[96666] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Interesting new dns failures
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (michael.dillon@bt.com)
Mon May 21 11:00:21 2007
Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 15:59:21 +0100
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0705211421470.8022@marvin.argfrp.us.uu.net>
From: <michael.dillon@bt.com>
To: <nanog@merit.edu>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
> There's an interesting read from NRIC about this problem:=20
> "Signposts on the information superhighway" I think it's=20
> called. Essentially no one aside from propeller-head folks=20
> understand that there is something aside from 'com'
Seems to me they are missing something here. Essentially no-on except
from propeller-head folks uses the DNS for anything at all. Websites
come from Google or bookmarks. Email addresses come from a directory or
an incoming email or a business card.
As for .xx domains, there is enough marketing material in each country
so that people tend to know their country's two-letter prefix is .de or
.ru or .fr. The special case is .uk because we share the same language
as the USA, and here people tend to see a .com domain like an
international trademark or some kind of terrirtorial marking.
Nevertheless, I think that the vast majority of people who actually type
in a domain into the location field are copying it from some marketing
material, like a business card.
P.S., the .xx domains make the world look like a collection of countries
all connected to the same Internet. But the reality is that the world is
divided into a bunch of language zones, most of which cross several
borders, and which don't tend to communicate much with the Internet that
Americans see. For instance, what use does a Hungarian speaking native
of Ukraine have for cnn.com? Or a SerboCroatian speaking native of
Hungary?
--Michael Dillon
