However, that has to be the most painful registration process I’ve been through in some time. Not that any one step was particularly difficult - it was just jarring after a decade and a half of well thought out payment forms and helpful hints to go back to something so spartan. I’m not looking forward to the configuration of my new *.is domain, even if it is the right thing to do.

The discussion rightly turned to issues of security, and the dangers of letting unknown third parties determine IP addresses on your computer in your hosts file. The opportunity for abuse is enormous, and imho points pretty much to the Vixie et al letter referenced above.

Alternatively, the possibility for good behavior exists as well, some kind of “Open Source”/transparent community effort to create and vet such lists similar to the AdBlock list subscriptions.

With this set, any time a program next connects to that URL it will goto that new address, bypassing any DNS override put in place by your ISP! It’s hard not to see that with this being included as standard within pretty much every operating system on every computer connected to the internet, does this not in fact make every OS and PC illegal with the stroke of a single pen?