[RulerOf]

> my impression of most of that documentation from that time is that it was incorrectly using .local as a fake TLD

When setting up Active Directory on Windows Server 2003, there was a note in the wizard that explicitly called out .local as a domain suffix that would prevent DNS lookups from hitting the public internet, which many people (myself included) took as an endorsement.

[UqWBcuFx6NV4r]

I feel like I remember this in 2008 as well. I could certainly be misremembering.