Post by @aral@mastodon.ar.al

@aral any ccTLD is managed by the country it's incorporated into, so .fr .eu .be etc. are "fine" (until they declare you a terro too...)

@aral

.eu ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.eu

@EUCommission

@aral@mastodon.ar.al At this point, I just assume majority of tech related corporation yo be fascist until proven otherwise. Maybe not the healthiest way to view it but it's getting difficult to find one who isn't in compassion.

Even then, I questioned if that is true or if they have skeleton in the closet that has to yet be exposed. I hate this timeline so much.

@matty 💯

@aral Can maybe also consider .meow when the time comes!

https://dotmeow.org (yes that's .org...)

@aral Moved my own personal domain to .nl and my business domain to .eu recently, though a Dutch registrar. Slowly moving away from US-based stuff 👍

@brunoscheele @aral

It seems that you went with 'Mijn.host' - which is one of the few independent Dutch hosters. 99% of the Dutch webhosting market is owned by a couple of investor groups.

Once they acquire a hosting firm, it is quickly hollowed out. Prices are multiplied (sometimes even 5x!), customer support becomes nonexistent etc.

This page has an overview of the Dutch webhosting market. The worst one - by far - is TWS / YourOnline.

@h3artbl33d @aral Dodged a bullet there then 😅

Thanks for the website, that’ll be a good one to refer folks to.

@h3artbl33d @aral Ah, and Argeweb is on the TWS group as well. That explains the price hike I noticed on my partner’s domain, good thing we gave that one up.

@brunoscheele @aral

Yeah, I think that TWS hosters now casually sell .nl domains for 25+ euro per year. Which is utter madness.

@brunoscheele
I will point out that if your government does something catastrophically stupid like leaving the EU, that will get taken away from you.

Yes, I'm still bitter.

@aral

@aral Thank you! I have some work cut out for me this weekend, getting some new domains. Avoiding US payment systems is still basically impossible though... :/

@aral @EUCommission almost all my domains are .fr now. They are far cheaper that .com etc...

@aral @EUCommission Thanks for this aral.

@aral One year ago I switched from .org to .eu and from WordPress to Bludit specifically to avoid this kind of situation. You can't trust the USA anymore. 😑

@aral Thanks for bringing this up, reminded me¹ to start moving my stuff to a .nl domain. (Moving everything is going to take forever though, soooo many places where I’m @tubul.net 😞)

¹. Well, your toot, and I finally came up with a domain name I’m happy with.

@davidculley @aral if I'm not mistaken, most of the EU registrar policies are harmonised to allow EU residents to register (I can register a .it, .pt, .es, etc) so you don't need to switch when you leave.

The reason why you can't take the time with you though is basically capitalism but also separate entities, you pay to rent the specific name, etc etc

@davidculley I just saw the update, yeah denic is nonsensical if that's their policy

@davidculley @aral You pay to reserve a specific domain not generally a domain in that TLD space. If you decide to not use that domain anymore, that is your decision. If you reserve 10 seats in a cinema for a specific movie, you don’t get to come with 3 people and then after the fact demand to have 7 seats in other movies.

(That we rent domains instead of buying them is something that is worrysome in any case.)

@yatil I disagree.

If I pay to get the key and thus access to a certain house, and then never visit that house while having the key, then that is on me.

If I pay to get the key, and then return the key and thus cannot even access the house anymore, then I shouldn't have to pay for access to the house (which I don't have anymore).

Besides, all registrars other than those handling the .de and .nl are doing it in the second way. Therefore it's a business decision and not a technical limitation to do it in the first way.

@aral @EUCommission I noticed .ch and .li missing while Iceland is listed. Are they using U.S.-registrars?

@aral ccTLDs are definitely more resilient to pressure from ICANN than gTLDs and sponsored TLDs.

They might have their own issues, obviously. As always, it depends on your threat model.

@EUCommission

@rysiek @aral @EUCommission what kind of pressure

@aral .eco is a gTLD that is run by a Canadian company and the registry is operated from CIRA's registry solution : https://www.cira.ca/en/registry/cira-registry-platform/

There are a handful of others that operate on CIRA's platform too.

The more stable choice in general would be a ccTLD depending on your country and local laws or Iceland since their publishing laws are very solid

@kc @aral
One of the others is .ie.

When it moved to the CIRA platform, the IEDR (which had already changed back-end platform at least once before) kept its unique custom API for .ie registrar automation, instead of moving to a more widely supported open API.

As .ie is limited to registrants who can prove their connection to Ireland, many of the international registrars don't offer .ie as an option. It requires their systems to track changes to IEDR's API, and that adds extra work or cost.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al
What do you recommend, if one owns a .info-domain?

It's with my family name, however if one knows that and does a web search with it, my fediverse name can also be found.

@fasnix .info is owned by Identity Digital, Inc.

Wikipedia has the tea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Digital

I’d say at least get another domain as a backup and have a contingency plan.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al
Thanks!
I own several .eu-domains, however, my < name >.info is my main domain, which I use solely for official mail communication.

Would you advice in turning it to one .eu-domain instead?

@aral @fasnix Yeah, I had fun with my domains but I think I better get a .ch soon as a backup.

@aral @EUCommission PunktumDK requires buying through a reseller now (recent policy change) and I dont know any resellers who dont also sell ICANN TLD-based domains

Right, except that .eu seems to have changed to contract-based.

A full list of ccTLDs with registry contract can be found here:

www.icann.org/resources/pages/cctlds/cctlds-en

@aral @EUCommission

@hallunke23 @EUCommission Oh, yay!

@aral @EUCommission baby this is ~~keke palmer~~ an IP address (it's great I love it thank you )

@mooooooo @EUCommission Yep. About 90% of the challenge is making this stuff usable by everyday people who use technology as an everyday thing. And a huge part of that is trying to make it approachable. Otherwise, all these problems are solved and we can just point people to a few repos on sourcehut and tell them to fire up git and build it all from source. I personally know the three people who do that and they seem quite content :)

@EUCommission On the same note, have any of you tried Stancer for online payments? Would you recommend them (or other EU-based providers with EU infrastructure?)

• https://european-alternatives.eu/product/stancer
• https://www.stancer.com/fra/en/online-payment

Because I’m thinking it’s probably best to get off of Stripe too.

@aral
Do you really expect that
@EUCommission is going to answer or even read posts at all?
I would put some hope on Europe if they interact, but I've never seen anything from them but their own posts and no interaction whatsoever.

@tachan @EUCommission

@aral Never heard of it. 🙁

@aral
I know everyone hates crypto now, but decentralized payments still make more sense to me than EU controlled ones at this point.

@EUCommission

@aral "in theory", yes well put... In theory the UX and scams could be solved by a government without turning it into a centralized currency with extra steps 🤣

@EUCommission

@iwein @EUCommission Aren’t theories just peachy? :)

@aral @iwein @EUCommission

Don't be so negative, Aral. Criminals, arms traders and corrupt politicians find cryptocurrencies extremely useful.

#Crypto

@simon_brooke

Hello my friend, I apologize, but why are you ignoring me?

@aral I wish @Liberapay would finally offer something privacy-friendly, non-US (they currently only support Thiel & Thiel, err, PayPal & Stripe) 😢 @EUCommission

@aral @EUCommission
My favourite website, European alternatives!!!!

@davidculley @EUCommission Oh ffs! *sigh*

@aral A few shops where I buy use Mollie for payment processing. No negative experiences, does what a payment processor is supposed to do.

@davidculley Thanks, that’s good to know :)

@aral @EUCommission Yay - back to the future!

@aral @EUCommission The safest TLD is nearly always going to be the ccTLD from your own country of residence. For instance, as a Brazilian I can use a .net.br or .com.br domain (.org.br is restricted to registered non-profits), pay with Boleto Bancário (a traditional local payment method) or PIX (the very popular new local instant payment method), and only be subject to Brazilian laws and courts (which I already am subject to, since I live here).

@cesarb @EUCommission I’m not too sure about that: when the US says “jump”, Ireland asks “how high and would you like a blowjob with that, sir?”

@aral @cesarb @EUCommission If your own country is coming after you, you’ve got bigger problems than a domain name.

@rigrig @cesarb @EUCommission I mean, if the US is coming after you… (which is where all this began).

@aral @cesarb I suppose the argument is that Ireland can send the gardaí round to persuade you to transfer a domain regardless of where it's registered, so a ccTLD at least doesn't add another national government to the mix

@aral @cesarb @EUCommission same for Portugal, where I live now.

@aral @EUCommission Oh shit. We need full spectrum of European alternatives asap.

@aral @EUCommission Never thought we'd be going back to the pre-DNS /etc/hosts days, but I'm here for it!

@470m @EUCommission If we can achieve the usability of a phone book, I think we’ll be fine. No one remembers phone numbers these days because we don’t have to (and none of us use the Yellow Pages either) :)

@aral @EUCommission

Are we going to need to bring back the phone number jingle but for IP addresses?

🎶 One Three Five! One Eight One!
Four-Four dot Fifty! 🎶

@aral @EUCommission > So what are safe TLDs?

.st and .is are pretty much bulletproof.

@aral @EUCommission Having a .onion mirror of your website is a much more durable approach, though. I'm surprised by how A/I didn't have one already. It will also help discoverability of your new domains in cases of blocks/takedowns.

@aral "Pretty easy one to fix"

Only if the service is provided without payment (or on the basis of barter). The blocking statute didn't work too well so far for Iran.
https://finance.ec.europa.eu/eu-and-world/open-strategic-autonomy/extraterritoriality-blocking-statute_en

@aral

The Onion-Location header used to advertise a hidden service name might help provide backup access?

https://community.torproject.org/onion-services/advanced/onion-location/

@rakoo Yeah, I’ve been harping on about how we need a not-for-profit ACME service provider in the EU. It should be independent and funded with our EU taxes.

CC @EUCommission (I won’t hold my breath.)

@gcsolaroli @EUCommission @alberto_cottica Thank you for sharing your experience Guilio and sorry you had to go through that. Sounds like a nightmare.

@aral @EUCommission @alberto_cottica
The weirdest part is that we still don’t have any clue on what actually happened.
We have fantasized a lot, but with no actual evidence of any sort.
My business partner was also unusually questioned when entering the US in Miami a few years after the initial incident.
Nowadays it’s kind of sorted out, so we don’t think to it much, other than when others feel the same pain.