May 03, 2026
32 min read
We extracted every Kubernetes signal we could find from a 17 April 2026 DNS crawl — heritage=external-dns TXT markers AND CNAME chains terminating in managed-Kubernetes ingress endpoints (AWS ELB k8s-prefixed names, .azmk8s.io, .gke.goog, .openshiftapps.com, .k8s.ondigitalocean.com, etc.). 74,508 unique apex domains carry at least one strict-precision Kubernetes signal (41,565 with TXT markers, 34,219 with strict CNAME pointers, 1,276 in both). 20,420 distinct cluster identities are visible. 13,620 apexes (32.8% of TXT-marker side) use the literal string "default" as their cluster identifier. 815 use the literal example strings from the ExternalDNS README. 6,842 apexes publish a sensitive Kubernetes namespace (argocd, vault, kube-system, istio-system) to public DNS. 1,936 apexes have already migrated to the Gateway API. This is the first combined-signal cluster-identity census of the public Kubernetes footprint.
May 02, 2026
21 min read
We classified every TXT record from a 17 April 2026 DNS crawl — 840 GB of raw JSONL (56 GB after xz compression) — and built a vendor census from the verification tokens domains leak into DNS. 40.2 million unique apexes carry at least one tracked SaaS verification token. Google's 26.0 million-apex footprint is 3.4x Microsoft 365's 7.6 million. Domain marketplaces (AfterNic + dan.com + 4.cn + Aliyun + west.cn + 17ex + Sedo + DomainEasy) collectively touch 5.0 million apexes — more than Atlassian, Stripe, Adobe, Apple, and DocuSign verification tokens combined. Zoho's 1.23 million is the single largest non-Google, non-Microsoft SaaS verification footprint we measure. The TXT layer is the closest thing the public Internet has to a SaaS census.
April 30, 2026
24 min read
We compared the master DomainsProject corpus (3.12 billion unique hostnames ever observed) against the 17 April 2026 active crawl (1.47 billion currently resolving) and found that 52.9% of the observable web no longer answers the DNS. .com alone holds 808 million dead hostnames; the five Freenom-managed ccTLDs (.tk, .ml, .ga, .cf, .gq) are 99% extinct; the new-gTLD program churns at 75% dead; and a small spine of restrictive ccTLDs — .jp, .it, .de, .nl — sits below 30%.
March 23, 2026
23 min read
We parsed 27.8 million domains in the .nl namespace from our dataset: ISP reverse-DNS from Ziggo, XS4ALL, and Chello accounts for 28.6% of all entries. The Netherlands — 18 million people — registered the first active country-code domain in 1986, hosts the world's largest Internet exchange, headquarters RIPE NCC, produced the DNS software that powers the global root, and holds the highest ccTLD density per capita among countries with more than 5 million residents. Now the namespace is shrinking for the first time. Inside the infrastructure nation, the hacker culture that built it, and what AI is doing to domain demand.
March 23, 2026
18 min read
We parsed 209 million entries under .NET from our dataset and found that 68.8% are ISP reverse-DNS infrastructure from Comcast, Virgin Media, SFR, HiNet, and providers across 11 countries. Only 9.7% are direct registrations. The TLD created in 1985 for 'network' organizations literally became the Internet's network infrastructure — but not through website registrations. Through the invisible addressing layer that routes every packet you send. Inside the oldest domain on Earth, Verisign's dual monopoly, and the TLD that fulfilled its destiny by accident.
March 20, 2026
15 min read
We analyzed 2.3 billion domains across 1,519 TLDs to measure .com's dominance — 1 billion domains, 44% of all resolved names, one registry operator, zero competition. What a government-granted monopoly means for infrastructure risk, pricing, and the future of the namespace.