The fuss over name collisions, and what it means for new TLDs

Lately you’ve probably been hearing a lot about name collisions, and unless you’re a nerd (no problem there, because we love nerds), you might not know what a name collision is, or why ICANN is projecting a 3-6 month wait for 20 percent of new TLDs that pose a moderate name collision risk. We’re all about breaking it down and helping you feel more comfortable about discussing technical jargon, so we’ve called in our friends: Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, and Vanilla Ice. Because nothing is cooler than ice.

Name collisions explained in under a minute

There are three main parts of any domain name: the second level domain, the third level domain, and the top-level domain. For instance, www.NicCageisaGloriousGod.com is composed of “www,” the third level domain, “NicCageisaGloriousGod,” the second level domain, and “com,” the top-level domain (TLDs represent!). The fact that this particular domain name is epically full of truth is beyond the point, so let’s move on.

In local networks, users can create “fake” top-level domains in order to direct other users to important webpages. For instance, you could create a Nic Cage fan page, BigUpNicCage.actor, and when someone types in this address, your page would appear, so long as that person was in your local network.

That of course is where name collisions come in—because now there will be over 1,800 new TLDs to contend with, which means BigUpNicCage.actor may actually exist (we hope so, anyway).

Okay, so what?

So, ICANN’s Stability and Security Advisory Committee is worried that there will be nefarious black hat dealings if proper precautions aren’t taken in ensuring that collisions don’t occur between private network domains and new TLDs. For instance:

We all know Travolta devotees are fiercely jealous of Cageans. And why not? His acting prowess, range of facial emotions, and ability to play anything from a convict to a weatherman is impressive, to say the least. So what if Travolta fans create a page, like BigUpNicCage.actor, and develop it as a tribute to John Travolta? Then, every time someone in my local network typed in the local fake domain, it would conflict with the now established domain. Meaning every time we tried to pay tribute to Nic Cage, we’d be staring right at John Travolta instead. Damn you, Travoltians!

Aside from creating imposing sites with identical addresses, black hatters can also pose as the actual site and steal information, hack into systems, and more, creating potential security risks to white hat users everywhere.

Now we panic, right?

Not exactly. As with everything bureaucratic, the panic is there in ten-fold to extra protect you – ICANN panics so you never have to. If you’re not convinced, here’s a list of reasons not to worry:

1. Only .HOME and .CORP are rated as a high risk right now, since they’re used very often in local networks (SSAC has spent about three years studying this). These two extensions will not launch until ICANN fleshes out some solutions to protect users.
2. 80 percent of extensions fall into “low risk,” meaning that there’s no real correlation between the extension and use in local networks.
3. For the remaining 20 percent of extensions in the moderate risk category, or “uncalculated risk,” ICANN and SSAC are going to spend about 3-6 months determining what actions need to take place to protect against name collisions. (Yes, this can potentially mean more delays for these new TLDs.)
4. If you’re really worried, you can create local networks that use custom TLDs that are not repeated in the new TLD list.
5. When .XXX launched, many were worried about name collision – in fact “xxx” would be a high risk extension, if listed in the current new TLD applications – and yet, no documented occurrences of name collision have occurred.

You may feel nerdier, now that you know so much about name collisions.

So here’s a picture of Vanilla Ice. There’s nothing nerdy at all about Vanilla Ice.

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