Unable to access Castle's website at
www.castle.uk.co? Worried that some sneaky Slashdotter has run a denial of service attack on them? Well, the truth is less insidious, but potentially more of a lasting problem.
Although the website appears to be working from here as the DNS records are still cached, The Register is reporting that the whole of the .uk.co was switched off without warning yesterday. The .co domain is actually the country domain for Colombia, administered by the University of the Andes in Bogota, with .uk.co a subdomain owned by Net Registrar. However, the University has said that Net Registrar have not agreed to new terms for this arrangement and so "...is not entitled to permit you to use the uk.co domain names that you had registered with them." It appears to be a despute which involves the Government in Colombia being unhappy with the University handling domains, and so putting a spanner in the works for everyone else. This leaves around 8,000 .uk.co sites – Castle's amongst them – up the proverbial creek.
Although www.castle.uk.co seems to be Castle's favoured address, www.castle.org.uk might work, and Castle have just emailed to say that the site can be found at www.iyonix.com/castle, with email addresses sales@iyonix.com and support@iyonix.com. Now about that other email I'm still waiting for...
Thanks to TIBSpy for the tip!
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Castle Non-Conspiracy Theory [updated] |
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monkeyson2 (11:03 18/2/2003)
rich (11:06 18/2/2003)
andypoole (11:07 18/2/2003)
rich (11:12 18/2/2003)
andypoole (11:15 18/2/2003)
rich (11:18 18/2/2003)
andypoole (11:24 18/2/2003)
monkeyson2 (11:56 18/2/2003)
moss (11:57 18/2/2003)
rich (12:43 18/2/2003)
moss (12:55 18/2/2003)
moss (12:56 18/2/2003)
rich (13:02 18/2/2003)
ksattic (14:07 18/2/2003)
moss (14:15 18/2/2003)
moss (14:17 18/2/2003)
Horse (15:03 18/2/2003)
SparkY (16:12 18/2/2003)
Horse (17:36 18/2/2003)
moss (18:09 18/2/2003)
andrew (10:01 19/2/2003)
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Phil Mellor |
Message #91838, posted by monkeyson2 at 11:03, 18/2/2003 |
 Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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The castle.org.uk domain doesn't work either... |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #91839, posted by rich at 11:06, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91838 |
 Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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Ooh - both work for me ATM. I must just be lucky :) Switching "can" to "might be able to" :) |
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Andrew Poole |
Message #91840, posted by andypoole at 11:07, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91839 |
Posts: 5558
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org.uk works here.. or it did 5 minutes ago anyway :P |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #91841, posted by rich at 11:12, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91840 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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Now switching to completely other ending, as Castle have emailed everyone with new addresses. Absolutely no info in the email as to /why/ they've changed, just that they have :) |
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Andrew Poole |
Message #91842, posted by andypoole at 11:15, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91841 |
Posts: 5558
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www.iyonix.com/castle seems to contain the site :) |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #91843, posted by rich at 11:18, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91842 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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Yeah, I couldn't be arsed to print the whole email, so I put "can be found at" :E. I'll put the /castle bit in then. |
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Andrew Poole |
Message #91844, posted by andypoole at 11:24, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91843 |
Posts: 5558
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:) |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #91845, posted by monkeyson2 at 11:56, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91844 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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I'm not sure I like the .uk.co domain anyway... it looks too much like a typo and gives the impression that whoever is using it couldn't get the proper domain name they wanted. :| |
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John Hoare |
Message #91846, posted by moss at 11:57, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91845 |
Posts: 9348
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Moral of this story: that's what happens when you abuse the domain name system. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #91847, posted by rich at 12:43, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91846 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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To be fair, "Castle" is a pretty common word, and even "Castle Technology" is well used - you'd be hard pressed to find a "proper" varient of the name that hasn't already been registered. |
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John Hoare |
Message #91848, posted by moss at 12:55, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91847 |
Posts: 9348
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www.castle-technology.co.uk works! |
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John Hoare |
Message #91849, posted by moss at 12:56, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91848 |
Posts: 9348
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Hmmm; and redirects to their .org site. They'd be better moving it all across to the castle-technology.co.uk address; it's not really that long. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #91850, posted by rich at 13:02, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91849 |
Dictator for life
Posts: 6828
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Bah, if that's theirs, why the heck didn't they use that in the first place?! /me makes a mental note to check web pages next time, not just whois records. |
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Simon Wilson |
Message #91851, posted by ksattic at 14:07, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91850 |
 Finally, an avatar!
Posts: 1291
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Quite a lot of people on Slashdot were under the impression that the .co.uk domain had been switched off and commented that companies like Amazon.co.uk had lost their web presence! Ha ha! |
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John Hoare |
Message #91852, posted by moss at 14:15, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91851 |
Posts: 9348
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*sigh* Even I'm not that bloody stupid... |
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John Hoare |
Message #91853, posted by moss at 14:17, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91852 |
Posts: 9348
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.uk.co addresses cost £15 for two years? That's more than double what .co.uk addresses cost! |
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Horse |
Message #91854, posted at 15:03, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91853 |
| Unregistered user
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I don't know what's worse with uk.co addresses: The lingering impression that the owner has mistyped their address when publicising their site, suggesting that they don't know much about the Internet. "Are you sure you don't mean co.uk?" Or that they're part of a dodgy subdomain under Colombian administration. "Can you courier me something from Bogota?" :-) |
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Gavin Smith |
Message #91855, posted by SparkY at 16:12, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91854 |
 Danger! Danger! High Voltage!
Posts: 697
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Agreed! uk.co addresses looked dreadful. I remember when I got interested in RISC OS originally, I thought the URL on the Castle brochure was a mistake, I couldn't believe it. org.uk isn't much better as it still gives the impression of a non-profit making organisation. Which I hope isn't true! ;) www.castle-technology.co.uk is much more impressive looking. |
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Horse |
Message #91856, posted at 17:36, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91855 |
| Unregistered user
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Castle Technology isn't a very good name, though, is it? A few years ago, there was a company called Castle Software whose products, advertised in Computer Shopper (as I remember), included the title "Astro Tit". I think that Castle Technology was around at that point as well. It didn't seem likely from the other titles that Castle Software's focus was on garden birds, however. |
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John Hoare |
Message #91857, posted by moss at 18:09, 18/2/2003, in reply to message #91856 |
Posts: 9348
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Castle Technology isn't a particuarly great name, but it's got one thing going for it - it's well established. I remember when they used to advertise in Acorn User ages and ages ago; they did BBC Micro stuff, if I recall. Anyway, IYONIX is the brand they're pushing. Which is slightly generic; but then, I can't think of anything better. |
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Andrew |
Message #91858, posted by andrew at 10:01, 19/2/2003, in reply to message #91857 |
 Handbag Boi
Posts: 3439
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I think they started when they bought a stack of BBC Masters from Germany.
They arrived off the back of a lorry ;-) |
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