Seeing the list of contacts for delegated subdomains reminds me of a time when there were a lot more local ISP's. Inreach.com for Stockton, lodinet (possibly an ISP?) for Lodi..
But the one that really shocked me was https://www.snowcrest.com/mysc/ - which seems to still be up and running?? I wonder if the login page for webmail (ISP-provided email was a thing! And even hosting space!) still works.
Seeing the *.k12.oh.us in the delegated subdomains brought me back to highschool. When I was little I always wondered why the city name was before k12. Didn't know it was structured like that everywhere.
Some similarities to *.<lastname>.name -- one of which is that the Public Suffix List thinks you're part of a single site with others you have no control over. Another is the weird registration procedure, but this one is weirder!
If you have hierarchical naming, which DNS does, then the problem of name clashes is always a problem for whoever sits above those names and they can resolve it however they like.
If your state thought it was a good idea to have two cities named "Star City" that's on them to resolve however they like. Trial by endurance for the city mayor? Draw lots? Everybody in the state votes? Not my monkeys, not my circus.
That gets extremely complicated. My town straddles the border between 2 counties. And you can't trivially have subdomains for counties and cities at the same level, because Wyoming has a Laramie city but it's in Albany County, not the neighboring Laramie County.
Did this just inspire the next "Falsehoods programmers believe about... Federalism"?
You're right, but typically, when two towns in a state share a name, only one is an incorporated city at most. The other, or both, are usually unincorporated communities. Normally, unincorporated communities do not receive a city.state.us locality domain.
I had one, registered I think in 1991, back in the uucp bang days. Had to give it up due to changes in requirements and IIRC Nustar being a real pain. Would like to get it back but no desire to jump through hoops to do so.
Definitely keep in mind that right or wrong, these hosts are unusual as far as most commercial services are concerned and it can reveal annoying edge cases in their software.
But the one that really shocked me was https://www.snowcrest.com/mysc/ - which seems to still be up and running?? I wonder if the login page for webmail (ISP-provided email was a thing! And even hosting space!) still works.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090909141302/http://neustar.us...
If your state thought it was a good idea to have two cities named "Star City" that's on them to resolve however they like. Trial by endurance for the city mayor? Draw lots? Everybody in the state votes? Not my monkeys, not my circus.
Did this just inspire the next "Falsehoods programmers believe about... Federalism"?
I'm guessing Route 53 is also an option if you don't want to go through Lightsail.
Edit: Although Route 53 will cost a few cents per month.
Edit: already linked in the article! That's what I get for not reading to the end!