Verisign claims all unused COM and NET TLDs

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Rspaight
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Verisign claims all unused COM and NET TLDs

Postby Rspaight » Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:56 am

Sometime yesterday, Verisign added a wildcard A record to the COM and NET root nameservers, which resolves to 64.94.110.11, or sitefinder.verisign.com -- a big fat Verisign page. *Any* invalid hostname ending in COM or NET will now return this address. (Try it with nslookup. Scary.)

This is similar to what Microsoft did in IE, where a bad hostname would take you to MSN search. The difference is that while you can turn that behavior off in IE, what Verisign has done affects the whole damn Internet, and there's no way to disable it.

This has the effect of breaking spam filters and making many basic troubleshooting operations much more difficult. More discussion here:

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/09/16/0 ... =98&tid=99

I don't think it's an overstatement to say this is the single biggest change in how the Internet DNS system works ever. Whoever at Verisign thought this up should be shot.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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balthazar
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Postby balthazar » Thu Sep 25, 2003 4:20 pm

Whoever at Verisign thought this up should be shot.


I've come to think everyone at Verisign should be shot.

Some time ago, I was reading a newsletter from Steve Jackson (of Steve Jackson Games), and they had a total nightmare in dealing with Verisign when they changed web hosts.

Are they hoping to force people to register through them instead of someone else?
"It's great how you can control 60 musicians with one just stick-- I can't control these fuckers with two!" -- Ian Paice

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Postby Rspaight » Thu Sep 25, 2003 4:26 pm

In the big picture, everyone already does register through them, since they have the government-granted monopoly. If you get a domain name from GoDaddy or whoever, they're just acting as a middleman -- they pay Verisign $6 a year (I think) to maintain the name.

Their stated reason for doing this (aside from the "better browsing experience for end user" marketing babble) is to make big money selling ads on this page that people will be forced to see if they misspell a domain name.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

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Patrick M
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Postby Patrick M » Sat Sep 27, 2003 9:58 pm

GoDaddy is suing Verisign, details at godaddy.com.

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Postby Rspaight » Sun Oct 05, 2003 3:30 pm

Sitefinder is dead, at least for the moment. Verisign's press release is completely hilarious:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031003/sff057_1.html

Through Thursday, Oct. 2, Site Finder has been used more than 40 million times by Internet users to get where they want to go online.


That's like saying, "The pothole on Nicholasville Road has been used more than 100,000 times by drivers to test their front-end alignment."

"The service has been well received by millions of Internet users who appreciate getting navigation tools as opposed to the 'dead end' of an error message," added Lewis.


So let the browser do it, like IE does. Don't screw up the Internet to make money on a Web site. (Repeat: The Web is not the Internet. The Web is not the Internet.)

"The next several weeks will be a test as to whether innovation will occur within the Internet infrastructure. The fact is that while the Internet has been used for innovative purposes over the last decade, the core infrastructure has suffered from a lack of innovation," said Lewis.


Innovation does not mean "breaking stuff." (No matter what Microsoft says.)

But my favorite is this:

ICANN is using anecdotal and isolated issues to attempt to regulate non-registry services...


Oh, so you admit that this profit-driven "service" is "non-registry" in nature? So you admit you are exploiting your government-granted monopoly to provide registry services to implement "non-registry services?" I wouldn't admit that.

Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney