6 ms·

.ai

401 points by already 4y ago

spaghettiToy 4y ago
After getting one of these short domains/urls and it not working on my browser, I'll be a late adopter. I think I spent like $30/yr on whatever I bought too.
already 4y ago
.ai is a valid domain name
- riffic 4y ago
  technically it's `ai.`
  - eCa 4y ago
    Similarly, we’re on https://news.ycombinator.com./ (Weird new line to get the whole url displayed)
    - chrismorgan 4y ago
      No, that’s a different hostname. It will almost always resolve to the same IP address, and a large fraction of servers will serve the same content from the dotless and dotted forms, but they can serve something different (e.g. a redirect to the other form, or nothing), and it’s common for dotted versions of sites to be broken. All up, we’re not on the origin you showed.
      - hjV9H2bWu4ZhXPy 4y ago
        Nope, that's definitely the same hostname, and will always resolve to the same IP address, barring some real weirdness (someone's system applying the search domain to a domain that already contains dots, and then actually finding a result for `news.ycombinator.com.search.domain.`). And in fact even in the case of that weirdness, `news.ycombinator.com.` would get to the correct place, while `news.ycombinator.com` would NOT. Now, servers could certainly do the wrong thing when faced with a Host header ending in a `.`, but a) that's a bug in the web server (or browser, arguably - do they tack on a search domain to the Host header?) and b) is not a result of the wrong IP address etc. (It's also an HTTP-layer issue, not a DNS-layer issue, and doesn't apply to most other protocols.)
        chrismorgan 4y ago
        It is not a textual match, and this is observable at multiple points in the process. It is therefore a different hostname. It’s that simple. When I said “almost always”, I was referring to search domains as the exception, I just didn’t think it worth clarifying (though I was amused by the fact that it’s the oft-broken-at-HTTP-and-above one that’s reliable at DNS). Look, the difference is trivially demonstrated and eCa’s original claim trivially falsified: unless you’ve gone out of your way already, at https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ you’re logged in, at https://news.ycombinator.com./ https://news.ycombinator.com./ you’re not logged in, because the hostname and thus origin is different, and also they’re not same-site, and thus cookies and such are not shared. ai and www.ai might serve the same content, might have one redirect to the other, might serve different content: they’re different hostnames and different origins, they can do what they like and it’s no bug in anything. ai and ai. might serve the same content, might have one redirect to the other, might serve different content: they’re different hostnames and different origins, they can do what they like and it’s no bug in anything.
        hjV9H2bWu4ZhXPy 4y ago
        > It is not a textual match, and this is observable at multiple points in the process. It is therefore a different hostname. It’s that simple. Except that it is, in fact, the same hostname. "It's that simple." This is defined by DNS. Go open Wireshark and run `dig google.com @8.8.8.8 +nocookie` versus `dig google.com. @8.8.8.8 +nocookie`. Observe that the queries are identical other than the "Transaction ID" (and perhaps some IP or UDP-level randomness). Application-level software can get it wrong, but it is in fact the same hostname at a level that pretty much everyone uses. Application-level software getting it wrong does not invalidate that fact. You can not adopt an identifier from some other protocol, and then use it with a different meaning, without a bug. (Tangentially, this is why naming shouldn't be handled at the application layer, since it's already handled at lower levels. It's quite sad that no one wants to start moving HTTP towards SRV records.) > I was referring to search domains as the exception Yes, I assumed so, but as I pointed out, this would lead to the common one (news.ycombinator.com) being broken while the other (news.ycombinator.com.) would work (or else be broken by an application-layer bug, i.e. processing of the Host header causing it to break)! > ai and ai. might ... have one redirect to the other, might serve different content Then they would be broken. They are the same hostname and the same origin. They can not do what they like because there's no way they could resolve to a different address. (And, as above, to do so would actually lead to the site being inaccessible for some people with search domains, since `ai` might actually be used as a subdomain, and `ai.` would still work for them but for a faulty application-layer configuration)
mtmail 4y ago
See also "Shortest URLs on the Internet" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359
Retr0id 4y ago
The submission link is unnecessarily long, http://ai http://ai ought to work
- geowwy 4y ago
  http://ai/ http://ai/ doesn't work for me, but http://ai./ http://ai./ does
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    I get a SERVFAIL from what I presume to be systemd-resolved for both. When querying my router or 8.8.8.8 directly with dig, both work.
  - Bjartr 4y ago
    Neither works for me in Chrome on Android
    - pxeboot 4y ago
      They both work for me. I am using custom nameservers though.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      This is probably the most edge case url there is.
    - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
      http://ai./ http://ai./ works for me in Chrome with whatever my ISP default is.
    - bornfreddy 4y ago
      Both work for me in Firefox on MurenaOS (LineageOS based).
    - 4y ago
notpushkin 4y ago
You can submit just the ai. by the way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804251 HN gets confused and doesn't add the domain name after the link title though.
xwdv 4y ago
Has anyone called that phone number? Crazy
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Mr Vince Cate belongs on the front page of HN.
pdntspa 4y ago
How in the?
- zaik 4y ago
  Top level domain with an A record.
  - triyambakam 4y ago
    Can you explain further? That still doesn't make sense to me.
    - minhazm 4y ago
      See the link from the previous thread about this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359
torkya 4y ago
Very good power
layer8 4y ago
Previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689505 Comment of note: n@ai is also a valid email address. Owned by a guy named Ian. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689569)
- pards 4y ago
  I bet that fails all email address validation code
  - mizzao 4y ago
    "All models are wrong but some are useful" probably applies here. s/model/email validation code
  - cheschire 4y ago
    “Falsehoods programmers believe about email, volume 2022”
    - pvillano 4y ago
      earlier this week a website wouldn't let me create an account with my spam@mydomain.com address, but I could use myname@mydomain.com. Do they think spam bots have emails with spam in the address? Do they think I won't just filter their spam by sender if I can't buy recipient?
      - beeboop 4y ago
        I run into this a lot too
      - layer8 4y ago
        “Spam” is also a (rare) surname.
paulpauper 4y ago
this also works..amazing https://1.1 https://1.1 goes to cloudflare. how did they register this?
- mlyle 4y ago
  It's just the IP address 1.0.0.1 in the old "class A notation". (Network address dot host address). 1 is the network address. .0.0.1 is the host address. 1.256 would be 1.0.1.0, etc.
- chipsa 4y ago
  That's a bare ip. The ip is getting extended out to be a full 32 bit ipv4 address. It's not getting DNS resolved.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  There is an old (IIRC non-standard) convention from the classful IP times which allows you to write not only X.Y.Z.W but also X.Y.ZW, X.YZW, and occasionally even XYZW with ZW = 256 × Z + W (decimal) etc., all referring to the same host. So 1.0.1, 1.1, and 16777217 are all funny ways to write 1.0.0.1, which is indeed an alternative address for Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1—also written 1.1.257, 1.65793, and 16843009.
  - miguelrochefort 4y ago
    I wonder what will happen when browsers start supporting Handshake (HNS) top-level domains such as “.1”
    - mananaysiempre 4y ago
      I neither expect this to happen nor think this is a matter for browsers (rather than system name resolvers), but in any case[1] top-level domain names [must] not be all-numeric so these are simply bad DNS. Browsers, even though they deliberately disregard RFCs on matters of URI syntax, concur on this particular point[2] If asciiDomain [split on periods] ends in a [C-style decimal, octal, or hexadecimal] number, then return the result of IPv4 parsing asciiDomain. [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3696#section-2 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3696#section-2 [2] https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#host-parsing https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#host-parsing
myth_drannon 4y ago
Vince Cate also manages the auctions for .ai domains https://auction.whois.ai/auctions https://auction.whois.ai/auctions
nullbyte808 4y ago
The irony, starts a cryptography association and doesn't even use SSL.
- benreesman 4y ago
  Possible (half-serious) counter-point: people who understand cryptography know when it is and isn't necessary and don't need to default it on for everything like the rest of us mortals?
  - xurukefi 4y ago
    Serious counter-counter-point for anybody interested: HTTPS protects people from ISP-based MITM attacks. This by itself is more than enough reason to always use HTTPS if your website can be accessed by other people, even if it is just a small little innocent static blob of HTML.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      Can’t the ISP still know what site you are visiting?
      - mholt 4y ago
        Not necessarily. That's a simple question with a complex answer. There's a lot of "ifs" and maybes and it depends a lot on how the site is set up internally.
      - Graziano_M 4y ago
        That’s not really the point. Say the MITM just replaces the phone number with one of their own so that a potential client calls the wrong number and pays the wrong person.
    - ramblerman 4y ago
      doesn't man in the middle only apply if there were forms or anything requiring user input. I.e. a portion of the website is real, but the user interaction is attacked with MITM. If the risk is that an ISP would spoof the entire website at AI, then that can be done regardless of HTTPS.
slmjkdbtl 4y ago
The page also got some really good art
gzer0 4y ago
TLD's with A records AI AI http https 209.59.119.34 ARAB ARAB http https 127.0.53.53 BH BH http https 10.10.10.10,88.201.27.211 CM CM http https 195.24.205.60 CPA CPA http https 127.0.53.53 MUSIC MUSIC http https 127.0.53.53 PN PN http https 139.162.17.173 TK TK http https 217.119.57.22 UZ UZ http https 91.212.89.8 WS WS http https 64.70.19.33 Full list here: https://captnemo.in/tld-a-record/ https://captnemo.in/tld-a-record/
- captn3m0 4y ago
  I really need to get this running automatically again. Travis broke this a while back - need to migrate to GitHub Pages.
already 4y ago
Another one https://uz/ https://uz/
- adam12 4y ago
  "potential security risk"
  - dmix 4y ago
    It claims the SSL cert is invalid on Firefox but it appears to be a valid one (just assigned to a high level domain). Looks like a potential DNS parsing issue in FF?
    - jamespwilliams 4y ago
      As far as I can see (Chrome’s cert viewer), the cert is for *.cctld.uz, cctld.uz (which doesn’t match uz alone). Do you see different names in the cert?
      - themoonisachees 4y ago
        I see the same thing on Firefox.
alecfreudenberg 4y ago
What's up with the parked .Ai domain economy. The original bidding system is nice but gets dominated by investors who just park and wait for a valuable resell. I wish there was a use it or lose it clause
aasasd 4y ago
My Anki decks don't have Anguilla (afaik). Guess I need to compile a list of all the colony nations, and then decide whether I'm gonna be able to learn further dozens of spots in the oceans, and to distinguish them from the fully-sovereign sprinklings of islands.
carabiner 4y ago
Nice place to vacation. One of the quieter Carribean islands. Great food at the tourist restaurants, though expensive. Kind of jarring when you realize beyond the beaches and resorts, it's a third world country with people who are very poor and want to leave the island. I talked to one guy who worked construction and he desperately wanted to move to the US or the UK, mostly because it was so boring on the tiny island.
aaron695 4y ago
humanfromearth 4y ago
I love these post burning man posts.
unsignednoop 4y ago
>Removed Domains >The Government of Anguilla reserves the right to remove domains that are in its opinion hate speech or breaking any Anguilla law. There has been 1 such domain removed in the history of ".ai". Curious if anybody knows which domain was removed, the FAQ doesn't elaborate.
mamoriamohit 4y ago
For a second, I thought I am high.
vultour 4y ago
Are we now going to spam HN with all the links from the other “shortest domain” thread? There’s already several.
JoeyBananas 4y ago
this is the most "OG" domain name I've ever seen

401 points by already 4y ago

After getting one of these short domains/urls and it not working on my browser, I'll be a late adopter. I think I spent like $30/yr on whatever I bought too.

already 4y ago

.ai is a valid domain name

riffic 4y ago
technically it's `ai.`
- eCa 4y ago
  Similarly, we’re on https://news.ycombinator.com./ (Weird new line to get the whole url displayed)
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    No, that’s a different hostname. It will almost always resolve to the same IP address, and a large fraction of servers will serve the same content from the dotless and dotted forms, but they can serve something different (e.g. a redirect to the other form, or nothing), and it’s common for dotted versions of sites to be broken. All up, we’re not on the origin you showed.
    - hjV9H2bWu4ZhXPy 4y ago
      Nope, that's definitely the same hostname, and will always resolve to the same IP address, barring some real weirdness (someone's system applying the search domain to a domain that already contains dots, and then actually finding a result for `news.ycombinator.com.search.domain.`). And in fact even in the case of that weirdness, `news.ycombinator.com.` would get to the correct place, while `news.ycombinator.com` would NOT. Now, servers could certainly do the wrong thing when faced with a Host header ending in a `.`, but a) that's a bug in the web server (or browser, arguably - do they tack on a search domain to the Host header?) and b) is not a result of the wrong IP address etc. (It's also an HTTP-layer issue, not a DNS-layer issue, and doesn't apply to most other protocols.)
      - chrismorgan 4y ago
        It is not a textual match, and this is observable at multiple points in the process. It is therefore a different hostname. It’s that simple. When I said “almost always”, I was referring to search domains as the exception, I just didn’t think it worth clarifying (though I was amused by the fact that it’s the oft-broken-at-HTTP-and-above one that’s reliable at DNS). Look, the difference is trivially demonstrated and eCa’s original claim trivially falsified: unless you’ve gone out of your way already, at https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/ you’re logged in, at https://news.ycombinator.com./ https://news.ycombinator.com./ you’re not logged in, because the hostname and thus origin is different, and also they’re not same-site, and thus cookies and such are not shared. ai and www.ai might serve the same content, might have one redirect to the other, might serve different content: they’re different hostnames and different origins, they can do what they like and it’s no bug in anything. ai and ai. might serve the same content, might have one redirect to the other, might serve different content: they’re different hostnames and different origins, they can do what they like and it’s no bug in anything.
        hjV9H2bWu4ZhXPy 4y ago
        > It is not a textual match, and this is observable at multiple points in the process. It is therefore a different hostname. It’s that simple. Except that it is, in fact, the same hostname. "It's that simple." This is defined by DNS. Go open Wireshark and run `dig google.com @8.8.8.8 +nocookie` versus `dig google.com. @8.8.8.8 +nocookie`. Observe that the queries are identical other than the "Transaction ID" (and perhaps some IP or UDP-level randomness). Application-level software can get it wrong, but it is in fact the same hostname at a level that pretty much everyone uses. Application-level software getting it wrong does not invalidate that fact. You can not adopt an identifier from some other protocol, and then use it with a different meaning, without a bug. (Tangentially, this is why naming shouldn't be handled at the application layer, since it's already handled at lower levels. It's quite sad that no one wants to start moving HTTP towards SRV records.) > I was referring to search domains as the exception Yes, I assumed so, but as I pointed out, this would lead to the common one (news.ycombinator.com) being broken while the other (news.ycombinator.com.) would work (or else be broken by an application-layer bug, i.e. processing of the Host header causing it to break)! > ai and ai. might ... have one redirect to the other, might serve different content Then they would be broken. They are the same hostname and the same origin. They can not do what they like because there's no way they could resolve to a different address. (And, as above, to do so would actually lead to the site being inaccessible for some people with search domains, since `ai` might actually be used as a subdomain, and `ai.` would still work for them but for a faulty application-layer configuration)

mtmail 4y ago

See also "Shortest URLs on the Internet" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359

Retr0id 4y ago

The submission link is unnecessarily long, http://ai http://ai ought to work

geowwy 4y ago
http://ai/ http://ai/ doesn't work for me, but http://ai./ http://ai./ does
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  I get a SERVFAIL from what I presume to be systemd-resolved for both. When querying my router or 8.8.8.8 directly with dig, both work.
- Bjartr 4y ago
  Neither works for me in Chrome on Android
  - pxeboot 4y ago
    They both work for me. I am using custom nameservers though.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    This is probably the most edge case url there is.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    http://ai./ http://ai./ works for me in Chrome with whatever my ISP default is.
  - bornfreddy 4y ago
    Both work for me in Firefox on MurenaOS (LineageOS based).
  - 4y ago

notpushkin 4y ago

You can submit just the ai. by the way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32804251 HN gets confused and doesn't add the domain name after the link title though.

xwdv 4y ago

Has anyone called that phone number? Crazy

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Mr Vince Cate belongs on the front page of HN.

pdntspa 4y ago

How in the?

zaik 4y ago
Top level domain with an A record.
- triyambakam 4y ago
  Can you explain further? That still doesn't make sense to me.
  - minhazm 4y ago
    See the link from the previous thread about this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32801359

torkya 4y ago

Very good power

layer8 4y ago

Previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689505 Comment of note: n@ai is also a valid email address. Owned by a guy named Ian. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31689569)

pards 4y ago
I bet that fails all email address validation code
- mizzao 4y ago
  "All models are wrong but some are useful" probably applies here. s/model/email validation code
- cheschire 4y ago
  “Falsehoods programmers believe about email, volume 2022”
  - pvillano 4y ago
    earlier this week a website wouldn't let me create an account with my spam@mydomain.com address, but I could use myname@mydomain.com. Do they think spam bots have emails with spam in the address? Do they think I won't just filter their spam by sender if I can't buy recipient?
    - beeboop 4y ago
      I run into this a lot too
    - layer8 4y ago
      “Spam” is also a (rare) surname.

paulpauper 4y ago

this also works..amazing https://1.1 https://1.1 goes to cloudflare. how did they register this?

mlyle 4y ago
It's just the IP address 1.0.0.1 in the old "class A notation". (Network address dot host address). 1 is the network address. .0.0.1 is the host address. 1.256 would be 1.0.1.0, etc.
chipsa 4y ago
That's a bare ip. The ip is getting extended out to be a full 32 bit ipv4 address. It's not getting DNS resolved.
mananaysiempre 4y ago
There is an old (IIRC non-standard) convention from the classful IP times which allows you to write not only X.Y.Z.W but also X.Y.ZW, X.YZW, and occasionally even XYZW with ZW = 256 × Z + W (decimal) etc., all referring to the same host. So 1.0.1, 1.1, and 16777217 are all funny ways to write 1.0.0.1, which is indeed an alternative address for Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1—also written 1.1.257, 1.65793, and 16843009.
- miguelrochefort 4y ago
  I wonder what will happen when browsers start supporting Handshake (HNS) top-level domains such as “.1”
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    I neither expect this to happen nor think this is a matter for browsers (rather than system name resolvers), but in any case[1] top-level domain names [must] not be all-numeric so these are simply bad DNS. Browsers, even though they deliberately disregard RFCs on matters of URI syntax, concur on this particular point[2] If asciiDomain [split on periods] ends in a [C-style decimal, octal, or hexadecimal] number, then return the result of IPv4 parsing asciiDomain. [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3696#section-2 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3696#section-2 [2] https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#host-parsing https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#host-parsing

myth_drannon 4y ago

Vince Cate also manages the auctions for .ai domains https://auction.whois.ai/auctions https://auction.whois.ai/auctions

nullbyte808 4y ago

The irony, starts a cryptography association and doesn't even use SSL.

benreesman 4y ago
Possible (half-serious) counter-point: people who understand cryptography know when it is and isn't necessary and don't need to default it on for everything like the rest of us mortals?
- xurukefi 4y ago
  Serious counter-counter-point for anybody interested: HTTPS protects people from ISP-based MITM attacks. This by itself is more than enough reason to always use HTTPS if your website can be accessed by other people, even if it is just a small little innocent static blob of HTML.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Can’t the ISP still know what site you are visiting?
    - mholt 4y ago
      Not necessarily. That's a simple question with a complex answer. There's a lot of "ifs" and maybes and it depends a lot on how the site is set up internally.
    - Graziano_M 4y ago
      That’s not really the point. Say the MITM just replaces the phone number with one of their own so that a potential client calls the wrong number and pays the wrong person.
  - ramblerman 4y ago
    doesn't man in the middle only apply if there were forms or anything requiring user input. I.e. a portion of the website is real, but the user interaction is attacked with MITM. If the risk is that an ISP would spoof the entire website at AI, then that can be done regardless of HTTPS.

slmjkdbtl 4y ago

The page also got some really good art

gzer0 4y ago

TLD's with A records AI AI http https 209.59.119.34 ARAB ARAB http https 127.0.53.53 BH BH http https 10.10.10.10,88.201.27.211 CM CM http https 195.24.205.60 CPA CPA http https 127.0.53.53 MUSIC MUSIC http https 127.0.53.53 PN PN http https 139.162.17.173 TK TK http https 217.119.57.22 UZ UZ http https 91.212.89.8 WS WS http https 64.70.19.33 Full list here: https://captnemo.in/tld-a-record/ https://captnemo.in/tld-a-record/

captn3m0 4y ago
I really need to get this running automatically again. Travis broke this a while back - need to migrate to GitHub Pages.

already 4y ago

Another one https://uz/ https://uz/

adam12 4y ago
"potential security risk"
- dmix 4y ago
  It claims the SSL cert is invalid on Firefox but it appears to be a valid one (just assigned to a high level domain). Looks like a potential DNS parsing issue in FF?
  - jamespwilliams 4y ago
    As far as I can see (Chrome’s cert viewer), the cert is for *.cctld.uz, cctld.uz (which doesn’t match uz alone). Do you see different names in the cert?
    - themoonisachees 4y ago
      I see the same thing on Firefox.

alecfreudenberg 4y ago

What's up with the parked .Ai domain economy. The original bidding system is nice but gets dominated by investors who just park and wait for a valuable resell. I wish there was a use it or lose it clause

aasasd 4y ago

My Anki decks don't have Anguilla (afaik). Guess I need to compile a list of all the colony nations, and then decide whether I'm gonna be able to learn further dozens of spots in the oceans, and to distinguish them from the fully-sovereign sprinklings of islands.

carabiner 4y ago

Nice place to vacation. One of the quieter Carribean islands. Great food at the tourist restaurants, though expensive. Kind of jarring when you realize beyond the beaches and resorts, it's a third world country with people who are very poor and want to leave the island. I talked to one guy who worked construction and he desperately wanted to move to the US or the UK, mostly because it was so boring on the tiny island.

aaron695 4y ago

humanfromearth 4y ago

I love these post burning man posts.

unsignednoop 4y ago

>Removed Domains >The Government of Anguilla reserves the right to remove domains that are in its opinion hate speech or breaking any Anguilla law. There has been 1 such domain removed in the history of ".ai". Curious if anybody knows which domain was removed, the FAQ doesn't elaborate.

mamoriamohit 4y ago

For a second, I thought I am high.

vultour 4y ago

Are we now going to spam HN with all the links from the other “shortest domain” thread? There’s already several.

JoeyBananas 4y ago

this is the most "OG" domain name I've ever seen