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ICANN: TLDs could end with .exe Confused? Users may be too

arstechnica.com — ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization has proposed a new set of rules for generic top-level domains when the next round of applications opens later this year. Don't think you're suave by registering a .69 domain, though—those will likely be prohibited.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 15, 2008

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  • stoanhart, on 02/15/2008, -3/+88Generic TLD's? Horrible idea.

    Think of all the YourBankSite.c0m phishing attacks...
  • ScornForSega, on 02/15/2008, -1/+69I'm an old school DOS user who remembers being confused by .com TLDs, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.
  • msdaddy, on 02/15/2008, -3/+67Am i the only one thinking .exe is a trojan makers wet dream?
  • Linkin4, on 02/15/2008, -1/+54ICANN haz horibl ideaz?
  • streetstealth, on 02/15/2008, -0/+47Great, more alternate TLD versions of my domains that I'll have to register. Why do we need more of these?
  • Nougat, on 02/15/2008, -1/+37So now all those "non-domain" Active Directory domains that have TLDs of .ad and .local and .company and .wtfbbq are going to run into competing DNS resolution issues. When my AD domain is called "company.local" and someone on the interwebs starts up a generic domain called "company.local," I am (by default) not going to be able to resolve DNS names in the public "company.local" domain.

    Whoever thought of this idea is a knob.
  • dotlizard, on 02/15/2008, -2/+36so could i have a .lizard domain?
  • garbs, on 02/15/2008, -2/+36www.clownpenis.fart
  • Athe, on 02/15/2008, -3/+36I CANN has .exe in TLD?
  • Unlgued, on 02/15/2008, -0/+28I think you answered your own question.
  • sockpuppets, on 02/15/2008, -2/+29Yes, because everybody's got time to do that, and everyone's grandmother knows what a valid security certificate looks like.

    You're super smart and in touch with regular people.
  • oboy, on 02/15/2008, -0/+24I wonder how long it will take for someone to grab http://installspyware.exe
  • akatherder, on 02/15/2008, -1/+25Yeah I remember back in the early to mid 90's when I tried "downloading" pepsi.com and running it from my command prompt. Of course I only got a bunch of html and errors spit back at me.
  • adoggz, on 02/15/2008, -1/+23who wants to be the first to click on that link?
  • asskey, on 02/15/2008, -0/+20I already did. All I got was a popup asking me to put in my credit card number, and when I did it just popped up child porn and the entire contents of Scientology's OTVIII documents. I'm confused.
  • angusm, on 02/15/2008, -0/+20I'm looking forward to watching a wave of pre-emptive registrations when the '.sucks' domain is announced.
  • sockpuppets, on 02/15/2008, -0/+19He's not only smart, he's delicious.
  • LeRenard, on 02/15/2008, -0/+19No numbers? Damn, I wanted 192.168.0.1 and 127.0.0.1
  • capecodcarl, on 02/15/2008, -0/+19Great, that sounds fantastic for e-mail. "frank.smith@governmentagencythatlaunchesspaceshuttles".
  • nizzy1115, on 02/15/2008, -1/+16This is such a bad idea...
  • lolwutpear, on 02/15/2008, -0/+14Users were smarter back then.
  • sparkey, on 02/15/2008, -1/+15You had me at clownpenis.fart
  • lava, on 02/15/2008, -0/+13But it's like a slippery slope. First, organizations will be able to apply for TLDs (restricted at 3 characters). 5 years down the road they'll open that up to individuals. They they'll drop the 3 letter restriction, and then we'll end up with urls like "mail.google" or "trailers.apple" or "clownpenis.fart"
  • Testiculese, on 02/15/2008, -3/+15Great, so now we will have http://www.malwaresite.com/malware.exe and people will think it's a tld url.

    ***** brilliant, I bet AV companies proposed this.
  • liwii, on 02/15/2008, -3/+14Ummm, does anyone remember DOS? Many command executable files ended in .com, such as command.com, and no one had a problem...
  • aloser, on 02/15/2008, -0/+11Broken link :(
  • MacEnvy, on 02/15/2008, -1/+12Not really. We've got one for "TV" too. Why does the number of letters needed to explain a concept have any bearing on whether it needs oversight?
  • TheScreamer, on 02/15/2008, -1/+11WTF?
  • JAKN, on 02/15/2008, -1/+11UN is only 2, and look how much management that takes
  • Bradl3y, on 02/15/2008, -0/+9Then you could create urls that seemingly have slashes in the domain, such as http://www.di/gg.com by registering the domain www.di and placing a file name gg.com on the root.
  • inactive, on 02/15/2008, -6/+15Im always amazed at the concept that we have a governing body for 3 little letters.
  • sockpuppets, on 02/15/2008, -0/+9Unplug your computer until you know better.
  • Unlgued, on 02/15/2008, -0/+8Please no.
  • RealmDown, on 02/15/2008, -0/+8Your amazement does not surprise me at all.
  • UtahApocalyse, on 02/15/2008, -1/+8worst idea ever
  • vuke69, on 02/15/2008, -0/+7SEOs would LOVE that idea, despite the fact that is one of the worst I have ever heard.
  • stalefries, on 02/15/2008, -0/+7Check out OpenDNS: http://opendns.com
  • bsonline, on 02/15/2008, -0/+7If you can't find what you are looking for, try http://goo.gle
  • NinjaBoy, on 02/15/2008, -0/+7I dont think you would ever get any visitors to your address...
  • vibrokatana, on 02/15/2008, -1/+7Rebox your computer and return it to the store and say "I am too dumb to use a computer".
  • AlienMushroom, on 02/21/2008, -0/+6Malware makers are running ICANN nowadays?
  • Gaulven, on 02/15/2008, -0/+6You mean, instead of someone opening an .exe program that probably hijacks their machine as expected, they're sent to a malicious website instead? Yeah. I see, that could be confusing.
  • fonetikly, on 02/15/2008, -1/+7I don't see why. *.COM is an executable extension as well. Hell, most users don't even know what extensions are anymore.
  • lava, on 02/15/2008, -0/+6If they're going to have generic TLDs why not just get rid of them completely?
  • sarixe, on 02/15/2008, -0/+6$ ping internet
    ping: unknown host internet
  • bsonline, on 02/15/2008, -1/+6In both of your examples, the TLD is .1
    You could, possibly, register .o0 or .o1, though. They are thinking of allowing numbers, but it has to start with a latin letter.
    Personally, I want SOMETHING @ .oo7
    Maybe JamesBond.oo7
    And then it's really double "oh" 7. Heh.
  • fonetikly, on 02/15/2008, -1/+6Exactly my point. Why would .exe be any different?
  • RealmDown, on 02/15/2008, -1/+6This is such an extraordinarily bad idea. It is so wide open for abuse it is not even funny. Not that it will stop me from making fun of it, mind you. Phishing not withstanding, virus writers just started drooling on their shoes.
  • hyperionshift, on 02/15/2008, -0/+5I CANN has .lulz
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