Bizarro Question of the Day – Experience with Alt Roots anyone?

[thetrusteeco]

This question might not belong in this thread (or even in HBF), but I'd like know, so:

Does anyone have any experience with alt-roots?  One of my customers has this strange viral-marketing-to-geeks idea that might benefit from "hidden" websites using an alternate domain (like a Corporate NTLD but not available without the "secret software patch").  Kind of like what namespace.us does, except the domains wouldn't be sold to others, just used for the project.

Given the New TLDs and the application process, I'm not sure if creating alt-roots is still a viable concept.  If my customer's idea does work, anyone (assuming capital) could just register the alt-domain directly with ICANN and destroy the "hidden" website idea.

The entertainment value of the rest of the project is valid, and we're (coders and graphix geeks) sold on the concept.  If the alt-root idea is feasible, some users would be able to setup their own sites using the alt-domain, and a provisioning software would be required.  That would take some custom coding on our end.  Theoretically, HostBill should work for this better than the other options currently out there.  As I'm a pre-4.6 owner, I should be able to use my own extensions, I think.

Anyway, anyone ever setup an alt-root before?  Any pointers?  Keep in mind that this end of the project is not the money-maker.  If there are any turn-key type systems out there that would be great too, unless they're too costly, as the project does have a budget.

[Lawrence]

I personally love this type of stuff, but I'm also strongly against it because of it's nature. I've never done anything like this, but I'll definitely keep an eye on this post to see what others say.

And FYI, posting here is fine. If there're too many off topic posts, I'll just relabel this board or create an off-topic board.

[thetrusteeco]

Great, an off-topic board would perfect.  I looked around trying to figure out where it should go, but "General HostBill Discussion" seemed the most likely place.  I almost IMed you to ask for an Off-Topic thread, but then decide to just post it and see where it landed.

I should not, that if anyone for any reason wants to IM me regarding this instead of posting a reply, I'm fine with that too.

[tallship]

This question might not belong in this thread (or even in HBF), but I'd like know, so:

Does anyone have any experience with alt-roots? 

Aside from being the operator of a couple of ccTLDs, and being instrumental in getting a couple of the new TLDs into the US DoC's root presided over by the evil ICANN and WIPO, one of them being the .jobs TLD, I was the very first non-US government operator of a complete root system, coined the terms "Inclusive Root", "Inclusive Name Space", and wrote the specs for and actually setup and managed several other major root systems, annexed the operatioins of a few RSCs that went defunct, ran the SLD registries for .BIZ and dozens of other commercially operational and fully functional non USG TLDs, and also released the very first completely free, open source, GPL'd registrar system - called POSSR (PacificRoot Open Source Shared Registry - later Public Open Source Shared Registry).

My work was [not so] loosely related to something called OpenSRX, which was never really released, but was designed to provide registry services for TLD Managers, a part of which was eventually released in registrar form as OpenSRS.

POSSR 1.x.x was Perl/CGI based, POSSR 2 was never released to the public and was a complete rewrite of the registrar portion of the POSSR 1.x.x system based on primarily PHP, with some C.

I still provide webhosting services for a few commercial websites in the "Inclusive Name Space".

Just prior to the creation and introduction into the USG root by ICANN of the duplicate .BIZ, The PacificRoot reamained the largest, most well known, and popular root system in history, often cited in media including television, newspapers, online magazines and other media like Wired and the Register.

I spoke at ICANN's annual meetings for the General Assembly a couple of times, was involved and given testimony and sent a designee to testify in person before Congress on the illegal business activities of ICANN (as did Paul Garin of Name.Space, who you mention in your post above), where, incidentally, Vinton Cerf actually perjured himself before congress when referring to my root system, and I am always available on a contract basis if anyone wants to hit me up offlist.

for more information you can visit:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030218171205/http://pacificroot.com/

and

http://web.archive.org/web/20030319011957/http://www.possr.com/ (Note: because of the SSI files you might have to click on stop pretty quckly or else you'll be automatically redirected to the "upgrade your DNS" page, because The PacificRoot would not permit registrations to occur within the Inclusive Name Space w/o first being able to resolve the Inclusive Name Space - The PacificRoot was the only commercial operation that had enough common sense to require this, because if you didn't, people (in the early years of the cybersquatters that called themselves, 'domainers') would perform bulk registrations of SLDs in the Inclusive Name Space without the capability of first being able to resolve them.

At one point, after the first few years of my operations dating from its genisis in November of 1985, when most people did even know what the NSFnet or the Internet was, I provided the DNS for Sun Microsystem's .SUN TLD, which they used internally for a few years before abandoning the use of it at which point Mike Batchelor picked it up for use by Ticketmaster, and then I believe it went into use by IdeaLabs, but I'm a little hazy on that.

The PacificRoot was also the only RSC that enjoyed a peering arrangement with OpenNIC, when Robin headed the staff there while it was operated and sponsored by the EFF.

I shouldn't say that I was friends with, but I was well acquainted with Jon Postel and lunched with him on occasion regarding his intentions of introducing several of my own TLDs into HIS root, before he met with an early demise and the fiasco that followed with Esther Dyson, the MoU, Green papers, Boston Working group and a whole slew of others that bastardized what Jay Fenello, myself, and many others were close to achieving.

The PacificRoot was publicly available and operational for about 17 years from the time I created it from a US DoD project I was part of during my tenure with the Defense Department in 1985.

Getting back to POSSR, it does all of the things you would expect, SLD or 3LD registrations under TLDs in the registry database, TLD Management for TLD operators, standard port 43 WHOIS services, domain transfers between registrants, renewals, DNS management, etc., etc., For people who didn't have their own network of nameservers, we would usually just recommend they use ZoneEdit, which works fine for that - including MX RRs for zones in the Inclusive Name Space.

The way that POSSR worked is a lot like the way that OpenSRS works - you apply to become a PacificRoot Accredited Registrar (a PAR), sign the contracts for the TLDs which dozens of TLD Managers had contracted with The PacificRoot to provide registry services for, that you wanted to provide registrar services for, and download the freely available and GPL'd POSSR code.

Anyone could download POSSR, but you had to be a PAR in order to login to your management portal, enable the TLDs you would provide registrar services for, and generate your key - just like you do as an OpenSRS reseller.

There were many TLD Managers that offered permitted SLD registrations under their TLDs for free (gratis), most requiring, as part of their terms of service, that the registrants populate those zones with UNIQUE hosts and services (Not necessarily websites, BTW, it could be mail services or gopher or ftp or whatever - there were scripts to check for A and CNAME RRs in the zones and spiders to index, etc., which verified actual use of these domains - which used to be pretty much the same RFC requirements nic.ddn.mil and SRI and Internic enforced according to the RFCs back in the day).

If you were a PAR you had two choices on TLDs - Free TLDs (Any PAR could offer free registration and DNS management services but they had to do it for free for those TLDs), and Fee Based TLDs - TLDs that required you to fund your account in the same manner you have to pre-fund your OpenSRS account.

The POSSR client code was simple (easier than implementing the OpenSRS code - anyone could do it as it was already complete), and could be installed on any website in a matter of minutes - tens of thousands of PARS existed prior to the introduction of the duplicate .BIZ by ICANN.

It was not uncommon for me to see over a hundred thousand registrations on any given day, with up to 10 or 15 thousand of those being SLD registrations under the Fee-Based TLDs.

I should note, that prior to the introduction of Neu-Level's .BIZ by ICANN, we as a community worked hard to reduce and eliminate DNS collisions to the point where there were finally only two collisions in the Inclusive Name Space - and one of those was simply a discrepency between two versions of the same TLD Managed by Ellen Rony (Yes, the famous domain wars author), where one bonehead rootzone manager (Whom I will not name) wouldn't change the AUTH TLD Servers to the one's she had specified for her .SHEESH TLD.

I shut down POSSR just before we were preparing to go into public beta of POSSR 2.0 - a few months after the introduction of ICANN/Neu-Level's duplicate .BIZ TLD.

We had originally introduced a method whereby anyone could surf the net and choose *which* .BIZ they wanted to have resolution provided to them for, in the event of any SLD collisions, but eventually I just shut down the whole system except for domain transfers, renewals, and management - no more new registrations.

At that point the whole industry begain to shrivel up and atrophe. At its height of popularity, The PacificRoot was estimated by some studies done at Harvard and a few other reputable places, as providing DNS resolution for about 7% of the Internet, globally.

I don't often brag about it, but I did indeed create, manage, and steer, and was the first to create, "a something" that changed the face of personal communications, and apparently still has a lasting impact on the imaginations of users and the possibilities it promised... NO, delivered. And you won't even find a wikipedia page on me either LOL!

Don't pay attention to any who says this dung never worked LOL. it did, there was a wealth of services and ecommerce and mail services etc. - the only particular requirement for mail arriving INTO the Inclusive Name Space, was that your outgoing SMTP Server needed to be Inclusive Name Space aware (I had all of Earlthlink and other big ISPs resolving the PacifficRoot for their customers, many of whom never even knew the difference - only that they could see things on the Internet that their neighbors or friends or relatives might not be able to).

As I mentioned above, I am available for consulting or development and management projects on a contract basis, and I can be reached offlist for any inquiries regarding that sort of work.

Kindest regarrds,

[thetrusteeco]

I thought you might have an opinion TallShip, but I did not expect that reply! Wow!

I remember PacificRoot, and the introduction of .biz v2.  I still believe that ICANN introduced .biz v2 just to kill PacificRoot (and other alt-roots); there was no  other logical reason.  I remember following that case; it was when Evil-ICANN became an everyday term in my work environment.  Always wondered what happened to you guys.

If we move forward in this direction I'll definitely contact you, it sounds like you have the setup we need.

My company does technical consultation on business plans, so we get a lot of random ideas bounced off us.  Lot's of time it's "no, that won't work" or "no, that will cost too much".  Man, I wish I could post some of the dumb-*** things people think will make money... pesky non-disclosure policies!

This alt-root idea is for a new business "concept" that's really early on (we just got it pitched to us a week ago) and the guys pitching it were "artists" so we'll have to do a lot of work to make it work.  If we (or they, without us) go forward it won't be for 6 months to 2 years.  It hinges on video-production, so I really don't know.

Also thanks for posting info on email.  I had read that alt-root email didn't work, but I couldn't imagine why if the servers were setup right.  I guess the authors meant gmail=>altmail.  I figure alt-tld=>same-alt-tld, and altmail=>gmail should work.  That had been a concern.  (Talk about a SPAM killer!)

If it's okay with you (TallShip) I would like to aks some general questions.

Q1) I'm not sure the exact development path this would take, but expect if the end-user groups are going to be provided web-space, it'll be in the form of a WordPress site, or a cPanel account, so are there any show-stoppers I should be aware of upfront regarding alt-tlds and software of this type?  (Doesn't need to be WordPress or cPanel; could be Drupal, Joomla, DirectAdmin, Interworx...).  Personally, I can't foresee any, but this is at the fringe of my knowledge-base.

Q2) With your system are there any self-installing plug-ins that can rewrite the end-user's computer/mobile/tablet's dns-servers or would we need to write them (obviously it would be something the user would choose to install, that's the whole point).  Ultimately we'd need this to work on at least Windows, Mac, Android, and Ubuntu (anyone running Debian wouldn't need the plug-in).

I'm asking this to figure out the work involved on our end.  I assume you had an auto-installer in the PacificRoot days (although I don't remember), I did visit .biz domains back then and don't remember having to manually change anything.  Is that something you've maintained for your current clients, or is the expectation that they'll just do it themselves?

Q3) Most importantly: Are alt-roots still a viable long-term-concept now that ICANN is introducing nTLDs?  Or should we be looking to "hide Waldo" in the internet a different way?

My concern it that some Evil-Disneyesque corporation could give ICANN a pot of gold and get the domain put into the ICANN root, which would kill this, the way NeuStar killed .biz v1.  I think ICANN would recognize a TM today, but the fact is, we couldn't use the TLD if they added it to their root anyway, so either way the business would be dead.

Limited Project Background: I can't say too much about the project, but it's kind of a Steam-Punk-vLARP, and anyone participating might not want their colleagues or schoolmates knowing, as it could lead to mocking, bullying, etc.  Also I know that anyone could in-fact find an alt-root domain, you don't have to be a genius, but if you think the internet is FaceBook and Twitter, what are the odds of you successfully navigating to an alt-root domain?

Overall, other than the CNNIC alt-root (which is now being slowly integrated into ICANN), all other major alt-roots seem to be dead, except OpenNIC.  Their setup looks great, except for that pesky democracy clause; if there's one thing I won't put up with it's... okay can't finish that sentence with a straight face, but obviously it wouldn't work for this project.  Every other alt-root I could find still functioning is über-political/crackpot and wouldn't work either.

Anyway TallShip, thank again to all the info.  If anyone else has anything to say, feel free to jump in.  I doubt anyone can compete with TallShip on knowledge-base/experience, but all opinions are welcome.

[tallship]

Q1) I'm not sure the exact development path this would take, but expect if the end-user groups are going to be provided web-space, it'll be in the form of a WordPress site, or a cPanel account, so are there any show-stoppers I should be aware of upfront regarding alt-tlds and software of this type?  (Doesn't need to be WordPress or cPanel; could be Drupal, Joomla, DirectAdmin, Interworx...).  Personally, I can't foresee any, but this is at the fringe of my knowledge-base.

That's totally and completely a non-issue. Here's why. HTTP 2 allows us to have name based resolution - prior to that DNS didn't matter one way or another. We could only have IP based VirtualHosts instead of Name based VirtualHosts.

On almost any server out there nowadays, thousands of virtualhosts might be bound to a single IP. so Apache listens first for the IP and says yes that is me, then it looks for the name of the host and says, yes/no, I'm am/not listening and answering for that particular hostname on this IP.

To test this, ping almost any joeblow website, then form an URL for that website with the IP addy - you'll get the default server, or the first named virtualhost container on that machine instead of the one you wanted.

Now here's an easy test to prove your hosting provider, be it Bluehost or HostGator or DreamHost or whoever - yourself even, will work. Basically, any  one of the kajillioins of cPanel based resellers out there.

login to WHM and create a new account for a domain called joe.mama. Note the IP address assigned. let's say that the servers IP addy is 1.2.3.4.

Now do this:

Code Select Expand


$ su -
# echo "1.2.3.4 joe.mama www.joe.mama" >> /etc/hosts
# ^d
$ icecat &


Now put http://joe.mama in the address bar and hit enter - Your WordPress site will come up np

No, wait. That won't work. First you have to go to http://joe.mama/cpanel and install WordPress from fantastico

If you want to prove that it works in DNS instead all you have to do is go to zoneedit.com, create a zone for joe.mama, create the A RR for that hostname and IP, and put the zoneedit DNS servers in your /etc/resolv.conf file.

You don't need root servers for this. Only TLD servers. If you're also an ISP, and want all of your customers to be able to see the joe.mama domain then create those zone files on your own DNS servers, and when they authenticate with your RADIUS servers then have your DHCP servers issue assign those DNS servers when they lease their IP addys.

Q2) With your system are there any self-installing plug-ins that can rewrite the end-user's computer/mobile/tablet's dns-servers or would we need to write them (obviously it would be something the user would choose to install, that's the whole point).  Ultimately we'd need this to work on at least Windows, Mac, Android, and Ubuntu (anyone running Debian wouldn't need the plug-in).

Yes. And no. I don't know if you can d/l the .reg files from archive.org's wayback machine or not for yesteday's OSes, but that's all those plugins are anyway so it's easy to do for a wYNd0z3 box.

I'm asking this to figure out the work involved on our end.  I assume you had an auto-installer in the PacificRoot days (although I don't remember), I did visit .biz domains back then and don't remember having to manually change anything.  Is that something you've maintained for your current clients, or is the expectation that they'll just do it themselves?

That's all the free technical advice I'm going to provide on that point, and I gave you a lot. It's not juju black magic like everyone thinks it is lol.

Q3) Most importantly: Are alt-roots still a viable long-term-concept now that ICANN is introducing nTLDs?  Or should we be looking to "hide Waldo" in the internet a different way?

Unless you're an actual nation, I don't see it as practical. At least not a public service that is open and globally available to grandma and cousin Vinnie. The days when people looked forward to http://marthastewart.food are over, IMO - but people still get those ideas and I have no problem building it for them.

But private global networks? Sure! it's quite viable and always will be. As far as security is concerned, however., there isn't any. It's more of an "out of sight out of mind" thing. Anyone sniffing an IP is going to see whatever packets are there. Discovering the name based resolved traffic is kinda like air - you're breathing it, you just aren't really seeing it.

It's just one more layer of privacy in the various layers of the onion - not a secure layer of traffic by design, but if you're not looking for it you're prolly not going to notice it's there and all around you.

As far as private DNS networks go though, You don't need a whole global network of real root servers, TLD Servers, and stub resolvers.

I've actually built most of the crackpot root systems you mentioned too. Money is green. Heck. I even (somewhat) support ewboontew systems now, and I never thought I would stoop that low

Maddog Hall and myself did some collaboration with an emerging RSC a few years ago. They wanted me for my proven ability to deploy, and they wanted him for his name. What they got was a guy who really had little interest or in depth knowledge of the arena and how it should be managed, and an anal retentive philosopher (me) who wouldn't compromise on principle - they did it their way anyway and what could have been another CNNIC failed miserably right out of the gate.

ICANN might be able to say, "What me worry?", and ignore prior use, trademark, business products, and intellectual property, but that's because the U.S. Government secretly gives them permission to pretend they're not so arrogant and dismissive. Aside from the true crackpots you mention, and even then in many cases, because those systems are carrying long-standing TLDs by people who have been running them for a couple of decades now, collsiions MUST be avoided.

I told the same thing to the folks at IdeaLabs when I consulted with them on the super secret project that launched as NewRoot - they didn't listen, and they failed right out of the gate because of collisions. Sure, they had the money to continue indefinitely, but once they saw the error of their ways it was too late to salvage that business.

And I think they only started with 26 TLDs if I remember correctly. About half of which were collisions. Once they realized they focked up, they just went apeheet trying to get as much money out while it lasted.

Somewhere, I know that Christopher Ambler's .WEB registry is still sitting there, waiting for the green light from ICANN. It was once functional, but he made the mistake of bowing to ICANN, instead of sticking with the community and compelling them to enter .web into their root.

Now, everyone's prolly asking themselves about now, "Hey! .WEB! That just makes sense!"

Yes it does, but ICANN will NEVER allow IO Design's (Ambler's) TLD into their root. It's a long story, but because of a couple of backstories I'm not bother telling here, it just ain't ever gonna happen. Likewise, however, as long as Chris's .web registry still does exist as a business product, ICANN will find it hard to introduce a different TLD Manager's .WEB - and every time they have new rounds, there's no shortage of people paying lots of money to submit their own .web applications LOL.

Like I said, we did this with Ray Fassett's .JOBS and he got nervous with all of the money they had invested, but he eventually prevailed. But when Chris bowed down to ICANN, that big cat played him like a mouse, making him shut down new registrations and locking it up until such time as they said he was golden - that time never came.

And Paul Garin of Name.Space, as you mentioned in your opening post, was offered point blank by ICANN in the very first round ever of TLD selections, for any ONE of his TLDs to be entered into their root. Any single one of his TLDs. He told them to go to hell it was all or nothing, and that was about the stupidist thing I've ever seen anyone do.

Adressing your next point, the problem with peer to peer networking protocols in the file sharing and gaming communities, is that bittorrent pirates and gamers aren't capable of gathering together for anything more than piracy for the sake of piracy and gaming for the dopamine rush - programmers and engineers aren't so concerned with distributed peer to peer protocols that make resolution and transport between hosts practical - only theoritcal. It takes industriusts (if that's a word) to "find the need", then locate the computer scientist, and then "fill the need".

Gamers and pirates aren't capable of banding together for such an endeavor, and developers might recreate that thing ten times and never make it commercially available because the intrugue for them is in proving to themselves that they can create it.

But hide Waldo is probably the best way for invisible transport and communications, through some type of tracked, non-centralized, and auto-discovering system.

...which would kill this, the way NeuStar killed .biz v1.

Hahahaha! So you caught that one eh? JV Team ==> NeuLevel ==> NeuStar - Nice corporate shell game they played there huh?

Most people reading this are prolly scratching their heads right now going "Huh? wtf are they talking about?"

nuff said

Overall, other than the CNNIC alt-root (which is now being slowly integrated into ICANN), all other major alt-roots seem to be dead, except OpenNIC.  Their setup looks great, except for that pesky democracy clause; if there's one thing I won't put up with it's... okay can't finish that sentence with a straight face,

"A republic Madame, if you can keep it." - Benjamin Franklin.

Everyone loves the notion of a democracy. But the quote above says nothing about that, for a good reason. True, pure democracy has never worked - it didn't work for the Athenians, and because of that we have the word *tyranny* today.

A *tyrant*, was  a person elected to a position of absolute power in Athens, when total reform was needed because democracy didn't work. It's the reason Hitler was able to get absolute power, by claiming that only such authority could accommodate the reforms he needed to implement, before returning power to parliament.

In ancient Athens, a tyrant supposedly couldn't wait to turn the reigns of power back over to the pure democracy, but that is another story. OpenNIC was actually hamstringed around 2001 or so by a netloon who trolled and agitated and even spoofed email addresses to make list posts - just to prove the point that democracy doesn't work, and it crippled them until he tired of gaming them.

OpenNIC actually doesn't look good from my perspective. Sure, it works, but the .GLUE TLD used for glue is not RFC compliant. They came up with that scheme themselves, and it causes issues with peering. But that too is another story lol.

Last time I checked, I'm still a member of OpenNIC FWIW, and I pop in every couple of years or so just to point that out lol. Even the two principles that operate it now out of Australia (last I checked anyway) don't know or even remember *Krystal*, the actual founder.

But it sure is a nice idea, and someone could run with that schemata at anytime and it's actually workable - but as you almost commented when you bit your tongue... Democracy? Well that was the EFFs contribution to the original charter I suppose

[thetrusteeco]

Thanks again for the info TallShip.  Dam, wish I knew you 4 years ago.  I had a project cross my desk 4 years ago that could have worked with a alt-root domains, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Looks like this project is feasible on the tech-end.  If we go this way I'll definitely contact you for a quote.  Like I said before it hinges on video production, so I don't know.  A week ago, I (like most) would have thought that public alt-roots were dead.  But now that I've researched it a bit I'm seeing a lot of potential out there. 

Have you been following the piratebay.se/is thing?  If they went to pirate.bay alt-roots would be back in the spotlight.  I expect most Piratebay users would have no problem using an alt-root domain. I mean conceptual problem, as most seem to be anti-establishment anyway.

I kind of figured you might have built some of those über-political/crackpot alt-roots.  And while "Money is green", my point was, those über-political/crackpot alt-roots probably wouldn't like our client "playing" in their root since (I think) they want to be taken seriously.  Anyway I didn't mean to bash the crackpots, were would the world be without crackpots?

Imagine what everyone thought the first time someone pointed west from Cairo and said let's build a huge pointy pile of rocks out there!

Regarding the democracy comment, that was meant as a joke, but obviously if that's a rule at OpenNIC it wouldn't work for our corporate client.

If we go forward with this it'll be as a private-network as you described.  We don't need security, the site will have member's only areas as required, and nothing illegal will be going on so big brother can look all he wants.  It's more like a "secret club" that only you and your friends know about.  We are considering just password restricting the entire site, and letting users generate invite codes that let their buddies sign up, but that's no the same...

2 more things occurred since my last post.  Feel free to tell me to bugger off, given all the free advise you've already provided.  Yes/No answers would be fine too. 

I'm (theoretically) setting up an SSL Cert on a .af domain right now for a billing system, and oops, right, "all Afghans are Taliban" so no SSL Certs from US-Based CAs for .af domains.  I'm looking at Non-US CAs; not exactly a big list (I think I found 2, but I'm not 100%).  Do Symantec/Comodo SSL Certs work on alt-root domains?

Also is it right to assume that most payment gateways wouldn't comprehend an API call from an alt-root domain (with IPN), so if there were payments being processed (say via Paypal) there would need to be an ICANN/IANA domain for the billing system?

This isn't a huge issue as there will be ICANN/IANA domains anyway, just curious at this point, and a bugger-off answer is fine with me.

...
Adressing your next point, the problem with peer to peer networking protocols in the file sharing and gaming communities, is that bittorrent pirates and gamers aren't capable of gathering together for anything more than piracy for the sake of piracy and gaming for the dopamine rush - programmers and engineers aren't so concerned with distributed peer to peer protocols that make resolution and transport between hosts practical - only theoritcal. It takes industriusts (if that's a word) to "find the need", then locate the computer scientist, and then "fill the need".

Gamers and pirates aren't capable of banding together for such an endeavor, and developers might recreate that thing ten times and never make it commercially available because the intrugue for them is in proving to themselves that they can create it.
...

Too true.  Way too true.  I tried to put together a SecondLife type thing to about 5 years before SL got it going, and every programmer I described the project didn't see it a viable and stayed with the gaming industry.  Could be my fault though, everyone I tried to recruit was in video-game production.  It's hard enough lining up financing for something like that but, if you can't even find staff that get it...

It can be hard finding people that can connect the dots instead of just focusing on their favourite dot.

Re: "industriusts"; no not a real word, yet.  Is that on your business card?  Maybe we should setup the International League of Industriusts, and certify industriusts... 

I was recently reading an article about IO and the 10 year old .web application that's still being considered.  Ambler really got the shaft on that.  Hope he wasn't trying to make money off his .web domains or he's got a case against ICANN (assuming he can find anyone that ICANN would listed too).

Garin had the opportunity to own a ICANN recognized .mail, or .shop and said "no thank you"? I wonder if he would have been shafted like Ambler?  I guess that .s e x and .f u c k weren't listed when ICANN made that offer. 

Regarding shell games try this one: US gov. <> ICANN <> Symantec

US Gov. - manages root-file-zone (Tax Payer's burden)
ICANN - "Neutral" Non-Profit front processes data, and has happy smiling people on their website.
Symantec - Takes Profit for .com/.net zones / NeuStar (Takes Profit for .biz/.us) / Rest of profiteers (Afilias...)

Anyone know how much the US gov charges ICANN?  (I suspect $0)  I wonder if it's case of US corps profiteering off of the US tax payer or the US gov taxing the world.  Some transparency would be good NTU/NTUF.

"One World. One Internet." or "One Internet. One World?"

Anyway I'm about to get myself in trouble here, so Back-To-Topic:

Thanks for the info TallShip.