Setting up a free *.city.state.us locality domain (2025)(fredchan.org) |
Setting up a free *.city.state.us locality domain (2025)(fredchan.org) |
Now, I'm trying to recreate how I found that, and I can't. But if anyone is interested, try: hostmaster [at] 50N1C [dot] net (spell sonic correctly).
(I’ve recently registered a .bt domain by filling out a PDF form, hand-signing it, scanning and sending to a Bhutan Telecom admin. Changing a nameserver would probably be a similar procedure now, and involves a one-time fee if I recall correctly.)
Can you setup wildcards? Like for example *.[name].san-fransisco.ca.us? That way I can do this once for my own name and have it setup for all future needs as well.
I'm very confused by this entry. There isn't even a miami subdomain, just a Dade subdomain.
root-servers.net -> cctld.us -> localitymanagement.us -> miami.fl.us
And it ends there with an NXDOMAIN. Unsurprisingly, a list archived in 2009[1] is no longer accurate. If I'm reading this Internet Monthly Report[2] correctly, that domain came into existence in October 1998.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20090909141302/http://neustar.us...
[2]: https://www.iana.org/archive/internet-monthly-reports/1998/i...
Are these companies getting paid for this service?
MD BALTIMORE.MD.US. alby@uunet.uu.net
I am guessing that uunet email address is not going to go anywhere!
Edit: already linked in the article! That's what I get for not reading to the end!
Did this just inspire the next "Falsehoods programmers believe about... Federalism"?
There are a handful of other independent cities in the US, but the vast majority are in Virginia.
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.
Ohio doesn't (or at least historically didn't) have a highlander restriction for incorporated cities.
Oakwood, Cuyahoga County was incorporated in 1951 although Oakwood, Montgomery County was incorporated in 1908. There's also an Oakwood in Paulding County, but its wikipedia page doesn't have an incorporation date or explicitly declare it incorporated or not. I thought there was a famous Ohio city with a same named city elsewhere, but I must have been thinking of somewhere else. I will note that Pennsylvania has an awful lot of same named Townships.
City name in the US ends up being a pretty wild concept when you dig into the details. Often what people are using as a 'city name' is really the name of their post office which statistically has a high correlation with the city they live in. But of course, lots of people live outside incorporated cities, and postal boundaries are independent of political boundaries.
Manhattan: New York County
Brooklyn: Kings County
The Bronx: Bronx County
Queens: Queens County
Staten Island: Richmond County
All New York City. Same municipality, 5 counties.
New York City is a place so nice
Everybody says it so they had to name it twice
New York my happy love's you
(I love you very much)
I could not live without you
So let's always keep in touch
https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...
A quick search shows that Oakwood in Paulding County has it's own PO and zip code 45873 and Oakwood, Cuyahoga County has 44146.
I suspect that the postal service is much more forgiving on duplicate town names since the advent of zip codes.
One of the registrars is from an out of state operator that has been dead for three years. I tracked his widow down and had a number of cordial conversations over about 18 months. I've helped his widow renew some personal domains but she's recently told me that she's going to stop paying the hosting bill of the locality registrar and it'll shut down June 1st. I've offered to take over hosting, we'll see if she is convinced.
Several other locality users will likely also see their domains disappear once that happens as the USTLD registrar will require a notarized letter from the city/county of that domain to approve any "new" (new in their system) domains. Not easy for any mid or large sized city in the US.
I love locality domains clearly, but the bureaucracy applied since the start has piled up over the years.
I do worry that this poor Seattle ISP is going to get DDoS'ed by outsider (find an appropriate locality please if you go down this route) due to the popularity of this article, though!
RIP Jon.
In the 90s when learning about the internet I remember reading stuff written by "Jon Postel", a univeristy employee in California
Today, a curious student trying to learn about the internet would probably end up reading stuff written by "Big Tech" and/or academics who have financial relationships with these or other so-called "tech" companies
I remember Postel and one other person, perhaps at SRI, I forget her name, had a plan for these sort of hierarchical geographical domainnames. I recall it was _not_ commercial in nature. It "seemed like" Postel saw the internet, including DNS, as a public service. Needless to say, any such non-commercial vision was not realised
ICANN DNS became a money grab
If Postel had survived to today, would he have sold out like so many of his peers
I like to pretend he would not but I have no idea
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1480.txt
If so, the other person was Ann W Cooper
AFAIK Cooper was never at SRI, but Postel was at one time
Putting aside the inaccurate memory, the point I wish to make as an ordinary computer user reading about the internet is that Postel wrote about the internet as a _public resource_. Check out the tone of this random Postel RFC, for example
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1591.txt
Postel received a PhD in Computer Science in 1974 from UCLA and, apparently, he was a _two-finger typist_ who preferred handwritten slides over PowerPoint and used monochrome logos instead of color (I find this interesting; I'm not suggesting anyone else would)
Joyce K Reynolds, who co-authored some of the most important RFCs with Postel on protocols, was a social sciences major (another factoid I find interesting)
It’s too bad more people don’t understand how the domain industry is structured under ICANN. IMO, the registries are ICANN’s customers, the registrants are part of the product being sold, and the registrars are a liability shield.
One day there will be a grab for .com.
It would have provided geographical information based on a domain encoded grid, not for human but machine consumption (e.g. acme.2e5n.10e30n.geo).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.geo
In a similar vein there is the 'e164.arpa' domain for mapping telephone numbers.
In 2022, their TLS certificates were off -- a subdomain used by a backend redirect process was no longer valid, so I contacted "ML" and they were unresponsive. I managed to get my domains to a new register by ignoring some TLS warnings and transferring them. As of July of 2022, I have not heard from "ML" and I assume that he passed away. I don't know their identity or what became of them. All I know is that their name is/was Mark.
https://nationalpublicdata.com/people/l/mark-lord/nv/reno/pd...
Looks like you can reach him at mark84@gmail if you want to say ‘hi’.
Naive question, what do you use the locality domain for?
If anyone would like to band together to push city of Boston or Cambridge to start approving these, please let me know! I can revive some email chains.
edit -- seems like the server has been "slashdotted" by this thread, I was finally able to get an account created but can't log in. doesn't seem very well coded anyway since I was apparently able to change the password twice using the same activation link lol.
Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer.
says this if you try to get it from localitymanagement.us
Unfortunately, it forbids WHOIS privacy services, which makes it a privacy and security hazard for personal domains. Pity, that.
Decentralized and under user control, no shitty silos like FaceTime, WhatsApp.
ENUM stands for “Telephone Number Mapping.” It is essentially a bridge between the world of telecommunications and the Internet. With a single ENUM domain, you can combine all your contact options under your familiar phone number:
But this is of huge interest to carriers, since it allows them to skip the PSTN/peering cost when the callee endpoint is an IP phone.
There is private ENUM for carrier use I recall, not sure what the current status is, with LTE/VoLTE, RCS etc.pp.
http://dam3d3.free.fr/PFE/Pathfinder/GSMA_PathFinder_WebSite...
Here the list of countries that have ENUM delegated for their country code.
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Pages/delegations.aspx
Wow! The risks of being esoteric
Nope. Even though you must supply your address in the registration form, a WHOIS request for your locality domain will only show information about the registrar.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding their statement but unless something recently changed this is not true. The .US TLD does not permit whois privacy services. The full legal name and address of the registrant will be shown in my experience and I could not find a registrar that would deviate from this.
Are they offering delegation of sub-domains of some domains they purchased perhaps? The example they gave did not suggest this if that is so. If that is the case then whois does not really apply unless they are giving different answers in their whois for sub-domains assuming their whois would be queried.
That is why I opted for .org for a small town that I operated not for official purposes as per the banner a website for in my spare time. When using a .US one can register it in the name of a company or the city can register it themselves through their own government to avoid a persons personal information being listed. Ensure auto-renew is enabled when assisting a city government as people come and go. Pay as far in advance for as many years as possible.
That is true and would explain my confusion on this matter if they have some list of apex domains they are dynamically creating sub-domains for. Honestly if this is the case I would avoid participating in this. This puts the control of the domain (sub-domain) in their hands for your city. Cities and states can already use sub-domains of their countries .gov domain structure which I realize is full of its own issues but that's another topic all together. Cities can also get citystate.gov in some states but I don't know how that process works.
This project would likely be shut down the first time someone complains to their government about one of the sites.
Of the "hackers" to get there before me, I'm happy it's them!
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...
The website offered to sell unlimited dialup for me, in Ohio, using a local phone number.
I Googled that number, and it appears that it may belong to another (related? different?) time machine: https://www.panix.com/dialup/
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20260513154601if_/https://nguyen...
Here is the /locality.html page
https://web.archive.org/web/20141217060926if_/http://nguyen....
Yikes, no!
Let's just be honest, it's 2026 and you are advocating for security through obscurity.
Feels like I got a taste of what the early Internet days were like.
I checked www.whois.us and oakland.ca.us is administered by locality-support [at] about [dot] us
Try sending them an email?
Use something like ebay@shipping.example.com and they send to ebay@example.com
I had to check the server logs to find why I wasn't receiving any mail and now need a top level alias just for eBay to handle their broken mail infrastructure.
I still use that domain for most corporate accounts. Currently, my wireless carrier refuses to believe I exist in some of their systems (but not others) because of it.
Fortunately, escalating complaints with large corporations with shitty practices is a hobby of mine.
.nyc
.boston
.quebec
.miami
.vegas
https://codify.nyc is the one I am going to be launching first, hopefully in a few weeks. I only have 100 or so cities on board and live right now. They have been very useful in understanding all the mechanics and nuance of delivering services at the city/local level.
Your project looks interesting, let me know if you see any place we could work together.
Sorry for maybe misunderstanding, but isn't it supposed to be "new-york.us.codify.city" you're about to launch, given the other examples you've made? Wouldn't "codify.nyc" be the wrong way around?
So I'd caution against this path for something you actually care about.
They were pushing it hard when DNSSEC was being babbled about by cyber people.
I'm confused by this. Some have migrated away from the locality domains but some are still in use even by official/state purposes.
Here's the website for the Newton, MA public schools: https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/
Belmont: https://www.belmont.k12.ma.us/
I believe Cambridge used to use one as well but I can't confirm that.
It's frustrating that I can point to https://www.foxharp.boston.ma.us as evidence of private use of .boston.ma.us and still be brushed off.
* Originally, anyone could ask to take responsibility for a locality, and serve as the registrar for it. Individuals and small ISPs did this en masse.
* Many decades have passed, many went out of business or became derelict in their obligation to administer their delegated subdomain.
* When this occurs, the responsibility rolled back up to top level registrar which today is GoDaddy (used to be Nuestar until they got bought). GoDaddy's policy is that they'll only give out a subdomain registration on a locality if you show them a notarized letter from the locality's government saying you can have it. They will _not_ delegate the whole locality back to a local entity to set up a process.
* No one in local government will furnish this letter, because it's logistically inconvenient ("no notary in our office") and there's no official policy on how to handle the requests ("all I can find is this state law that says we can't"). My representative declined, and even talking with the tech people in City of Boston only went in circles. I may have been the first person to ask, and they'd probably rather I registered an .e.g. .boston and left them alone.
Meanwhile for Seattle, the small ISP that manages the locality TLD is alive and well and will hook you up within the week for free. I registered http://rcr.seattle.wa.us/ while talking to the Boston IT people as a small demonstration that other similar localities have functioning ecosystems around the TLD, to no avail.
1. Have several independent people simultaneously and persistently asking for a letter allowing them to have a subdomain. Provide social proof that at least a few people want the city to provide this service.
2. Obtain a letter from another MA locality which is more willing/able, to be able to show the city that its possible within state rules. I was planning to give it a go with Cambridge.
I am happy to forward my correspondence with the city to you or anyone interested in giving it a go. You can find my email address if you look.
I used it myself and I have trouble finding information about myself, even with my inside knowledge. If someone is determined enough you probably can't really hide from them, especially if they have any connections to law enforcement or one of the big data sinks. But you can definitely make it harder for casuals.
I'll actually offer my take: domain names under the US TLD are a shared, public good, and no one should be allowed to anonymously own a shared, public good.
In my opinion, there are still some really great short domains available. I actually even know some but don't have the budget to buy them.
The thing with domains is also that they aren't one time, I mean I am happy paying for domains which are 20$ say once even (and this comes as someone frugal but I just love domains) but most of these domains cost quite a lot.
For example use.expert would cost me around 40-50$ per year. I mean its 3-4$ per month so I am happy with it but still, my point is that I absolutely know more domains which I wish to buy but it would just be an hassle long term. I can probably sell them at cheap auctions to recoup the price but it just doesn't feel that worth it to me but overall, yeah.
Will WHOIS requests leak my address?
Nope. Even though you must supply your address in the registration form, a WHOIS request for your locality domain will only show information about the registrar.
I registered one a year or two ago. And assuming my normal default Whois privacy was being applied (I clicked through too fast. Wasn’t paying attention)
I noticed my mistake after the spam bots started hitting me up for their web design products.
I suppose it might be true for .city.state.us subdomains, but those fail my first criterion (they're not short), and are themselves a privacy hazard since they substantially narrow the search space for personal info about the domain owner. So it doesn't refute my criticism.
registrars have forwarded me ICANN notices about having info verification for 10 years and nothing happened
nothingburger
It's still fraud though. And there are multiple ways that might trigger an investigation into the validity of your contact info, such as abuse reports, court cases or failing to renew. Some people with axes to grind have been known to get domains of people they don't like taken down just by complaining to the registrar.
Can confirm.
I have a domain that's had outdated whois information since 2006. Nobody cares.
Even when it was up to date, it never got any spam, I suspect because the contact information was in a country that wasn't valuable to spammers.
From RFC 1386, Section 3.3.1:
"Public schools are usually organized by districts
which can be larger or smaller than a city or county."
One of the schools ended up using a ".com" domain that was one character longer than their ".k12.oh.us" domain but easier to tell people verbally (I guess).
I also managed a "co._countyname_.oh.us" domain, too. Again, universal hatred for the domain in email addresses, and again I found it logical and reasonable.
The County government ended-up getting a ".gov" domain that was 5 characters longer than their "co._countyname_.oh.us" domain and, in my opinion, hell to tell people verbally ("It's Countyname County Ohio dot Gov. Yes-- all one word. The words County and Ohio are spelled out. No, not O-H-- Ohio is spelled out." >sigh<)
(.com should never have been expanded to outside US-headquartered companies, either.)
When I was in my wandering days before there were search engines, I would always enter http://travel.state.*st*.us, or http://travel.*st*.us to look up tourism web sites.
It was unusual for a city or state to not have a travel.city.state.us, or travel.state.us domain.
Not sure how that came about.
`whois sf.ca.us` will give you the email of the registrar (thanks cogitosum).
> For example use.expert would cost me around 40-50$ per year. I mean its 3-4$ per month so I am happy with it but still, my point is that I absolutely know more domains which I wish to buy but it would just be an hassle long term. I can probably sell them at cheap auctions to recoup the price but it just doesn't feel that worth it to me but overall, yeah.
Well yes, that's exactly why we unfortunately need to pay rent for domains - otherwise speculators would just buy them all up even more than they already do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gNFFZpIDU8 (we need .egg and .muffin)
These days I get the feeling a lot of the registrars are essentially/effectively in on it (at least by inaction). A well-run ICANN feels needed, who can track takedown compliance.
Funnily enough years ago I did a takedown request for terrorist material, realised that the host was in the same building as me. So when the ticket got closed and they didn't make any changes. I walked into their office and showed them a lovely video they had on their network.
Suddenly they took action.
As a specific example, imagine how many less people would enroll in Medicare if instead it was called Lifelong Assistance in Meeting Medical Needs of Aging Able-Bodied Population. Just finding eligibility criteria and the correct forms to submit would be 10 times harder.
(I think it would be even better if Medicare and Medicaid weren't so similar and easy to confuse with one another. Recently I had to explain both concepts to an immigrant who knew about neither but found contradictory information online about both.)
Having a strong, consistent, easy to use name IS a positive.
It’s easy to remember, which means more “engagement”. For a local government organization, that means more support, more feedback, and the constituents are “getting their moneys worth” more than a government organization that they can’t ever interact with.
It’s a clear win for using your dollars BETTER
At least in US culture, DOB isn't really considered super secret. (If it is I have an excellent source of secret info called "Wikipedia")
[1] I have no idea what they're called now. There's a huge chain of acquisitions. They may have stopped serving this market, but someone still is.
It does look like these may be Starnet/Megapop numbers, based on the panix.motd.megapop newsgroup mentioned on Panix's website. I did spend a minute trying to find who (if anyone) is steering the remaining dregs of Megapop, but I didn't make it very far.
I'm not interested in dialup data services at all at this point in 2026. I have no remaining means with which to use such a thing. The last cell phone I had that could act like a modem got retired in 2009 and the last time I had a dialtone in my house was 2010.
But if I had to guess, then I'd guess that these time machines are still operational.
I wonder if the whole thing was on auto-pilot until things eventually broke.
The last email address in your link, the sbcglobal one, is for someone else entirely. She's involved in the church in Springfield, IL. I assume that she got tied in by Mark's surname.
I used incogni and it seemed to have a positive result.
Many of us find it unethical to give money to scalpers.
> a handful of .net domains that are under $100
And this is why.
Even if I was OK paying in principle, that's too much for a personal blog that gets one post every 4 years.
Did the same, the renewal failed because the card had expired, and now squatters have been sat on it, probably getting all my spam and resetting my credentials on random websites for the last 10 years.
fortunately I'm a California resident so looks like that government has passed a solution that's free, thanks for sharing that guys
I find it interesting how the view on this differs depending on country and what people are used to.
All of our personal identification data is available, not by design, but it is available
It wasn't all that long ago I could look up anybody in my town (or any town really) in a big book, and get contact details for them. Unless they specifically opt-out.
But now that concept is seen as madness.
Now companies no longer even list phone numbers or e-mail addresses on their own websites!
"Might be", I think would be better.
(purists would argue that it can't, but common usage trumps purism)
Also, I will point out that, even from the perspective of formal logic, the original statement has "city or county". In other words there is no single fixed C - C could be a city or a country. Since counties can be larger than cities, it stands to reason that a school district could be larger than the size of a city while being equal to the size of a county. And can be smaller than the size of a county while being equal to the size of a city.
So, even assuming that the original statement is taken to have the logical meaning you've interpreted, that meaning does not technically forbid school districts from being equal to the size of a county (as long as that county is larger than some city, so that we can still make the true statement "this district is larger than a city"), nor from being equal to the size of a city (as long as that city is smaller than some county, so that we can still make the true statement "this district is smaller than a county").
I think you're misinterpreting it as an obsession over privacy. We are victims of unscrupulous scam caller spam due to a multi tiered failure in how our government implements public utilities, and in the meantime we are chiseling at solutions such as enforcing rules on the data brokers who have our information for lease.
Which seems to be working, for people that pay for services to solve this problem. And California's government is simply doing that same service for free for its residents.