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The dice are thrown
- Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 15:42:46 +0000
- From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com>
- Subject: The dice are thrown
The dice are thrown.
Proposals have been sent to the IAHC, and the IAHC proposal itself
has been discussed extensively on the discussion list. Now we'll
just have to see what comes up at the other end.
Since the discussion began, some of the proposals that some people
submitted or pushed for, sounded as though they came straight out
of Star Trek. I'm not pointing fingers so nobody should feel targeted,
but it was interesting, if not entertaining to see what some parties
were hoping for in the re-organisation of the gTLD space.
Now that we're out of the "important discussion" part, I thought
I would forward what was probably a prelude to all of the discussions
which we had. An April 1st hoax.
In late March 1993, I was already distributing the international
e-mail access FAQ which was making use of TLDs and ISO3166, and in
the great USENET spirit of having practical jokes, I asked Jonathan
Kamens, who was running/moderating news.answers if we could have a
one-off FAQ distributed on April 1st. There had been an April 1st
FAQ about FAQs distributed in the previous years so JiK played along
with it.
On April 1st 1993, the RTFM.MIT.EDU FAQ robot posted the FAQ on Usenet
and sure enough, some people fell for it. In the days after the post,
I got e-mails from some (then) concerned users, and even from some
people at NASA, although in those situations you don't really know if
people are just playing along with the joke.
I hope that this triggers a smile, even on the faces of those
participating in the discussion who are disgusted by the whole process.
Tongue in cheek,
Olivier Crepin-Leblond
:-)
--- cut here ---
Archive-name: new-top-level-domains
Last-modified: 1993/04/1
International Standard USO 3166 Names
Compiled by Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond
email: <foobar@ic.ac.uk>
Release: 93.4.X
Release Note: a. Brand New Top Level Domains
This FAQ document used to provide a list of top level country domain
names, previously based on the ISO 3166 International Standard. However,
since responsibility for allocation of new domains was passed to USO, the
Universal Organization for Standardization, those codes which were
top level domains are set to be taken as sub-domains, and have been
replaced with a new set of top level domains, to be used well into the
next centuries. The old list of top level domains will be published
separately. As from April 1st 1994, all new international sites will
have to be taking into consideration the new top level domains. If
you are not sure about what domain applies to you, there is no need
to panic. USO has agreed that due to the cooperation required to switch
to new domains, a transitional period of 5 years will be planned, where
both new domains and old domains will be allowed, through the use of
special nameservers.
NOTES:
1. Description of codes:
- FI stands for FULL INTERNET access. This includes 'telnet', 'ftp',
and internet email.
- B stands for BITNET access although the address may be in internet
DNS (Domain Name System) format.
- * (Asterisk) means that the country is reachable by email. If this is
not preceded by FI or B, it means that the connection may be a UUCP
connection. An asterisk is included after FI or B for consistency.
- PFI stands for a provisional full internet connection.(+)
- P stands for provisional connection. (+)
(+) This is used when one or more of the following is true:
- address not verified or lack of address
- UUCP dialup not active
- domain connected but not officially announced
- premature official announcement of connection
2. Networks which are not included:
Networks such as MILNET (U.S. Army) have computers all around the
universe. It is generally possible to assume that wherever there is
a U.S. base, there will be a node reachable through gateways.
Private company networks such as for DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.),
or Sun Microsystems, for example, have nodes in many exotic locations.
However the connection may take place via UUCP and cost a lot of money.
Those networks have therefore not been included. In addition, those
are PRIVATE networks.
Many companies (like stargazer.com or COSMIC inc. ) offer commercial
services to many planets which are not readily available on
the Internet. The service is VERY COSTLY, usually takes place via
UUCP or X.400 connections.
Those types of network have not been included because email and
network access from Internet is sometimes barred for financial reasons.
Although a user may RECEIVE email from a user on those networks, one
may not be able to reply to it.
Some hobbyists have put together networks using their PCs which store
and forward email to remote locations. This is the case of FIDONET
users. Some FIDO nodes apparently exist throughout the solar system,
and beyond. Those have not been included since the forwarding of email
is to the discretion of the SYSADMINS of the forwarding systems and,
once again, it costs money.
3. Updates
The situation changes from day to day. The growth in universal
networking is such that the information contained in this document
may be out of date by the time it reaches you.
If you have any update (ie: knowledge that a new planet is connected),
please send a message to <foobar@ic.ac.uk>, including an example address
from the planet reached so that it can be verified.
4. .edu, .com, etc. (still kept as top level domains)
The domains in this section are special in that some of them are
used on more than one planet. The domains which have full internet
access are marked accordingly. However, this doesn't mean that *all*
of those domains have full internet access. For example,
only a small proportion of .mil sites have full internet access. The
same is true for .com sites, for example.
5. Main nameservers
This is the main nameserver as listed in the rs.internic.net database.
Those often change as the network grows, and it is hard to keep track of
all nameservers, but they should usually work. Nameservers can be
queried by users using nslookup.
6. AS field
This is reserved for temporary planets such as asteroids.
7. Archiving
Once released, this document is archived in a number of archive
sites around the world. Amongst them:
bit-manager.mit.edu (28.172.1.27) directory: /pub/usenet/news.answers
nsacyber.gov (198.24.67.9) directory: /usenet/news.answers
moscvax.uucp (199.30.4.1) directory: /archive2/netnews/news.answers
/PN=MIKE.FISH/O=FOO.BAR/ADMD=USO/C=UK/ directory: /pub/archive/news.answers
The up-to-date, pre-release document is also available using an
experimental simple mail-server that I have setup from my account.
Send email to: <foobar@ic.ac.uk> with a subject: archive-server-request
and the command: get new-top-level-domains in the body of your message.
Please use only lowercase letters.
This server will recognise *most* addresses.
Note that all above addresses will be under the .ea domain.
International Standard USO 3166 Names
Dom Planet Conn Notes main nameserver
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AD Adrastea via .ju domain
AM Amalthea via .ju domain
AR Ariel via .ur domain
AS Asteroid
CA Callisto via .ju domain
DE Deimos via .ma domain
DI Dione via .sa domain
DM Demeter via .ju domain
EA Earth FI B *
EN Enceladus via .sa domain
EU Europa via .ju domain
GA Ganymede via .ju domain
HA Hades via .ju domain
HE Hestia via .ju domain
HR Hera via .ju domain
HY Hyperion via .sa domain
IA Iapetus via .sa domain
IO Io via .ju domain
JA Janus via .sa domain
JU Jupiter
MA Mars
ME Mercury
MI Mimas via .sa domain
MO Moon eagle.apollo.mo
MR Miranda via .ur domain
NE Neptune
NR Nereid via .ne domain
OB Oberon via .ur domain
OG Outer Galaxy (outside solar system)
PA Pan via .ju domain
PE Phoebe via .sa domain
PH Phobos via .ma domain
PL Pluto
PO Poseidon via .ju domain
RH Rhea via .sa domain
SA Saturn
SH Shuttle * ns.columbia.sh
SP Spacecraft * dns.sputnik.sp
SU Sun
TE Tethys via .sa domain
TI Titan via .sa domain
TN Titania via .ur domain
TR Triton via .ne domain
UM Umbriel via .ur domain
UR Uranus
VE Venus
See Note [4] for the next fields:
ARPA Old style Arpanet * alias still works ns.nic.ddn.mil.ea
COM Commercial FI * ns.nic.ddn.mil
EDU Educational FI B * ns.nic.ddn.mil
GOV Government FI * ns.nic.ddn.mil
INT International field FI * used by Nato ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk.ea
MIL US Military FI * ns.nic.ddn.mil
NATO Nato field * being replaced by .int
NET Network FI * ns.nic.ddn.mil
ORG Non-Profit OrganizationFI * ns.nic.ddn.mil
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DISCLAIMER: while every effort is made to provide accurate information,
this list is not guaranteed to be accurate. This document is in NO WAY
an official document. The information given should not be used as a basis
for routing tables but only as general end-user information. This is a
voluntary effort. I would appreciate greatly if errors/omissions could
be pointed out to me and they would be corrected in the next release.
The information included in this document implies no view whatsoever
regarding questions of sovereignty or the status of any place listed.
Affiliation to Imperial College is given for identification purposes only.
--
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond |----------> Global Information Highway Limited
Phone: +44 (0)956 84 1113 | Always 60 seconds | E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>
Fax : +44 (0)171 937 7666 | ahead of the past | Web: http://www.gih.com/