How is ai/ a valid domain?

I know .ai is a ccTLD so you could register http://www.qwerty.ai/ but having just http://ai/ and no actual domain name? How is this possible?

Try it, it resolves perfectly fine. Here is a video: http://youtu.be/IFr4i9AVGog

alt text

domain short name

asked Jul 31 '11 at 22:50

hansring
1.4k●33●38●61

edited Jul 31 '11 at 23:34

4 Answers:

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2	That is insane, I have never seen anything like it. I want my domain to do that. answered Aug 01 '11 at 03:19 Cateye Productions 2.3k●9●23●53

1	its doing it to me to, im using opendns with at&t dsl answered Jul 31 '11 at 23:50 ZachSeale 111●1●2●4 Finally, someone who believes me. (Jul 31 '11 at 23:52) hansring @hansring sorry, whats your ISP? (Aug 01 '11 at 00:16) ZachSeale Verizon (25 characters) (Aug 01 '11 at 00:48) hansring

Read up on domain names on Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name

This will tell you everything.

answered Jul 31 '11 at 22:56

Jackster1337
8.5k●178●214●300

That still doesn't explain how ai/ would resolve. I could see something like www.g.ai or even www.www.ai but just ai? The only thing I could see is that the country responsible for managing the .ai ccTLD has done some sort of trick...

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:00) hansring

You are most likely behind a Proxy network that is resolving it. http://ai/ will not go anywhere on a normal network.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:02) Jackster1337

No proxies on my end, I'm using my ISP's DNS server.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:05) hansring

Well then your computer or browser is doing it.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:06) Jackster1337

Your looking at http://www.offshore.com.ai/

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:09) Jackster1337

So how have they managed to get ai/ to show http://www.offshore.com.ai/ without anyone knowing?

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:12) hansring

Either you are going to http://www.offshore.com.ai/ and removing everything but the http://ai/ or you host that site on your local machine under the folder /ai/

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:14) Jackster1337

Bro I'm not lying why would I waste everyones time like that? If I need to make a screen recording I will.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:16) hansring

What does http://ai/offshore.jpg show you?

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:17) Jackster1337

The image used in the top right of http://www.offshore.com.ai/

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:22) hansring

Look here: http://cl.ly/8vpe I just uploaded a screen recording of me looking up ai/ in 3 different browsers.

EDIT: it looks like the sharing site I uploaded it too has a bad player that cuts the video off if your browser is too small. I will upload it to youtube.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:27) hansring

showing 5 of 11 show all

The answer is because the DNS servers resolve it. It was given an IP, which was sent to dns servers, and it takes a little while but eventually almost all the dns servers around the internet will populate that address and IP. It's not rocket science. That's how dns servers (that's kind of redundant) work.

answered Jul 31 '11 at 23:33

Rich v2
296●1●4●7

edited Jul 31 '11 at 23:33

Yes, I know how DNS servers work but ai/ is not a conventional domain. ai IS the ccTLD and I was just wondering how just typing in ai resolves to another website. I'm thinking the country responsible for managing the .ai ccTLD has played a trick on us.

(Jul 31 '11 at 23:38) hansring

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