"I suggest to you that most ordinary people who just use the internet like they use the banking system or the trains think that the government should make sure it all works properly for them and that bad things get stopped from happening"

... wait what the hell? I'm pretty sure that the government has royaly f----d up the Trains and the Banking system, what with it's eyes closed, fingers in ears approach to it all for the past 11 years, "I think Mr Chancellor we should look at the banks books, I fear something may not be quite right," says the grumpy bear advisor.

"LALALALALALalalaaaaaaaaaaaaalalalalalalal Nothing is wrong, lalalalalalalalalala money is flowing in, lalalalallala never look at the books lalalallalalalaalaaaaa oh and you're fired!" Mr Chancellor.

And lets not even mention the trains...

Jee I can't wait for the government to start getting rid of "bad content." That'll put us down a great road.

'He said Nominet and the domain industry need to take more heed of the government agenda on phishing, spam and "bad content".'

So, explain to me what a system that turns letters and numbers into IPv4 and IPv6 addresses has to do with those 3 issues on the government agenda ??

Phishing - education and browser security

Spam - effective sanctions, decent filtering software (mine bounces 98% of the spam at SMTP HELO) and, again, education - i.e. - Don't go flying off to Nigeria, revelaing your bank account details, cashing a cheque and passing on the proceeds until the cheque recall period has passed, or buying cut Viagra.

"Bad content" - what's that ?? Kiddie Porn ?? Criticism of the Government ?? Happy-slapping videos ?? I could take a view if I knew what it meant.

Paris, coz we all know about her bad content

Bad content isn't divided up neatly by domain names. A mainstream UK server can serve up ads from Russia with a trojan attached via a US advertising broker and the government taking over Nominet wouldn't affect this, they still wouldn't have any power to block the trojan.

Was there any particular /technical/ problem with Nominet until the government came up and said "We have a problem with you"?

BS. No need to repeat that this Government has spent the last 11 year fucking this Country right up and making it a police state.

It is my belief that Cowley and Dilbert at Nominet are doing their deliberate best to create some

kind of scenario whereby they can change the article of Nominet and take over control from the members. What I cannot also accept is the continued interference by BERR in a private companies (Nominet's) affairs. Who are BERR to interfere ?. Why do BERR not stick their noses

into business of BT and tell them they need to get their internet access sorted out ?. Why do they not stick their noses into the NHS and get that fixed ?. Yes we are all fed up being scared of catching MRSA or C-Diff . Can BERR not deal with that, after all "Mandy" has plenty of experience of people's rear ends !.

Something else they understand little, if anything, about for them to bugger up. Plus ça change...

Mind you, IF they can get some of these brain-dead registrars to discover that the automaton really does accept IPv6 glue as the third argument of the dns<n> stanza in a MODIFY transaction, I'd be almost happy. Does anyone know of a registrar that lets you do this with a .uk domain or is my only hope getting my own tag [1] and having to shell out to join om nom nom Nominet myself?

[1] OK, strictly speaking, any old munchkin can get a tag without joining but I don't fancy paying 80-odd quid per domain.

We have just got funding from the European Parliament to run a massive electronic discussion among young people in 4 countries to come up with their Internet governance policy recommendations, based on their daily Internet experience. Then we will get politicians, civil servants and Quangocrats (e.g. Nominet) to read and learn from the bright ideas of young people - rather than have policy based on the misconceptions of newspaper editors.

To receive your requested .co.uk domain name, please complete the following 14 page application form in triplicate, supplying NIR barcode details of all individuals who may or may not wish to have access to your website, along with signed authorised photographs of yourself and all immediate family members. Please return your ID card for endorsement. Above all please remember you MUST NOT go over the line when signing your name in the box provided and you must tick to confirm that no site within your domain shall disseminate information contained within the prohibit-list, details of which are published each Monday in the Daily Mail. We will be in touch within twelve calendar months to inform you of the success or otherwise of your request, except in times of National Terro-threat™ level PINKY-ORANGE or above, or whenever our processing drones feel like slacking off and taking a lie down.

"Ordinary internet users" ha! hahaha! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! fuck off

It wouldn't take much to have another domain name system.

It is not enshrined in any control, IP is, but not domain names.

Just setup a root name server, hook your DNS system up and you are off.

The application of this would be quite interesting, it would diversify the web a lot, and allow perhaps people to join DNSs that are of interest, avoiding others completely.

Whether or not ISPs would join in is another matter, but they could elect to do so, and we could have another web boom time :)

We have domains in .uk acom etc and only .uk domains require manual intervetion ot a $35 charge per NS change!

IMHO Nominet was initially ran by a bunch of amateurs + academics. Now they are ran by a bunch of moneygrabbers in a amateur manner.

Having .gov.uk take over could not make things any worse -excpect perhaps increasing charges to cover civil servant rates :-(

That's right, once again, a bureaucrat's response is 'we must treat the electorate like children, take away any responsibility (while creating jobs for the boys and another way of wasting tax payers money)'.

If you use any medium, you are open to suggestion, crime or lies, be it from a Nigerian conman, or one in Whitehall. At the end of the day, as has already been said, people need to take their own measures and only use the internet for riskier business when they are sure they can cope with it. After all, you don't give a person a car without training them how to use it first.

Hendon said: "It is hard to find another example like the DNS where such a vital aspect of the critical national infrastructure is left in the hands of a private company which is unlicensed and unregulated.

eh?

"It is hard to find another example like the DNS where such a vital aspect of the critical national infrastructure is left in the hands of a private company which is unlicensed and unregulated."

At least it works in a fairly efficient manner. It's hard to find an example of critical national infrastructure controlled by government that does that.

The internet works precisely because it was designed and put together by people more interested in making it work than money, politics or any of that. The only downside is that they forgot to include security, but for many years we didn't even really need that.

"most ordinary people who just use the internet like they use the banking system or the trains think that the government should make sure it all works properly for them and that bad things get stopped from happening."

Exactly true.

What share of the popular vote did anarchists get in the last election? Zero.

Which political party ran on a platform of tolerating white collar crime?

Ordinary citizens expect government to protect them, or to set up protections for them.

Protection of the public is the primary essential role of government.

Someone should ensure .com and .co.uk domain names that sound like registered trade marks and registered company names go to those companies.

If private industry would rather make money auctioning them off for personal profit, to scammers, frauds, and competitors, then let government take it over.

This is not about eavesdropping. I agree there is too much government eves dropping and tracing, with terrorism used as a lame excuse.

But this issue is about preventing fraud and computer crime.

There was an earlier article a while back in El Reg to the effect that Peter `I'm back Mendelson was interested in adding DNS to his portfolio of fuck ups. Is he behind this push by Hendon? or is it just coincidence?

Either way , the last thing anybody needs is more interference from govuk, they seem to have a penchant for screwing up even the things they know something about so no chance with DNS.

A clear cut case of Pot, Kettle & Black

"only .uk domains require manual intervetion ot a $35 charge per NS change"

Eh? Last time I did a nameserver change it was free. Admittedly years ago I signed up as a reseller for Nominet, but all I have to do is send a pgp-signed request and it's entirely automatic.

Who is charging you that much to make such a simple change?

True, Kieth, this isn't about eve's dropping. Well spotted.

It is about telling a government that has an appalling track record with anything IT related to fuck off.

It's like baby sitting a toddler. You keep telling them not to touch things, but they don't listen and things get broken.

"No, Peter, don't put your fingers in there. Damnit! Now see what you've done. We'll have to get the contractors in to clear the mess up, and they're ever so expensive."

Well, at least I'll be able to find work.

Governments need to allocate and manage some special domains for national infrastructure and leave the non-national infrastructure to others. They can then focus their security efforts on what is is critical and important to their national interests and not get side-tracked and overwhelmed by trying to control everything.

... the government can do far, far worse. As for "bad content", the brush strokes just get broader and broader.

Mines the one with the one way ticket to anywhere else in the pocket

1) Government - stay away from the internet!

2) Jim Davies said "I also said that the proper way to deal with the alleged conflicts was to put it to the membership to decide, in a motion under s180 of the Companies Act. That is the prescribed and proper way to deal with this issue." - So he want's the membership to vote? Would that be the membership excluding any organisations that he's involved with? Nominet membership votes are in proporttion to the number of domains you've registered, so Davies could be deciding on his own conduct with a block vote (like being a juror at your own trial eh?).

-----

What share of the popular vote did anarchists get in the last election? Zero.

----

Is it me of is that a bit like saying what percentage of atheists believe they'll go to heaven?

"Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in... "

----

Protection of the public is the primary essential role of government.

----

Fine, will the government help protect me from white, middle-classed do-gooders imposing their views upon all of us about what may, or may not offend some of us.

Protect me from the cunts who don't put up Christmas decorations in case it might offend someone (they never ask the potentially offended parties of course), who want to ban books on the grounds of questionable content (the extreme pr0n law - fear the scope-creep), who want to ban computer games because they're not suitable for kids (hello? 18 certificate ffs)... who the hell protects us from the politically correct, health and safety executive, meddling little Hitler twats that try to govern this fucking country (or possibly just read the Daily Mail).

for my terrible spelling of eavesdropping.

What was I thinking?

Please don't shed a tear for Nominet and its impending take over by the Govt. It has worked tirelessly against its membership, from whom the name space was stolen, and now its about to get a taste of its own medicine as it all spins out of its control.

I'm not a fan of this Govt in the slightest, but I'm less of a fan of Nominet.

And the Hendon does have a point. What about spam, phishing and all the other internet problems. What has Nominet done about any of these things? Absolutely nothing.

Nominet were given a golden goose. This goose didn't just lay golden eggs, it laid platinum eggs, by the bucket load. And what have they done with this money? The CEO is paid an absolute fortune (£190k???) which is more than the PM and Cabinet Ministers, they are sitting on a huge cash pile, and apparently spend absolutely loads of money on lawyers so they can keep one step ahead of the membership.

But where has any of that money from this monopoly been invested in anything other than themselves? Have they invested in small software projects that can spot spam, or phishing, do they run black hole lists, do they invest in committees to try and bring together people in the industry to try and solve some of these problems.

No, they don't do a thing. They have a one in a life time monopoly and do their best to keep their fingers on every single bit of money they generate.

So the next time you buy your domain name of which Nominet get £5 - just think to yourself - what does that £5 actually get me? And then multiply it by a couple of million. How would you spend £10m?

"How would you spend £10m?" ...... I'd invest it with someone who would and could guarantee to not lose a single penny/red cent and also provide Future Internet Controls which would Render Governments, ITs Puppets .... to Provide the Population with what they Need/Want rather than having to settle for what Governments Provide...... which is never nearly enough but always a'plenty for themselves, even whenever they are no longer working for the People. That of course would render them somewhat unnecessary in the Leading Sense, but then they manifestly show all the time that they are Not Fit for that Purpose anyway.

And I would even Offer the Service to Government/Governments to show them what is possible with just £10m [peanuts in the great scheme of things] whilst they ponder the Squandering and Loss of Billions and Trillions. Obviously, as Money is never Really Lost but only its Wealth Transferred, it is either Pilfered and Lying elsewhere [which is unlikely for it is impossible to hideand easy to track ] or was in fact always just Vapourware to Start with and just Wishful Thinking.[which is most likely ]

And the truth of the matter is also that it can also be done for virtually nothing, if you know what you are doing, which would make IT a Priceless Asset and a FailSafe Investment.

You may like to Enquire/Ponder why such an IT Facility would be Ignored/Avoided rather than Pontificate upon anything else to Ignore the Question.

Methinks that HMG is just looking for excuses to take over the whole thing. It has never been good at covering up the idea that it doesn't like a medium that can be openly critical of it with no censorship or the like.

They don't, however, possess the technical ability at top level, so will almost certainly try to dictate policy from a point of ignorance. What you will probably get is a HMG Nominet that would produce something akin to Chinese style control or, at the very least, yet another attempt to shaft the British public for the latest scam... er... public project.

Nominet isn't perfect by any means, but a Government controlled Nominet? Urrrrh...

And Paris doesn't have any technical ability at top level (but does that really matter?)

"They don't, however, possess the technical ability at top level, so will almost certainly try to dictate policy from a point of ignorance. What you will probably get is a HMG Nominet that would produce something akin to Chinese style control or, at the very least, yet another attempt to shaft the British public for the latest scam... er... public project." .... By Chika Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 15:29 GMT

QuITe so, Chika. Another attempt at shafting by a governement with no talent for IT. They will be easy prey and tasty carrion to they whom they would cross.

"It has never been good at covering up the idea that it doesn't like a medium that can be openly critical of it with no censorship or the like." ..... The Great Debate messageboard on the BBC was removed for that very same reason. Its Free Speech Components/Proponents and their Incisive Inconvenient Open Questions were Far Too Powerful for its Spinners to Win over with their Patent Nonsense.

It is an Elementary Primary Class Lesson which the Headless Chickens Wing of Westminster and Downing Street still have not Learnt. That marks them out as requiring Special Needs Schooling to deal with their Intellectual Dysfunction/Impairment/Deficit.

And now the BBC is their tired old tart/useless eunuch, which is probably also an accurate reflection on its Board/Trustees too.

And this Registered comment on such matters are valid for all message boards/comments threads ...... "Frankly the loss of the any BBC messageboard is no loss at all. Messageboards are only useful when posters can make free and frank contributions. The BBC censors allow neither." .... By Eponymous Cowherd Posted Monday 19th May 2008 14:29 GMT ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/19/today_programme_message_board/comments/

"They don't, however, possess the technical ability at top level,..." ... By Chika Posted Saturday 22nd November 2008 15:29 GMT

Then they should buy it in, Chika. How much simpler could it be?

We have a regulatory system in Companies House. If people have limited companies then they are entitled to a ltd.uk domain name which are regulated. The names of the directors are available online.

It's the perception of the Internet by the general public that's the problem. When I first got onto Compuserve everything I saw came from Compuserve. We not entirely, it was it's members that posted things and Compuserve ran it. When I discovered that I could get on the Internet via Compuserve I was amazed that Compuserve could provide all this. It dawned on me that the Internet connected thousands (in those days) of servers provided by different people for their own reasons.

The Internet is unlike anything else we experience in the world. Not so much in it's technology since the phone system, Newspapers, TV and Radio and postal service serve perfectly well for carrying information. No, it's the Freedom the Internet has provided which is the bit that people can't fathom.

Surely this much freedom can't be for real? Surely I can't do my own website or write a message on a blog that can be seen by anyone and everyone? Well we can for a while but of course people will want it regulated just like the banks, the railways and the TV. Once that happens it will be just like them.

"It is hard to find another example like the DNS where such a vital aspect of the critical national infrastructure is left in the hands of a private company which is unlicensed and unregulated.""

That's what sums up how much government sceemes to understand when they hear "internet".

Do they realy think that the internet is their own, national structure? A vital one?

I realy support the view that all they try to do is to install governmental controll in the most critical point of the internet, the domain name serveices.

So let me just think about what might come next...

Maybe restrictions of non-governmental chats, blogs, sites?

Or just restricting some russian pages or servers?