Am I Crazy or is the Mali Government Reclaiming the ml Domain Now is too Convenient of a Time?

lemmy.fmhy.ml is down because of this, and lemmy.ml (which is one of the largest lemmy instance) might be next.

Is this a conspiracy?

  • @[email protected]
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    4111 months ago

    A conspiracy by whom? To do what?

    Top level domains are a significant source of revenue. As the “.ml” gets used more often due to “machine learning” of course the government will try and explore this further.

    • @[email protected]
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      411 months ago

      I knew I shouldn’t have posted grandma’s secret butter recipe on .fmhy.ml (the secret is you churn it)

  • @[email protected]
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    4011 months ago

    A conspiracy to do what? Take down Lemmy? I swear people here overstate our importance. This is a comparatively tiny website.

    Wasn’t the contract ending causing the domain control to transfer to Mali known for quite a while?

    • @[email protected]
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      1711 months ago

      Also, I’m now picturing a general in a war room in Mali saying “This Lemmy site is becoming too powerful. Shut it down. They should’ve known better than to mess with Mali! Muahahahah!”

      • HipPriest
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        311 months ago

        This got a proper laugh out of me and that rarely happens, well done!

  • @wildbus8979
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    11 months ago

    They aren’t “reclaiming” the top level domain, they’ve always owned it. They are simply not renewing the contract which was ending with Freenom.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    ml was managed by freenom for a long time. They made it available alongside tk domains.

    Freenom stopped operations for sometime and both Mali and Tokelau are in the process of taking over their registrars from freenom.

    It’s more of an example of a coincidence than a conspiracy.

    • @Lucidlethargy
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      711 months ago

      This is so incredibly stupid… People who leak national secrets because they can’t be trusted to check their URL’s and/or email addresses shouldn’t be allowed to use those same communication methods.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        There’s this MD who I get so much privileged info that should be going to his practice, all because he’s pissed I got to google a decade before he discovered the internet. One of these days I’m gonna hippa the hipaa hippo his ass

      • TheWoozy
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        111 months ago

        People who use internet attached email to send classified information shouldn’t be allowed near classified information.

  • Gutotito
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    1311 months ago

    I can’t imagine why. As much as I love the fediverse and what it stands for, it’s barely a blip on anyone’s radar at this point.

    • Bipta
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      711 months ago

      Nation TLDs are used pretty frequently and this is really never the outcome.

      • redcalcium
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        11 months ago

        It has happened before with the .ly domains about a year before the US invasion of Libya. Tech companies were scrambling to find a solution back then. Presumably they struck a backroom deal with the Syrian government.

      • Flax
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        211 months ago

        My instance is .uk, many places use .gg or .io, ironically all of those are British

  • redcalcium
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    11 months ago
    • A company somehow secured a contract with Mali government to manage .ml TLD
    • Said company then offer free .ml domain registration, with a catch (the domain is not actually yours). They also sell the domain and if you pay for it, the domain will be really yours contractually.
    • The contract between the company and Mali government came to an end, and the control of .ml TLD has been transferred back to Mali government
    • Mali government decided they want all those free domains back and did just that. Those domains will likely available for sale again later on.
    • why Lemmy.ml is not affected? I’m not sure. Does Lemmy.ml use the free domain service, or actually paid for the domain? Or does it survive simply because it has absurdly long TTL on it’s DNS entries?
    • Flax
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      011 months ago

      They are taking it down because they always gave out .ml domains for free. Like just buy a domain, gosh. They only cost like £10 a year

  • AlexisFR
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    311 months ago

    No, that’s just the consequence of choosing a cheap domain name.

  • Norgur
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    211 months ago

    If there was a conspiracy, then it would be because of the military mails thing that went public a few days ago. It’s not, the switch was to be expected, but still. They’re not after stupid Lemmy, if anything, they are after military secrets