Zachariah

Why are these wires on this water tower? What do they do?

Specifically: Because the .mu registry (TLD operator) is a ccTLD, it can re-price any domain at any time.

This is a follow up to: https://programming.dev/post/27587527.

Conclusion:
Carefully read the terms and conditions if you choose to register a ccTLD. They are not bound by the ICANN Registry Agreement.

Gandi contacted the .mu registry about the price increase, and the registry has assigned premium pricing to all 2-character and 3-character domains regardless of whether they're premium or not. This would not be allowed if .mu was a gTLD. The .mu registry will not be grandfathering any domains registered and continually renewed since before premium domains were invented. I have reached out to the .mu TLD registry directly, and I am waiting to see if my personal plea will sway them. If they don't change their minds, I'll lose this domain on Tuesday.

Timeline:
I went to renew my domain about two weeks before it expiring, and discovered the renewal price went from $170 to $5,600 (or 32 years price for just one year). Usually, I do this much sooner, but my life has been crazy. Even three weeks ago I was barely functioning because of a sinus infection.

I contacted Gandi, my registrar, and at first they were less than helpful. Eventually, they did escalate my ticket to their legal department who contacted the .mu registry.

Gandi informed me that the .mu registry reclassified all 2-character and 3-character domains as premium. Gandi was not notified of the change, so that explains why I was not notified. Gandi said they do not agree with the reclassification of these domains—including mine. But, unfortunately, it's not up to Gandi. They requested that the .mu registry reconsider but have had no reply.

I then emailed ICANN about this because I was under the impression that the Registry Agreement governed all registries, and the reclassification is clearly a breach of the agreement. Unfortunately, ICANN let me know that this agreement doesn't apply to ccTLDs.

I have now sent an email directly to the .mu registry, hoping that a personal plea may make a difference.

I am not optimistic. In the end, I will probably lose the domain. I will make sure to complain about .mu domains as much as possible if I lose it. I will also be weary of registering any ccTLDs in the future. I only have a couple.

It's been a wild ride. Many points where I was almost hopeful, but it's probably just another case of the little guy getting screwed, and the big guy too rich to care.

I am scrolling All, I have scrolled a long way, and I tap on a post. 

Then I’m done, I tap < Back, and then accidentally tap < Communities. 

I end up on this screen: 

In Apollo, I used to be able to swipe the bottom of the screen to get right back where I am. 

In Voyager, I can only get back by tapping All in the list. 

I return to All, but I’m back at the top and lose my scrolling progress.

Update 2025-04-04 Here: https://programming.dev/post/28065778

I have had a two-letter .mu domain since 2011. I went to renew it this year, and the renewal price is showing as $5,600 in my cart, but the renewal price on the registrar’s website says $170 as it had been for many years.

I have put in a ticket to get an explanation, but I fear it’s some “premium domain” bullshit from the TLD operator.

I have two weeks to figure this out. I’m really hoping I can appeal somehow. Does anyone have any experience negotiating with a TLD operator?

I tried adding it to the cart of a different registrar for transfer, and although their transfer price for this TLD is listed as $75, it’s showing $5,516.50 for the transfer price when it’s in my cart.

My site is just a fun artistic site with no ads, tracking, store, or anything. I spend $170 a year on it and don’t make any money from it.

I have tons of other domains, but it’ll hurt letting this one go. Should I give up on any hope of keeping it?

Even if I could somehow get donations to keep it alive this year, I’d just lose it next year. I don’t have thousands to spend on it each year. I’m so sad about this.

Under Filters and Blocks, I’d love to see an option to:

• Hide posts from users less than X days old (and an option to choose how long with a default of 8 days)
• Hide comments from users less than X days old (and an option to choose how long with a default of 2 days)

It’s the posts I want to hide more than the comments.

I'd appreciate any thoughts anyone has on MySecureShell.

I used it about eight years ago, and it was exactly what I wanted. I know I can create a sftp chroot jail using OpenSSH, but MySecureShell has additional features I really like.

I like that the config is all in one place. I like that the user can only use sftp and only sees a specified directory and it's contents. I like that I can limit simultaneous connections and rate limit the bandwidth over all and per user. It's compatible with fail2ban and ssh keys (instead of username-password login).

Unfortunately, it looks like the last update was five years ago. I guess this could mean it's mature and secure, but I'm not sure.

The last reply in mysecureshell/Issues was this year, but it was not by the maintainer. The maintainer, deimosfr, is still active on github, having contributed last in December, 2024. User Teka101 has contributed to the project at least once and last replied to an issue a year ago.

The documentation says it's for 1.33, but the version in the Ubuntu repo is 2.0

I'm on a much faster connection now, so I guess I could live without the limiting functionality.

I guess I'm looking for any reasons I should or should not consider using MySecureShell again. It'll just be for half a dozen friends for when I want to give them larger files, or if I want them to send me full-resolution photos.

I'm on Xubuntu 24.04 and would open a port on my router to allow connections (some high number mapped to 22 on this machine), or possibly give my friends access to my LAN via WireGuard but limit it to this machine.

I saw this sign near a church once. It seems to be them admitting prayer doesn’t do anything.