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by psychoslave 704 days ago
You can even put <hn-2024-07-11>@<some-domain.tld>.

Let’s note however that even "owning a domain" is an illusion of control, as IANA is ultimately a retainer of uncle Sam. I don’t know if there is any functional distributed alternative that promote more autonomy to end users that can works out of the box (or even just a few basic install steps away) in most digital terminal out there.

3 comments

> Let’s note however that even "owning a domain" is an illusion of control

That’s not true. It’s definitely not complete control, but it’s far more “sovereign” and independent than having a user account with some corporation that can change its ToS overnight. To seize a domain, a lengthy legal process is needed. Not to mention, you can choose a domain that doesn’t fall under a specific country’s jurisdiction or choose a registrar company located in another country. For example, you can register a domain like .ch or .no, and a legal US order won’t be effective, especially if you didn’t use a US-based registrar. Furthermore, you can host your own domain name (1). It isn’t entirely safe, but the process and efforts to seize it are far more complicated than a click in an MS dashboard. Unless that person is doing something extremely illegal, no one will bother.

(1) https://blog.technitium.com/2022/06/how-to-self-host-your-ow...

Didn’t the US give up direct control of IANA years ago?
This is technically correct, indeed. Now it’s ICANN, a non-profit organization to which the responsibility was transferred to. ICANN is based in California and if I’m not mistaking, operates under usual law regime of this state — unlike embassies or consulates for example.

https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/icann-still...

IANA/ICANN will not act on customers of others gTLDs, would they?