Joe Geiser writes:
>ORG is for NON-PROFIT organizations ONLY (those with tax exempt or non-profit
>status with the IRS, not just money-losing organizations who think they are
>non-profit)! Paperwork better be in hand!
I've registered half a dozen .ORG domains and have never been asked for
paperwork. All but one of these organizations is too small to have any
paperwork.
>Same goes for EDU - it's for
>educational institutions and not for commercial entities.
I'm not sure about how much checking is done, but in theory, .EDU is
reserved for postsecondary educational institutions. That said, there are
a bunch of organizations I can think of that are only associated with
schools (or consortia of schools) that have .EDU domains: two that come
immediately to mind are NRAO.EDU, the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory, and STSCI.EDU, the Space Telescope Science Institute. No
doubt there are other examples from fields other than astronomy.
>Yes, things are much more relaxed now - but anyone who registers domains
>who is
>worth their weight in salt will NOT register an ORG or EDU top-level for a
>for-profit entity. If they do, they should not be in this business. There's
>enough silliness going on with domain registrations without having this crap.
This quaint appeal to peoples' better nature is pretty hopeless. As in
any other ecosystem, the more people who voluntarily follow the rules,
the higher the payoff for breaking them. If .ORG is associated with
integrity and impartiality, that's all the more reason for dishonest and
partisan individuals to use it.
Ten years ago, Clifford Stoll closed his book _The Cucoo's Egg_, a
network security tutorial in the form of a real-life detective story,
with a note that today seems quaint -- and, to anyone who was using the
Internet in 1989, painfully sad. By the end of the book, Stoll's efforts
have finally led to the arrest of Markus Hess, the hacker who was using
his systems. He writes:
The greatest B-movie of all time, _The Blob_, finishes off
with the malignant monster being towed off to Antarctica: it's
harmless when it's frozen. Then, the words "The End" flash
across the screen, but at the last minute, a blob-shaped
question mark appears. The monster isn't dead, only sleeping.
That is how I felt when I finally dismantled my monitors,
made the last entry in my logbook, and said good-bye to
midnight chases after Markus Hess.
The monster is still out there, ready to come alive again.
Whenever someone, tempted by money, power, or simple
curiosity, steals a password and prowls the networks.
Whenever someone forgets that the networks she loves to
play on are fragile, and can only exist when people trust
each other. Whenever a fun-loving student breaks into
systems as a game (as I might once have done), and forgets
that he's invading people's privacy, endangering data that
others have sweated over, sowing distrust and paranoia.
Networks aren't made of printed circuits, but of people.
Right now, as I type, through my keyboard I can touch
countless others: friends, strangers, enemies. I can talk
to a physicist in Japan, an astronomer in England, a spy
in Washington. I might gossip with a buddy in Silicon
Valley or some professor at Berkeley.
My terminal is a door to countless, intricate pathways
leading to untold numbers of neighbors. Thousands of
people trust each other enough to tie their systems
together. Hundreds of thousands of people use those
systems, never realizing the delicate networks that link
their separate worlds.
Like the innocent small town invaded in a monster movie,
people work and play, unaware of how fragile and vul-
nerable their community is. It could be destroyed outright
by a virus, or, worse, it could consume itself with
mutual suspicion, tangle itself up in locks, security
checkpoints and surveillance; wither away by becoming so
inaccessible and bureaucratic that nobody would want it
anymore.
But maybe, if Hess was an exception, if enough of us
work together to keep the networks safe and free, this
will all be over. I can finally get back to astronomy
and have time to spend with my long-suffering bride.
I don't want to be a computer cop. I don't want our
networks to need cops.
Two years before HTTP.
-- Bruce
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Phoenix AZ 85028 | It gives a lovely light.
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