AlterNIC was an unofficial, controversial
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
domain name registry
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a do ...
that relied on an
alternative DNS root. The primary purpose of the project was to challenge the monopoly of
InterNIC
The Network Information Center (NIC), also known as InterNIC from 1993 until 1998, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until Oc ...
, the official governing body for
generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...
s (gTLDs) until the creation of the
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespac ...
in 1998. AlterNIC offered second level domain registration in its own
TLDs at lower prices than InterNIC. However, these domain names could only be resolved by
name server
A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...
s that were specifically configured to use the AlterNIC
root zone. The project is now defunct; the domain name
alternic.net is
parked
''Parked'' is a 2011 Irish drama film written by Ciaran Creagh and directed by Darragh Byrne about homelessness, friendship, and the will to survive adversity, whilst still retaining poise. It premiered at the 2010 Torino Film Festival
Plot
Having ...
and no longer associated with AlterNIC.
History
Eugene Kashpureff and Diane Boling created AlterNIC in 1995, defining it as a privately developed and operated
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
network information center and
domain name registry
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names and the associated registrant information in the top level domains of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet that enables third party entities to request administrative control of a do ...
service, with the purpose of enhancing the Internet with new information services.
In the mid-1990s, the Internet was in a governance transition phase. Until then, the
organizational structure
An organizational structure defines how activities such as task allocation, coordination, and supervision are directed toward the achievement of organizational aims.
Organizational structure affects organizational action and provides the founda ...
of the network was still heavily influenced by its
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...
,
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...
and
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...
al origins. At the same time, there was a rapidly increasing interest of
private companies
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared ...
, followed by the general public, to gain access to the Internet.
Domain name
A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. ...
s began to play a crucial role in
business visibility
The visibility is the measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. In meteorology it depends on the transparency of the surrounding air and as such, it is unchanging no matter the ambient light level or time of ...
, and the number of registrations grew
exponentially
Exponential may refer to any of several mathematical topics related to exponentiation, including:
*Exponential function, also:
**Matrix exponential, the matrix analogue to the above
*Exponential decay, decrease at a rate proportional to value
* Exp ...
.
Initially, registration of new domain names and their maintenance involved no direct costs for the registrant. In 1995, the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
authorized
Network Solutions
Network Solutions, LLC is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th largest .com domain name registrar with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name registrar, Network S ...
(NSI), the private company that they had mandated to maintain and operate the registries, to begin charging registrants an annual fee. Some perceived this move as unfair, given that the market was closed to
competitors
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
.
Eugene Kashpureff and company were among them and they decided to create an alternative registry to challenge the
monopoly
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
of NSI.
Alternative TLDs
AlterNIC started operating their registries even though their
name server
A name server refers to the server component of the Domain Name System (DNS), one of the two principal namespaces of the Internet. The most important function of DNS servers is the translation (resolution) of human-memorable domain names (example. ...
s were not included in the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
official
root zone. As a result, only users of manually reconfigured name servers were able to resolve AlterNIC names.
AlterNIC offered several dozens of alternative
TLDs, such as
*
.alt
*
.biz (unrelated to the subsequent, official
.biz
.biz is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for registration of domains to be used by businesses. The name is a phonetic spelling of the first syllable of ''business''.
History
The TLD ...
gTLD created by the
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespac ...
)
*
.corp
*
.eur (European name services, by NetName)
*
.fam
*
.fcn (Free Community Network - no cost DNS for charities & non-profits. Inactive.)
*
.free
*
.sex
*
.usa (designed as a competitor to the official
.us
.us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States. It was established in early 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be U.S. citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United ...
)
*
.wtv (World Tele Virtual Network commercial Internet TV. Inactive.)
*
.xxx (unrelated to the
.xxx
.xxx (pronounced "dot triple- ecks" or "dot ecks ecks ecks") is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) intended as a voluntary option for pornographic sites on the Internet. The sponsoring organization is the International Foundation for Online R ...
that was first approved, then revoked by the ICANN, and then approved again)
During the experimental phase, domains could be registered without fees using the
.exp and
.lnx TLDs. Some TLDs such as
.ltd,
.med or
.xxx were operated directly by AlterNIC. The setup fee for AlterNIC registries was $50. The annual fee was $24, half of the $50 that were charged yearly by
NSI for a
.com or
.net domain ($15 of the $50 were retained for a
US Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
fund).
A notable feature of AlterNIC was the possibility to request a new custom TLD for the same price as for registrations in existing TLDs. Established
publishing groups had requested their own names:
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...
magazine had reserved
.wired[George Lawton,, SunWorld, 1996-09-16, retrieved through Archive.org] and
IDG's affiliate in Europe has reserved
.idg
Controversy
A part of the
Internet community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...
has praised the initiative, with some recent scholarship proposing that alternative DNS roots may allow for a more democratic network control structure. Yet many others considered it harmful to the Internet. Using an
alternative DNS root breaks the principle of
universal resolvability
Universal is the adjective for universe.
Universal may also refer to:
Companies
* NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company
** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal
** Universal TV, a ...
, unless it is for a strictly private purpose. From a DNS perspective, it prevents some parts of the Internet from reaching other parts.
Jon Postel
Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards. He is known principally for bei ...
, a significant contributor to
Internet standard
In computer network engineering, an Internet Standard is a normative specification of a technology or methodology applicable to the Internet. Internet Standards are created and published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). They allow ...
s, asserted that it would lead to chaos.
In May 2000, the
Internet Architecture Board
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is "a committee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an advisory body of the Internet Society (ISOC). Its responsibilities include architectural oversight of IETF activities, Internet Standards ...
spoke out strongly against alternative roots in RFC 2826.
Hijacking of InterNIC's website
On July 11, 1997, against the advice of his AlterNIC colleagues, Kashpureff
hijacked the
InterNIC
The Network Information Center (NIC), also known as InterNIC from 1993 until 1998, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until Oc ...
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...
, redirecting affected visitors to the AlterNIC website instead, where they could read about the AlterNIC protest or click a link to the InterNIC page.
[Janet Kornblum, ]
AlterNIC founder faces extradition
', CNET News, 1997-11-13. Retrieved 2010-03-22 Kashpureff stopped the hijacking three days later on July 14, but started it again on July 18.
[Janet Kornblum, ]
', CNET News, 1997-11-03. Retrieved 2010-03-22 This led
NSI, the operator of the
InterNIC
The Network Information Center (NIC), also known as InterNIC from 1993 until 1998, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until Oc ...
website, to file a
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
against Kashpureff.
The civil lawsuit was quickly settled, but NSI had also contacted the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
to investigate whether Kashpureff had broken federal computer crime laws. On October 31, he was arrested in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...
on U.S. charges related to
wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activit ...
and faced
extradition
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisd ...
to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
. After fighting extradition for two months, he waived his rights, and was extradited to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
. He was released on December 24, given a $100 fine and sentenced to two years
probation
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.
In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences ( alternatives to incarceration), suc ...
.
The hijacking was made possible using a
DNS cache poisoning attack, exploiting a
security vulnerability
Vulnerabilities are flaws in a computer system that weaken the overall security of the device/system. Vulnerabilities can be weaknesses in either the hardware itself, or the software that runs on the hardware. Vulnerabilities can be exploited by ...
in versions of
BIND
BIND () is a suite of software for interacting with the Domain Name System (DNS). Its most prominent component, named (pronounced ''name-dee'': , short for ''name daemon''), performs both of the main DNS server roles, acting as an authoritative ...
earlier than 4.9.6.
[ ]
References
External links
* (their last copy before the domain began being used for advertising is of {{Cite web , url=http://www.alternic.net/ , title=AlterNIC.NET Alternative Internet Domain Name Network Information Center , access-date=June 4, 2005 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990421130102/http://www.alternic.net/ , archive-date=April 21, 1999 , url-status=bot: unknown , df=mdy-all )
Eugene Kashpureff's personal homepage
Alternative Internet DNS services
History of the Internet