After years in limbo, the Taliban recently began reoperating Afghanistan's .af TLD, which is breaking parts of the internet.
  • samwise@beehaw.org
    2·
    9 months ago

    People have been using country TLDs as cute URLs for years, and somehow it almost always ends up as a problem, or it furthers harms against the countries who own the TLDs (.io for example). Sure .tv or .io or .af sound fun, (anyone remember del.icio.us?) but it’s just not worth it.

    • abbadon420@lemm.ee
      1·
      9 months ago

      There are other reasons for choosing certain TLD’s. I remember back when, the .tk domain was very popular, because it was completely free.

        • flashgnash@lemm.ee
          0·
          9 months ago

          That’s a horrible thing the British government have done

          I’m not sure that’s a good reason not to use the domain though, if we didn’t use anything that horrible people had a hand in making we wouldn’t be talking here right now

          • flora_explora@beehaw.org
            1·
            9 months ago

            As I understand it, this isn’t a resolved conflict in the past but rather an ongoing one. So yes, it does matter if you decide to give an oppressive British company or the Taliban money. And apart from that, as a German, I’m very much aware that we are not responsible for the wrongdoings of our ancestors but are responsible not to forget and thus repeat them. People who were victims under colonialism or any other form of oppression deserve at least recognition and compensation. Just continuing to live with the current condition shaped by oppression means supporting the oppression.

          • Amju Wolf@pawb.social
            0·
            9 months ago

            They’re two separate(ish) issues.

            But it’s still a bad idea to use national TLDs for stuff that has nothing to do with that nation.

            Granted, is ICANN wasn’t just a money-grabbing machine with no forward thinking they wouldn’t give nations clearly “generally desirable” gTLDs, but since they did already that doesn’t mean they should be misused.

            • samwise@beehaw.org
              1·
              9 months ago

              It’s really frustrating in general how TLDs have been misused and abused over the years. They used to have very specific meanings and usages. Now anyone can register a .net or .org, and don’t have to prove they’re a network service provider or a non-profit.

              People also forget that URLs designate a hierarchy, reading from right to left. For example, take the URL app.foobar.com This designates

              . -> There’s an understood period at the end that’s not typed. But it designates the root (or, well, top in this case) of the hierarchy
              com -> The commercial space (hence top level domain)
              foobar -> Company named Foobar in the commercial space
              app -> The app site/service/etc from Foobar

              If you’re using a domain like foobar.tv, you’re saying you’re an organization called Foobar based in Tuvalu. There’s still plenty of restricted TLDs (.gov and .mil e.g.), but everything has been thrown to the wind for the sake of cleverness, and spammers have ruined anything else that’s not .com for your average user. Your personal info site generally isn’t a commercial page, so .com doesn’t make sense. But other gTLDs get blocked by default by so many admins, it’s pointless to try.

  • conorab@lemmy.conorab.com
    2·
    9 months ago

    Damn! Using .af for a LGBT+ site is insane! The country could have redirected the domain to their own servers and started learning the personal details of those on the site who I imagine wouldn’t be terribly thrilled having an anti-LGBT+ government learn their personal information (namely information not displayed publicly). Specifically, they could put their own servers in front of the domain so they can decrypt it, then forward the traffic on to the legitimate servers, allowing them to get login information and any other data which the user sends or receives.

    • thejevans@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      9 months ago

      The article explains that, yes, they did plan to move…in April. The Taliban government did, in fact, shut them down ahead of that schedule.

    • MostlyBlindGamer@rblind.comEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      Presumably you’re a UK citizen using .uk in accordance with the controlling entity’s terms and conditions. These folks weren’t in the same boat.

      • Aatube@kbin.social
        0·
        9 months ago

        I thought .uk was Ukraine?

        Edit: .ua is Ukraine, .uk is the UK. It seems like the register hates the ISO…

        • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          In the ISO, UA is also Ukraine. UK is reserved because it would cause confusion with the United Kingdom, which has the code “GB”… Even though “UK” would make more sense as GB on the surface seems to exclude Northern Ireland as well as a bunch of outlying islands. Apparently they didn’t like the use of “United” and “Kingdom” as they are two standard nouns. Then they proceeded to give the USA “US” so… Yeah, it’s stupid.

          • survivalmachine@beehaw.org
            1·
            9 months ago

            As far as I understand it, the US invented the internet (possibly through the divine inspiration of Vice President Al Gore), so it makes sense that they can make or break any rules they want.

          • Kichae@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            Yeah, but the US is all about its exceptionalism, so it gets to be the exception.

    • Aatube@kbin.social
      1·
      9 months ago

      They knew it was risky AF (pun intended) but went for it anyway. It’s not like they were confused, they expected this