing problems (I am no expert on this but cloud computing is being bandied for various functions) as first I read about cloud in this article from The Economist titled “The beast of complexity”. Talking to Stuart Feldman the director of IBM’s Institute for Advanced Commerce Quote “Imagine, says the man from IBM, that you are running on empty and want to know the cheapest open petrol station within a mile. You speak into your cellphone, and seconds later you get the answer on the display. This sounds simple, but it requires a combination of a multitude of electronic services, including a voice-recognition and natural-language service to figure out what you want, a location service to find the open petrol stations near you and a comparison-shopping service to pick the cheapest one. Unquote Such convergence I am sure will never be possible in the present set up hence the Title of this comment “Forget TLDs keep dot suffix and move on”

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How would this work if I wanted Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 18, 2009 6:29 PM

How would this work if I wanted to get to something directly?  I want to access Hotels.com (current site) what would I be required to know?  ICQ used a number, which in reality isn’t any different from having sld.tld or any variation thereof.  How could everyone get the name they wanted and have something memorable?

Remember the registering has to be decentralized, Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 18, 2009 6:59 PM

Remember the registering has to be decentralized, with a combination of two services one for registering and other for directory, one can work his way to Hotels, there will be no Hotels.com though Hotels.com’s URL can also be registered. The dot suffix is only for protocol, rest is similar to any portal on the net.

My question was how does one initially Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 18, 2009 7:04 PM

My question was how does one initially get anywhere?  What would one type?  I am trying to imagine how a user would actually navigate and how it would be more practical than the current system.

Location comes into play, The registering is Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 18, 2009 7:26 PM

Location comes into play, The registering is to be done at ones location which will be provided in a series of drop boxes to choose from. The registration at that location will be with a special logical number and so allow multiple users to have the same Namespace,  and from there move on to that locations Directory. Except for URLs, they will be registered minus the location As I mentioned this will need an out of the box approach.

See, it doesn't make sense. The Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 18, 2009 7:37 PM

See, it doesn’t make sense.  The internet is about being able to access information anywhere freely and storing information and navigating in this style is ‘out of the box’ but ‘out of the box impractical.’  A ‘special logical number’ also seems meaningless.  We just want a telephone number for our computers with an area code for locational awareness?  I am not even sure the idea is out of the box.  It’s much easier to remember words/phrases and have a uniform way of locating things.

Can't understand Daniel R. Tobias  –  Aug 18, 2009 11:43 PM

I find the proposal too difficult to understand (perhaps English is not your first language), but to the extent I have any idea of what it’s proposing, I don’t think I support it.  If you want a location-sensitive directory service, create one, but don’t try to redefine the DNS into one.  URLs are supposed to be universal, not sensitive to where you’re accessing a site from.

Sure it’s much easier to remember words/phrases Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 19, 2009 3:39 AM

Sure it’s much easier to remember words/phrases and have a uniform way of locating things but it isn’t flawless, semantic web as suggested by Sir Tim Berners lee was being discussed way back in 1998 and still seems to be just a concept, the idea is not to have a number for one’s computer, its for the user, it could be individual, business or service (true I too have been talking of area code since the beginning I started working on Namespace). For the rest words/phrases as you suggest will do the work. But without a proper Naming System the convergence of services as mentioned in the example cannot be universal, at the most it can be for a dedicated group.
Presently the back end architecture even with IPV6 has its shortcomings and yes my English is not good. What I am suggesting is that Naming should not be addressed based but be link level. Sometime back there was an article that mentions quote ” Shanghainese frustrated over name game” in which it states that there are over 3937 people named Chen Jie and 3751 people named Zhang Min and purely in terms of Surnames (last name) Zhang comes out first with almost 90000 occurrences Unquote. Similarly practically every third person in Korea is a Kim and if I talk about Indians I bet you must have heard at least one Patel not to mention John Smith in your own country. Can DNS manage this? I don’t think, so why not move on?

Link level? Daniel R. Tobias  –  Aug 19, 2009 3:47 AM

And how exactly are you supposed to link to something if its address isn’t unique?

That’s why there will be the dot Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 19, 2009 1:28 PM

That’s why there will be the dot suffix; it could be .name or.com or even a .gen the idea is to create space for users, this way, because of limitations of DNS. I will be calling this service HippoCampus (I am working on its other aspects) which incidentally is that part of the brain which enables Navigation among other things. The idea is to enable one on one interaction universally and that would not be possible with the present DNS.  Check out dan.tobias.name and I mention here a special comment quote ‘Since I’m a strong advocate of using the Internet namespace logically’ and maybe you will understand why I am working on this.

Seems like a backwards and useless idea Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 19, 2009 1:34 PM

Seems like a backwards and useless idea to be perfectly honest.  Just because everyone can’t have the name they want doesn’t mean the system is broken.  It’s actually a very sensible way of locating things.  One identifier locates the same content anywhere on the network.  Easy.  Locational-Directory-HippoCampus sounds like a fancy way of saying sour grapes.  You actually haven’t offered anything new as far as I can see, just want a redistribution of the most valuable assets disguised as some egalitarian objective.  The .suffix sounds an awful lot like what we have now, what limitation of the DNS?  You cite examples that look IDENTICAL to our current system and call it something new?  If quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it probably is a duck.

Are you satisfied with the present system? Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 19, 2009 3:35 PM

I never said the system is broken at the same time it is not flawless, but people should be able to have their names. Yes the dot suffix is what we have now, we cannot do without it. Probably when GENI is launched or if the GRID is offered to the public then it could ‘possibly’ change the situation. What I am working on will be a detailed net based service, with some different offerings ‘simple’. I have not mentioned, that, what I am offering is new, all I am trying to imply is that a better naming system should be adopted which will not require multiple gTLDs or ccTlds. And how can it be sour grapes when I will be working within the present set up. I believe you are jumping to conclusions. The point then is, are you satisfied with the present system which allows people with real Namespace to be blackmailed, and cyber squatters have their way? Then so be it, I believe quite a few people may differ on this count. Talking about HippoCampus being fancy, let me assure it will stand by its name and not be a fancy handle

HippoCampus Daniel R. Tobias  –  Aug 20, 2009 1:12 AM

Isn’t a HippoCampus where hippopotami go to college?  :-)

I really still have no clue what your proposed scheme actually is.  If it involves using TLDs as suffixes to names, how is it different from the current system?

Uhh... Jothan Frakes  –  Aug 21, 2009 9:29 AM

Virendra, I really worked hard to follow your post but simply cannot see past the hotels.com example.  Organic types of decentralized structure may work in theory, but in application one has to factor in human nature and that there are those who would abuse such a system.

Phishing sites today are fairly sophisticated, and the example you showed leaves me wondering how many phishing sites would immediately line up to exploit this decentralized system you describe in the article.

Seems to me like a non-starter, and I probably spent less time than Kevin or Daniel trying to follow the details of the system you describe.

Keep at the ideas, though!

-J

Jothan, I am nowhere talking about security, Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 21, 2009 3:14 PM

Jothan, I am nowhere talking about security, talking about human factor one can register a URL or could get registered in my service, abusing is also taking place today, for your info I am also a victim of my gmail account being phished, and Gmail refuses to help me, all I am saying is that these many gTLDS can have one alternative, and that is no rocket science, simply take the route of a net based service, and provide registration which can make things easier, Daniel also has the same views he says ‘Since I’m a strong advocate of using the Internet namespace logically’, This is his quote on his website and not mine; he wants to know how it will be done? That is a different thing; nowhere does he say that if it is possible that would be the day. Kevin says that words and phrases are easier to remember, how does that work with the example of the “Shanghainese frustrated over name game” which I mentioned? I want to register all under one dot suffix, it could be com, net, info or any other it makes no difference to me, the back end architecture is in place and nothing can be done about it. So if you can’t win them join them. Yes what I am proposing is huge real huge and so not easy to believe. ICANN can do nothing about it, but newer other Internets being developed in the US, Europe/UK, Japan may have taken care of this problem. It could be done by ICANN or Verisign or me the thing is that it can be done.

It seems like you've read a few Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 21, 2009 4:24 PM

It seems like you've read a few articles about the domain name space and decided that there is this massive problem. How many companies are called United or have United in them? People get clever. Companies get clever. There is between 100-200 TLDs already in existence. There are ascii domains and IDNs. There are tons of words in many languages you can add to make a domain personal. This sounds like a 'were running out names/ips/whatever' argument again but less technical. Sorry, I don't see a problem. If John Doe wants to have a blog he can think of a name, not everyone can be John Doe. It's like search engines, not everyone can rank at the top for everything they want. Welcome to reality.

If this is not a problem what is? Virendra Gandhi  –  Aug 22, 2009 4:43 AM

Why should one add tons of words from many languages to make a Domain personal? How many Kevin ohashi can you have in dot com? You are talking about search engines, try searching for John Smith in New York and you will be overwhelmed with hits, this will enable to keep it to a minimum few, something like Bing is trying to do, heck I tried it on Bing but it produced 53,400,000 hits (maybe they are doing something wrong as they did say they will reduce the number of hits) here it seems you are right there can be only one at the top. That’s the problem with search engines, they can’t keep it to a minimum few, and if we want automation then it should be on the first page itself. Maybe this happened because people are adding tons of words from many languages. As for running out of names/ips/whatever, why was ipv6 is developed?

How does your solution fix it? Kevin Ohashi  –  Aug 22, 2009 5:03 AM

How does your solution fix it?  It doesn’t.  It makes it harder to find anything or anyone.

I would think that one needs to Daniel R. Tobias  –  Aug 22, 2009 2:02 PM

I would think that one needs to know what the proposal actually is before making a definitive statement about whether it does or doesn't fix the (real or imagined) problems with the current system. Unfortunately, after all the blather about it I still have no idea exactly what is being proposed here.

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