Stalinistic limitations on the possibilities of network names are a
legacy of the cold war mentality which exists in the current "domain"
name system (DNS) of the internet.

The "organizational" nature of net names reflect the bureaucratic,
militaristic mindset of the centralized agency, InterNIC, now operating
as a private, highly profitable monopoly called Network Solutions, Inc.

The very term "Domain" refers to "dominion" or "domination." The net
with supposedly no borders (another myth) is "organized" into
territories–"domains" and "zones of authority"–all total
contradictions to the nature of the network: to dissolve all borders.

The name.space initiative grows out of a movement to de-militarize the
mindset of the net and open it up to more democratic models. By freeing
the constraints of naming conventions imposed by the central authority,
the NIC, the artificial shortages created by the command economy of
names will disappear, and take along with it the name speculators who
bought up thousands of names (for $100 each) in hopes of auctioning them
off to the highest bidder.

name.space has begun the liberation of the network namespace by creating
a network of alternative root nameservers on the net and making them
available to all who wish to use them. name.space seeks to support
artistic and independent content by providing new names for projects and
virtual net addresses to support websites named in namespace.

This is an open call for participation to creators of net-based works,
to request names for their projects, which will be presented at first
via links from the name.space. site. Network administrators are invited
to switch their named.cache file from the internic version to the
name.space. version which lists the name.space root servers in place of
the internic servers. Users are invited to change their local tcp/ip
nameserver settings to the name.space server network. Instructions on
how to do this reside at the name.space website.

The Winter Palace is about to be stormed! ….Thing.net in NYC
(http://www.thing.net) has been successfully running the name.space
servers as root for over 2 weeks providing their users with access to
all the names in name.space in addition to all the "traditional" net
names. The rest of the net will be next!

Other participating networks include:

desk.nl (http://desk.autono.net.)
internationale stadt, Berlin (http://is.autono.net.)
muuMediaBase, Helsinki (http://muu.autono.net.)
LOIS, Ljubljana (http://ljudmila.autono.net.)
zero.tolerance.org, NY (http://zero.autono.net)
mediafilter, NY (http://mediafilter.autono.net)

More information can be found at the name.space. website
http://namespace.autono.net

The time is now to dissolve the monopoly on names and bring down the
centralized command economy of Network Solutions, Inc. (a.k.a.
InterNIC).