From HN threads about registrars, they seem to be a preferred registrar in general - it's not hugely surprising that scammers share similar preferences.
people who set up websites that they don't want tracked back to them - historically speaking gay people might want to be anonymous in all sorts of scenarios and for all sorts of reasons.
I'm working helping out an artistic collective in which the various members are anonymous to various degrees. There may need to be anonymity in paying for services - this is an obvious necessity nowadays - for example the whole recent situation over the 'I sexually identify as an attack Helicopter' story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_Atta...
so - off the top of my head:
often abused or oppressed minorities.
artists.
on edit: obv. slow to takedown is important for artists or controversial people as well.
Historical gay people aren't buying websites today. And plenty of registrars already allow private registration. Artists who remain anonymous typically solve the problem through having a trusted representative. E.g., someone like yourself.
>Historical gay people aren't buying websites today.
it's hard for me to take that statement as having been made in good faith but at any rate when I say historically I do not mean if someone was building a website in 1950 they sure would want to be anonymous I mean that throughout history, up until the present day there are people who want to remain anonymous who are not scammers and used gay people as an example - which gay people sometimes want to remain anonymously gay but express themselves even today!
And then I linked the description of a story published last year in which the anonymous author was harassed over sexual issues.
Given the example I linked to then
>Artists who remain anonymous typically solve the problem through having a trusted representative. E.g., someone like yourself.
It might be that representatives of controversial artists or the technical help for such might like some level of anonymity themselves, given that anonymous writers can receive death threats it seems that public representatives of such can receive them as well.
I asked you for examples. It was entirely in good faith for me to point out that your first example was not actually an example.
Fall was already anonymous, and her anonymity was protected by the editor, just as I described. So anonymous payment for a web presence, one that she didn't have, wouldn't have helped here. And as you point out, the anonymity didn't prevent her from getting criticism (not harassment as far as I know); indeed, one of the lessons of the Fall incident seems to be that poorly managed anonymity breeds unnecessary suspicion.
As to your last "might be", anything might be. What I'm looking for is an example of where the social harm that can come through anonymity, specifically anonymous payment, is worth putting up with to provide some social good. So far I'm still looking.
As it is, I'll note that even your well-performed outrage over fears of harassment doesn't is out of place here, as harassers often make vigorous use of anonymity. E.g., look at Near, the latest addition to the KiwiFarms kill count.
>I asked you for examples. It was entirely in good faith for me to point out that your first example was not actually an example.
well, I used the phrase historically speaking which normally when I see it used in the manner in which I used it the meaning is "this has happened in the past therefore we should be wary of it happening in the future" but you seemed to take it to mean "this has happened in the past but the past is a foreign country and thus we don't need to worry about it happening again." So yes, if you assume that similar things to things that have happened in the past cannot happen today then my example wouldn't be one. But otherwise you didn't really point out my first example wasn't one.
>So anonymous payment for a web presence, one that she didn't have, wouldn't have helped here.
I guess we must think in very different ways because I was just making an example of how artists might want to be anonymous because otherwise they can have bad effects from releasing their art. I chose the most recent example I could think of, and also I chose this one because the attacks were generally from the left while I tend to think of retaliation for homosexuality as stemming from the right.
>As to your last "might be", anything might be.
ok so we're in agreement then that there might be people who are not scammers who want to be anonymous. And since you bring it up also not harassers.
>What I'm looking for is an example of where the social harm that can come through anonymity, specifically anonymous payment, is worth putting up with to provide some social good.
Ok well I don't know if I can provide that, as I don't know how to calculate the social harm and how to calculate the social good. I just know some people who would like to be anonymous for non-scamming purposes.
>I'll note that even your well-performed outrage
whatever.
on edit: obviously I believe in order to have an anonymous identity one has to be able to pay anonymously, so despite my not writing anonymous payment each time I wrote anonymous I assume the ability to pay anonymously is wrapped up in the ability to be anonymous on the internet.
I appreciate you clarifying you have no examples of non-scammer people who need anonymous payment for websites. That was my question, and you have answered it. Maybe next time you could skip the drama and just say so?
I have plenty of good faith here. What I don't have is time for people who when asked reasonable questions give drama instead of answers.
Is online harassment a big problem? Yes, and it's one I spend my days working to solve. Is the inability to anonymously pay for a domain name a significant part of that problem? No, it isn't.
I see your argument, and after having browsed around on your homepage and such, I see that you are a reasonable guy.
Is it really so hard to believe that there are legitimate reasons for wanting to anonymously acquire a domain name? One of the selling points of crypto currencies is the ability to do anonymous payments. That's multi-billion dollars big (even if one considers most of that somewhere between "scam" and "bubble"). All sorts of people desire anonymity in what they do, not just criminals. The GP may not have made the case very well, but minorities are certainly weary of being tracked, so are one example of a group that may desire an extra layer of protection.
It's not hard to imagine other groups. Dissidents, folks who want to keep focus on message instead of messenger, whistleblowers, .. It may be hard to see this from a privileged point of view (mine certainly is), but that doesn't mean it's not real or that only criminals want anonymity.
I'm not very interested in imagining the reasons. And I'm not interested at all in things other people imagine and then use to justify real-world policy. If we're weighing against actual harm, what I want is other actualities.
in what world is that the only possible thing a provider could do against abuse? Scam domains always are on a timer, a big part of it is if a registrar is responsive to abuse reports or not.
They're surprisingly lax with verification, even on ccTLDs with requires actual verification of details they just rubber-stamp what you've said is your contact details.
Probably because you're only registering domains within lax TLDs.
Certain TLDs (like those under .uk, .cn, .jp, or .sg for example) requires more documents in theory - and at least with other domain name providers like Gandi, they asked for my ID and a letter from my company stating that I indeed was authorised to be a representative for that company, plus proof that the company exists (it's easy in the UK because it's already in a public database anyway, so we just send our company number and proof that we're that company), to verify that it is indeed me, authorised by my company, when registering at .uk (and similar arrangements for ccTLDs with similar requirements).
Namecheap on the other hand... well, they just trust you, period.
Even if they were to verify such details, that doesn’t preclude the purchaser from committing fraud or scamming others. There’s no way for a seller (namecheap) to ensure their product (domain) is not associated with misuse, just like any other real world sales.
It's not that sales slip through, it's that they refuse takedowns even when provided with legal cases and police reports against dead obvious scam sites.
99% of the phishing domains that target my company's site come from Namecheap. I don't know why they can't get their act together when it comes to fraudulent domain registration.
They seem to be the preferred DNS provider for this sort of thing.