Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

Thu Oct 1 23:47:30 UTC 1998

On October 1, 1998 at 19:28 sjsobol at nacs.net (Steven J. Sobol) wrote:
 > On Thu, Oct 01, 1998 at 04:22:21AM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
 > 
 > > In high school some upper-class students would sell incoming freshman
 > > swimming pool passes. Unfortunately, our high school had no swimming
 > > pool. But I guess if they paid for them they were "legitimate" pool
 > > passes.
 > 
 > If the Tongan government were taking payments for domains that were
 > subsequently never registered, you'd have a point.

No, if they're taking money for domains which later turn out to be
outside of their authority, possibly an authority lost due to
mismanagement, then the point would stand.

Put another way (that was an awfully bad sentence), I don't think
what makes .to legitimate is the mere fact that they've taken
money. If the domain is shut down the money is lost.

And maybe some who thought they could buy a cool-sounding domain name
in the namespace of the Kingdom of Tonga deserve what they get (big
deal, they're out $100, not exactly life or death, but you get my
point.)

 > > for the .to TLD? Such as serving the Kingdom of Tonga or entities
 > > organized in the Kingdom of Tonga in any way? Or is it just rogue?
 > 
 > Would you even be raising these questions if someone using a .TO domain
 > hadn't forged a std.com address?

Would anyone be interested in Timothy McVeigh if he hadn't blown up
the Murrah building?

I suppose not.

There's such a "blame the victim" mentality here it's truly amazing.

HEY:

I'm the victim of some pretty vicious activity, including domain
hijacking.

So are many of you, no doubt.

It looks like the folks who run the .to domain are making this vicious
activity easier, even if just by their apparent mismanagement. The
proof of that is in the pudding, these creeps keep using them.

So why do so many react as if I'm the one who needs to be examined?

How about the spammers? The domain hijackers? The .to domain admins?

Is there just absolutely no interest in expending one bit of energy
over the bad guys?

Maybe some of you should really ask yourselves why you have such an
urge to harass and harangue the victim.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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