taylor@glasgow.glasgow.UUCP (Jem Taylor) (09/30/86)
[ The list appended to this article is the union of the list I circulated
a few weeks ago and one Mark Horton mailed to me; if you posted or mailed
any other additions i'm afraid they must have been caught by our disk
disaster a few weeks back - we lost mail and missed two weeks news ]
[ Mark, thanks for your mail; I'm afraid I can't answer your questions yet ]
Just to recap on the problem:
In view of the recent debate about the wisdom (or otherwise) of naming a system
as uk.......com , which introduces Little/Big-Endian ambiguity, I have collected
together the names of all the top-level domains of which I am aware. Since it
is desirable to avoid using any of the names in the list below as the final
component (or indeed any component) of a name, I am circulating this list and
would like to hear of any additions.
I would like to suggest that a new constraint be placed on new names, to the
effect that top-level names not be used as lower-level (especially final)
components of new registrations.
The reasons for this constraint are two-fold:
(1) Not permitting a top-level domain name to occur as the final sub-domain
name eliminates Little/Big End Ambiguity.
(2) Not permitting a top-level domain name to occur as an intermediate sub-
domain name allows users to input partially resolved domain names of the
form mydept.mysite instead of the fully-qualified domain name
mydept.mysite.subdom.top without thereby introducing Little/Big Ambiguity.
Examples of the Ambiguity:
(1) uk......com - or is that com.....uk ?
(2) uk.ac.edu.vax - typed as edu.vax from uk.ac.edu.prime - is that vax.edu ?
Although many sites stick firmly to one ordering or the other (JANET or ARPA),
some sites will always have to try to understand both orders, in order to
relay between incompatible domains or to allow users to type the addresses
which their correspondants have told them in the other order.
PLEASE consider the implications, and don't create ambiguous-order names !
-Jem Taylor.
________________________________________________________________________________
#Known top domains and their relays
#30-sept-86 Jem Taylor <taylor@cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
#
# Use the relay which is cheapest from you. Commenting out is correct for
# JANET sites only.
#
#Domain Relay Comment
#------ ----- -------
arpa cs.ucl.ac.uk # temporary domain
#arpa harvard
#arpa seismo
#arpa talcott
#arpa ucbvax
#au mulga #Australia
#au munnari
au cs.ucl.ac.uk #University of Melbourne, Australia
#bitnet psuvax1
#bitnet talcott
bitnet wiscvm.wisc.edu
#ca garfield
#ca ubc-vision
#ca watmath
#canada garfield
#canada ubc-vision
#canada watmath
#cdn garfield
#cdn ubc-vision
cdn cs.ucl.ac.uk #CDNnet, Canada
#cdn watmath
#cern # no relay needed from JANET
#cern cs.ucl.ac.uk #European Org. for Nuclear Research, Geneva
chunet cs.ucl.ac.uk #Swiss University Network, Switzerland
com cs.ucl.ac.uk # US commercial
#com harvard
#com seismo
#com talcott
#com ucbvax
#csnet harvard
csnet relay.cs.net #(A.K.A csnet-relay.arpa, csnet-relay)
#csnet talcott
dec decwrl.dec.com
#desy # no relay needed from JANET
dfn cs.ucl.ac.uk #Deutsche Forshungsnetz, West Germany
earn earn.rl.ac.uk #what an unfortunate name (Big/Little)
edu cs.ucl.ac.uk # US education
#edu harvard
#edu seismo
#edu talcott
#edu ucbvax
fr #France
gov cs.ucl.ac.uk # US government
#gov harvard
#gov seismo
#gov talcott
#gov ucbvax
hasler cs.ucl.ac.uk #Hasler Telecoms, Switzerland
il humus #israel
iris cs.ucl.ac.uk #Spain
irl cs.ucl.ac.uk #Ireland
israel humus #israel
jp kddlab #japan
jpn kddlab
junet kddlab
korea kaist #korea
kr kaist #korea
#mailnet harvard
mailnet multics.mit.edu
#mailnet talcott
mil cs.ucl.ac.uk # US military
#mil harvard
#mil seismo
#mil talcott
#mil ucbvax
#net harvard
#net seismo
#net talcott
#net ucbvax
nl mcvax #netherlands
org cs.ucl.ac.uk # US non-profit
#org harvard
#org seismo
#org talcott
#org ucbvax
osiride cs.ucl.ac.uk #Italy
#oz mulga
#oz munnari
oz ukc.ac.uk
se enea #sweden
sunet cs.ucl.ac.uk #Swedish University Network, Sweden
surfnet cs.ucl.ac.uk #Netherlands
#uk # no relay needed from JANET
#uk cs.ucl.ac.uk #United Kingdom
#uk ukc.ac.uk
uninett cs.ucl.ac.uk #Norwegian University Network, Norway
us cs.ucl.ac.uk # US other
#us harvard
#us seismo
#us talcott
#us ucbvax
#uucp cbosgd
#uucp decuac
#uucp harvard
#uucp ihnp4
#uucp mcvax
#uucp seismo
#uucp ucbvax
uucp ukc.ac.uk
--
"I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid !" -Bishop
________________________________________________________________________________
ARPANet: taylor%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@{ucl-cs.arpa,cs.ucl.ac.uk}
JANET: taylor@uk.ac.glasgow.cs
Mail: J.A.Taylor, Computer Science, 17 Lilybank Gardens, GB-GLASGOW G12 8QQ
UseNet: mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!taylor
________________________________________________________________________________