Some more silly Punycode domain names

By
on · · 8 comments · 500 words · read ~519 times.
The logo for the band Spinal Tap. The logo looks like it has been chiselled out of heavy metal by virgin nuns who only wish to please the gods of rock and roll.

You know how it is, you buy one silly domain name and then you get an idea for loads more! A few weeks ago, I got https://⏻.ga/ - I think I'm the first person to get a domain name which uses a glyph from the Miscellaneous Symbols Unicode block. How exciting! And that got me […]

Continue reading →

Not Quite Emoji Domain Names

By
on · · 1 comment · 700 words · read ~324 times.
A bright red power symbol.

Like all good geeks, I have far too many domain names that I acquired for interesting projects which never took off. My latest is a bit different though. https://⏻.ga/ That's "Unicode Power Symbol Dot Gabon". Because why not. Regular readers will know that I helped get ⏻ and several power symbols into Unicode. When I […]

Continue reading →

What's the cheapest domain you can register for 10 years?

By
on · · 13 comments · 400 words · read ~16,683 times.
Screenshot showing £12.80 for 10 years.

I'm concerned about the longevity of the domains I register. I want my domains to be available for as long as possible. But it seems that every year prices rise - and the discount often provided for a new domain rarely continues into subsequent years. So I recently started renewing them for as long as […]

Continue reading →

🔥.me.ss! You can't register emoji domains in South Sudan

By
on · · 4 comments · 450 words · read ~215 times.
Dear Terence, We have contacted the registry and they said they don't allow 2 successive dashes.

It's useful to share negative results. Not every experiment has an amazing or successful outcome. tl;dr you can't register Punycode .ss domains. This also means Internet users in South Sudan can't register domains using their own writing system. Background The Republic of South Sudan became independent and joined the United Nations back in 2011. A […]

Continue reading →

Buying a single character domain - and 3 character FQDN - for £15

By
on · · 18 comments · 650 words · read ~20,606 times.
Glowing computer text showing dot com dot info etc.

Short domains are useful for security testing. If you only have a limited number of characters, you need to be able to reference code on a remote server in as few characters as possible. A few years ago, I tried to find a Minimum Viable XSS. The conclusion that I (and others) came to is […]

Continue reading →

How much would it cost to buy every domain name?

By
on · · 1 comment · 700 words · read ~1,303 times.
Glowing computer text showing dot com dot info etc.

The ridiculous proliferation of TLDs (Top Level Domains) continues unabated. I wondered how much you'd have to spend to secure your name on every TLD. tl;dr;tld Over $300,000! (Roughly €280.000 / £245,000.) But... This estimate is pretty rough. A few caveats: This only covers one version of your domain name - it doesn't cover misspellings. […]

Continue reading →

IANA Insanity - or, how I learned to stop .worrying and .love the .new .internet

By
on · · 1 comment · 700 words · read ~590 times.

In The Beginning There was the .com and the .org and the .net and it was good. And, I mean, there were probably a few others - but that's all people cared about. Go Forth And Multiply And THE LORD sayeth "Hey, do people want country codes? Like .UK, .FR, .DE?" And the people were […]

Continue reading →

How Do You Pronounce Your Domain Name?

By
on · · 9 comments · 450 words · read ~963 times.

I was listening to a podcast recently which was kind enough to mention one of my blog posts. The presenter said: ...and you should Google for this, because I'm really not sure how to pronounce this. Is it shu-huk-spur? dot mobby? Le sigh! It's a conversation I have most weeks when I'm on the phone […]

Continue reading →

Why Does Tucows Send Important Emails Which Look Like Phishing?

By
on · · 2 comments · 1,000 words · read ~465 times.

A few weeks ago, I received what I thought was a particularly inept phishing attack. Subject: shkspr.mobi ***PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL YOU MAY RUN THE RISK OF THIS NAME BEING ERRONEOUSLY DELETED - PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE (VIA EMAIL) WITH REFERENCE TO THE ACCURACY […]

Continue reading →