Slashdot Mirror

Or you could try:
http://whois.inter nic .net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=microsoft.com
http://whois.internic. net /cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=apple.com
http://whois.internic.ne t/c gi-bin/whois?whois_nic=aol.com
http://whois.inte rni c.net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=whithouse.gov

Or you could try:
http://whois.inter nic .net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=microsoft.com
http://whois.internic. net /cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=apple.com
http://whois.internic.ne t/c gi-bin/whois?whois_nic=aol.com
http://whois.inte rni c.net/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=whithouse.gov

• That is a United States top-level domain suffix, as decided by ICANN.

Check out the FAQ at Internic.net. To quote from it:

• Are .com, .net, and .org domain names available for registration on a global basis?

  Yes. The .com, .net, and .org domains are available for registration by Internet users across the globe.

However, Harrison Ford would probably be able to take the domain for a different reason. They generally get you with the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, paragraph 4(a)(iii) (here). This is the bad faith clause, i.e. even if you are called Harrison Ford, few people who go to the site www.harrisonford.com are likely to be going there to see you. They would claim that you registered the domain name to either capture people who wanted to go to the site of the actor of the same name, or that you hoped to sting money out of him. They would say that one of these circumstances are more likely than you needing the name for yourself. [I'm trying to stay neutral - though in this circumstance I'd agree with them.]

cheers,
G

cute. i just went to www.gnomefoundation.org to see who all were in on this. nice work. Nice little non-helpful whois on that.

Also - isn't there also a domain '.' (to get you to the TLDs) - if so, where are the nameservers for that
physically located?

You mean the main root domain servers. If you have named installed (or any other DNS server for that matter), all of the IP address should be listed there, along with the address to FTP to to get the most recent list...

ftp://ftp.rs.internic.net/domain/named. root

Unfortunately doesn't say where they are all located, but you can see the IP addresses. It does say that one of them is in Japan. I'm sure there are a couple in the EU also, and probable is Aussie too.

T.

Not according to the InterNIC's zone file, which is easily downloaded from ftp://rs.internic.net/domain. A summarized version:

; The use of the Data contained in Network Solutions' aggregated
; .com, .org, and .net top-level domain zone files (including the checksum
; files) is subject to the restrictions described in the access Agreement
; with Network Solutions.

ARPA. IN SOA A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. hostmaster.internic.net. (
(snip SOA)
ARPA. 518400 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip 8 root-servers.net entries, B-I in order of H, C, G, F, B, I, E, D)
A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 518400 IN A 198.41.0.4
(snip the above root-servers.net entries' IP addresses)
IN-ADDR.ARPA. 172800 IN NS A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET.
(snip again, same order)
;End of file.

So there are no sites under .arpa, just in-addr :)

--------------------

For example, I recently saw in 2600 Magazine how Verizon (the result of the Bell Atlantic/GTE merger) registered something like seven hundred domains, all with "Verizon" in them... even insulting ones, like "verizonsucks.com". They had registered all these domains under the .com, .net and .org TLDs. When the 2600 guys couldn't register "verizonsucks.com", they registered "verizonREALLYsucks.com". In response, Verizon sent them a letter informing them of their violation of trademark laws. Read all about it straight from the horse's mouth. (This brings up the point: If Verizon registered "robdumas.com", could that be considered to be fraudulently using my name? I mean, after all, if I can't register a domain with THEIR name, would I/should I let them register a domain with MY name in it?)

Anyway, simply adding a new TLD will just mean that they register there, too.

The only way a .gnu TLD would be worth adding is if we, the Open Source community, somehow controlled it, so we could attempt to keep cybersquatters out, without compromising the freedom of it. Perhaps in order to GET a .gnu domain, you must PRODUCE something under the GNU Public License.

Hey, maybe one day we'll all open up Slashdot to find that Microsoft wants to register "microsoft.gnu"! Ha!

Two final point of interest, somewhat related to this story/thread:

1. The policy of InterNIC USED to be $70US for two years (or $35US per year). This was a FLAT fee. Unfortunately, thanks to the agreement reached between ICANN and NSI last year, NSI can charge whatever it likes (well, presumably within reason). So how long do you think it'll be before NSI puts up its own "domain auction" site? Before you know it, joeschmoe.com, joeschmoe.net and joeschmoe.org will be owned by Ted Turner (or someone like him; I have nothing against Mr. Turner), and would cost you thousands of dollars to get back.
2. I find it VERY unnerving that Register.com, one of the new domain registrars, is an "affiliate" of GreatDomains.com, a company who basically buys and sells domains to the highest bidder. I happen to own "novastar.net" (no, there's nothing there... I haven't gotten around to it), and registering it cost me $70US. No more, no less. But, according to GreatDomains.com, the domain "novastar.org" would cost me $250,000US! Is that a rip-off, or what?

I'm interested to hear what others have to say about the topic. Reply here, or e-mail me.
----------------------------------------
Robert Dumas

First off, I hate to break the bad news to everyone, but that Great New *TLD that just popped into your head? It's been thought of before. By lots of people.

New *TLDs are nothing new, and indeed have been being debated, tossed around, fought over, proposed, implemented, and torn down for the better part of the last decade or so.

CmdrTaco didn't think of .god, .dot, and probably not even .rob. Neither did you, most likely. :)

For a listing of proposed *TLDs and their status, see http://www.earth-net.net/GTLD/database. html (gzipped text file)

Pay particular attention to Field 2, Root Server Providers. Check out the Open Root Server Confederation.

While we're on this subject, a quick redux to the .god TLD... zone files and current status of .god registry.

ANYONE interested in domain policy (and the politics are Quite Interesting in this realm... surf the domain-policy mailing list archives (hosted by InterNIC).

• A TRADEMARK is either a word, phrase, symbol or design, or combination of words, phrases, symbols or designs, which identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods or services of one party from those of others. A service mark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. Throughout this booklet the terms "trademark" and "mark" are used to refer to both trademarks and service marks whether they are word marks or other types of marks. Normally, a mark for goods appears on the product or on its packaging, while a service mark appears in advertising for the services.

Note also that in the domain name dispute policy, section 8 indicates that a trademark holder has to present both evidence of ownership, and "the legal harm the trademark owner is incurring". I don't think the Coca-Cola (TM) Company is being harmed by an inactive domain, nor do I think they're likely to be harmed by anything short of a "Don't Drink Coke" site at coke.[whatever].

My personal (IANAL) recommendation would be to try to initiate dispute procedings yourself, providing background for your use of the word "coke" and claiming no harm to the Coca-Cola Company and try to get something from NSI to indicating you can continue to use the domain. If you do, send a copy to Coke(TM) to snort.

Here's the relevant legal docs, assuming domains registered through Internic. The folks at GreatDomains.com (who probably know a thing or two about name squatting-- they're the ones who sold "loans.com" for US$3 million last month) say in their FAQ:

"It very much depends on the specifics. For example, if IBM bought apple.com, legal precedent indicates that the court would likely require IBM to release apple.com to Apple Computer. If, however, an apple farmer bought apple.com to sell fruit over the Internet, Apple Computer would likely have less of a claim.

Our coke.ch friend sounds more like a case of the latter, but since he's still just thinking about setting up the site, it seems to undercut any cred. Coca-Cola is one company that'll protect their trademark worldwide, whether they have the use for a site or not. I hate multinationals as much as the next free thinker, but this ain't a battle worth fighting.

btw, I've heard that courts can make you stop using a domain name but can't force you to turn it over. true?

This is funny. Dotster is using Register.com as their domain registrar. Hmm...

Domain Name: DOTSTER.COM
Registrar: REGISTER.COM, INC.

First, a word about register.com. You may want to read through the DNSO archives, the IFWP list, and the DOMAIN-POLICY archives to see what register.com has been up to, particularly regarding the single-letter domains.

You may also want to have a look at their registration agreement, particularly the bit on information ownership. They own all your contact information, and can do whatever they want with it.

Note the section in 6d above where they explicitly say you give them the right to use your information for targeted marketing.

Others aren't any better. BulkRegister has been phone-spamming people with completely automated unsolicited phone calls, in violation of US State and Federal law.

Joker.com and the other current and past CORE registrars have had significant problems in the past, and CORE is losing registrars right and left.

Most of the registrars have had significant and in some cases highly-publicised problems interacting using the SRS -- the Shared Registry System, resulting in things like aol.com's ownership being transferred to an individual (and later changed back), and other domain names not owned by big companies not being so lucky in having their ownership info corrected.

There's a problem with CORE registrars as well...several years ago, when people were once again trying to get new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), CORE managed to have a set of 7 TLD agreed upon. CORE registrars were pre-selling registrations in these 7 TLDs last year. They've now stopped, but should those & go active, it's still unknown whether or not anyone will have a fair shot at registering within them due to these pre-sells.

I'd personally recommend becoming a member of the OpenSRS project, and being your own registrar.

If you can't or won't do that, then do the following: Find and take the time to READ each registrar's Domain Dispute Policy and Registration Agreement, and think of what it means to you if your domain name ownership is challenged. The challenges are mushrooming, and all signs point to corporations getting whatever they want. Go see the resolved UDRP cases to get a feeling for how the wind is currently blowing.

The list of accredited ICAAN registars is at InterNic.net. This is just to let you know the alternatives, and if some registration company is really allowed to register domains.

$1,000 US ICANN application fee

$5,000 US ICANN annual fee

$70,000 US in working capital

not to mention...

$10,000 US NSI registration fee

$100,000 US performance assurance bond

and even after all that trouble, NSI will take $9 US from every registration I were to put through! It's nice to have a say in who gets to go through, and to perhaps bring NSI back down to earth.

This has brought my conclusion to going through the Tucows OpenSRS system, which is a free registration and free perl based CGI's, through which I can register domains for a simple $10 US per year ($9 of which goes to NSI, $1 going to Tucows for providing us with this great service).

Some more links for those of you ready to become your own registrar:

http://www.iana.org/

http://www.icann.org/

http://www.ietf.org/

http://www.nsiregistry.com/

http://www.internic.net/

Good luck! I hope everyone helps contribute to the OpenSRS project, as it will certainly be the way of the future for small ISP's like myself who can't afford NSI's outrageous costs and bonds.

- EraseMe

Thank you /. and dnspolicy.net for getting me off of my lazy butt. I crafted this letter and sent it to as many registrars as are listed at InterNIC. Here are the results, as they happen

They first make sure they're the only dispute resolution forum around and then they set up Email accounts with passwords that are the same as the usernames - they do this for all disputing parties - and the first party to be driven to insanity and register with another accredited registrar wins.

Here's one example of this, where someone posted a message to a mailing list claiming that Y2K errors in his Perl scripts are due to a "bug" in Perl.

http://rs.internic.net/cgi- bin/whois/whois?slashdot.org which is redirected to http://www.network solutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?slashdot.org seems to give out the information that it always had.

Just the other day I used it to find out that y0k.com through y11k.com are all taken. :-)

Whois on rs.internic.net is now "registry whois" (previously on whois.crsnic.net), which includes an entry for what server to use for "registrar whois", where one can find contact information. The change is part of the transition away from using "interNIC" (a US Government trademark) to refer to NSI's registrar business.

Also, be sure to also check out the newly updated, mostly NSI-less InterNIC Web Site.

Actually, I wouldn't, as that is the first I have ever heard of such an option. Could you enlighten us further?

OK. Some of this may be slightly wrong because of being off the cuff and from memory, so please forgive some amount of inaccuracy.

Forged InterNIC requests are a real problem, so a year or two ago the NIC came up with an improvement. As you probably know, modify-domain and modify-host requests are honoured if they appear to come from the technical or administrative contact -- or the registrant (domain owner) has final say if need be, but not through as automatic a process.

The improvement gave you the option to set an authentication scheme for each contact record. By default, that setting still defaults to no security. (This is called the "MAIL-FROM" authentication option.) For example, I'm NIC handle RM100. Initally, the NIC would simply believe any change request that appeared to come from my address of record, rick@hugin.imat.com. Alternately, you can establish a password (which you send to them as a crypt hash) aka "CRYPT-PW authentication" or a PGP key ("PGP" authentication.

Separate from the authentication mechanism is the verification setting. This involves two settings: NOTIFY-UPDATE is whether the contact should be notified before or after a record it's associated with has been changed. Allowed values are BEFORE-UPDATE, AFTER-UPDATE, and NOT-CARE. "After" is the default. The NOTIFY-USE setting is whether tbe contact should be notified before or after the contact record has been used in (added to) a domain or host record. Valid values are BEFORE-USE, AFTER-USE, and NOT-CARE. "After" is again the default.

Anyhow, be setting the authentication and notify settings to match your degree of paranoia, you can pretty much control access to domain (and host) records registered under those contact names.

For that matter, if we didn't have those options, having a mail server be "under your administrative control" wouldn't protect you: Mail purporting to come from you can be convincingly forged from elsewhere, given a little artful SMTP header artistry.

For more on the matter, and probably a less fuzzy explanation, please see ftp://ftp.internic.n et/templates/contact-template-examples.txt.

My first though was to reply to this with an "Amen". NSI is not, has never been, and will never be the "Internet Authority" (Patent Pending [or so they think]).

Aside from the other officially sanctioned registrars, I seem to recall reading about a volunteer organization (probably on /.) offering to provide DNS services without the value-added BS of NSI. Anyway, with more registrars being accredited, I'd say its time to put NSI behind us completely.

While considering the implications of all this, I was perusing www.iana.org and was delighted at the prominent notation:

Please note that this transitional site presents both initial steps and currently accepted practices that are subject to input by the international Internet community and approval by the Board of Directors.

If you go to their site, there is a forum for public comments. /.'em with honest, frank, unflaming input on why the agreement with NSI should be terminated.

Now, if you want to be horrified, go to www.internic.net to read about the coming changes in Domain registration. First, you'll notice that you're really at networksolutions.com. But wait! If you read really, really slow (just leave the window open), you will be automatically forwarded to the NSI front door.

Going deeper into the ICANN FAQ, I found Ammendment 11 to the Dept. of Commerce/NSI contract. An excerpt regarding existing NSI customers:

• Commencing upon the Phase 1 deployment of the Shared Registration System, and for a period of 18 months thereafter, NSI shall permit any customer with whom it has a contract pursuant to which NSI provides registration services that is either facially or effectively exclusive as to registration services, to terminate the registration provisions of such contract (following payment of all amounts due up through the time of such termination) and obtain registration services from other registrars; provided, however, that NSI may enter into agreements pursuant to which NSI's counterparty agrees not to utilize proprietary intellectual property or confidential proprietary information provided by NSI to the counterparty pursuant to their agreement.

If I'm reading that right, anyone registered with NSI can switch to another registrar, with a pro-rated refund of domain fees.

Back to the original topic: Putting NSI on the RBL would be a serious wake-up call that without the participation of each and every transport provider on the 'net, they are worthless (Ok, MORE worthless).

I guess you could argue that "other use" prevents spamming, but that seems unneccessarily broad, especially when coupled with the repackaging and dissemination bit. Specifically dissemination - that means that no-one has the right to redistribute this information without NSI's permission.

Yeah, this license might have an effect on spam, but its effect on the availiabilty of the information in general is chilling.

Thinking this revised "license" will help stop spam is a pipe dream -- Network Solutions routinely sends spam to the contact e-mail addresses in its database. And since when has licensing or law stopped spammers?

Does anyone remember the last time Network Solutions tried acting in the customer's best interest? Information about domains' last-updated dates was removed from the whois database. Woo, that really stopped the domain hoarding, didn't it? Of course, they must have figured out it didn't do squat -- the information is back. If Network Solutions really wanted to help "the problem," they'd require payment before domain activation. That would at least curb hoarders who register a domain, sit on it for a month, let it be dropped for non-payment, and start the cycle over. That's akin to holding a domain hostage -- the hoarder hasn't paid for it, and it wastes NetSol's resources. You'd think they'd act in their own best interests on this one...

Anyway, my guesses about the new license:

1. Network Solutions figured out they have a vast database of e-mail addresses of people who have registered one or more domains and will probably register again. ("Hey, maybe if we spam our existing customers they won't defect to those rogue registrars! It's not like they like us, anyway...")
2. Network Solutions now has competition. It would really suck if one of those other registrars could freely use the information in Network Solutions' "proprietary" database, wouldn't it? ("We're not going to be outdone by these new guys... They're not even U.S. Government-sanctioned monopolies!")

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. The big change that should have tipped everyone off was when www.internic.net was essentially replaced with www.netsol.com, a site where Network Solutions can also peddle its domain parking/web hosting/e-mail services. I'm sure a bunch of clueless upper-management types go there to register a domain, see all the stuff about foreign terms like "nameservers," "DNS," "content hosting," etc., and then see where Network Solutions can handle it all for them! (For a fee, of course.) Just then, the sound of a cash register ding can be heard at Network Solutions' office, and an angel gets set on fire.

Just business as usual with "the dot screw-the-customer people."

Also, read the site. There is no such thing as a "domain name". There are "web addresses". Since when is the web == whole bloody Internet???

It's funny, Donnie Barnes, myself and some others on the RedHat list were talking about being net/linux-geezers. I'm all of 26, but I remember using the Internet when there was NO web. Mark Andreesen and his pals were just a bunch of grad students who saw what some physicists in Switzerland were doing, then wrote a nifty X app to parse the stuff. That was the web. Funny, I remember domain names existing before that... :-)

Besides, AT&T owns the rights to the word "Internic". I wonder what gives NSI the right to redirect http://www.internic.net/ to http://www.networksolutions.com/. I don't see AT&T giving them the right to do that.

Also, these clowns are claiming 3.4 million domain names. Let's see.. 3.4M * $35 = $119M. These clowns have revenues of at *least* $119M, and can't even manage to keep the registry database running properly (anyone notice a week or so ago, when about half of the .(com|net|org|edu) domains dropped out of the registry (yet remained in the root servers)? $119M, and they can't even design a decent database system to warehouse the data. I dare say that I could build something fault tolerant that would handle the capacity that NSI's whois servers (oh, and try to telnet to rs.internic.net now!) currently handle, and then some for $10M - 20M. Sheesh.

--j

I still haven't decided how lazy I should be about this: On 23 February, I sent in a domain modification to change one of my nameservers from a deceased machine to a new machine that had agreed to be secondary. This was switching a nameserver, not editing the existing nameserver entry. I know this should work because I actually used the text file from the LAST time I changed a nameserver.

InterNIC sends me back a reply saying that if I want to change ISPs, I have to use the enclosed template. The template they tack to the end is domain-template.txt version 4.0 - the exact template I sent them in the first place!

I might be missing something - but I doubt it.

• For one site I'm working on, whois lmda.org is "not found" but www.lmda.org can be visited (not that there's anything there yet).
• An "on hold" domain name I've been waiting to become available was "not found," so I fired off the e-mail registration template I had ready-made for such an occaision, and got a "this domain is already registered" error in return.
• Some whois requests returned "Sorry, you shouldn't see this record" but trying them again immediately worked. (What is this message? When would this show up when things are working properly?)

Not only that, but for domains that are listed, no contact information is given. What a bunch of lamers. Let's slashdot www.internic.net, that'll teach 'em.

In my opinion, if trademarks belong in the DNS at all, it's within the domains of those government agencies registering them in the first place. Thus, the U.S. PTO could set up TM.USPTO.GOV as a placeholder for all trademarks registered there, and it would be up to them to devise a naming scheme that would allow every registered trademark to map to a valid and unique subdomain name. I wish them good luck with pictorial trademarks.

As for non-registered trademarks, establishing a registry in the form of a domain name (whether TLD or any other domain) kind of contradicts the idea of allowing non-registered trademarks in the first place.

We don't have to wait for the WIPO or any court to rule that the DNS should accomodate their view on trademarks before we set up a new system. In fact, we are well-advised to make preparations in advance, setting up an organization, devising new rules, and decide how to make an emergency transition in case a legal warhead happens to hit the present InterNIC. I suppose you don't need government authorization to join others in building a bomb shelter or stockpiling canned food?

Don't repeat AlterNIC's mistake however, that of polluting the existing namespace in order to seize control of InterNIC's web address (according to what I've heard, the guy behind AlterNIC ended up in jail for that, thanks to the InterNIC having high-ranking friends not wanting to see the integrity of .MIL being corrupted in that or any other way).

If anybody wants to test an alternate domain hierarchy, keep it well away from the current one. That goes for intellectual property lawyers too.

This is all old news. Internic stated a while ago about the change. They were contracted by the government to develope a way to have many companies run the top level domains. Also, there will be 5 new top levels. This can be found at internic's site, http://rs.internic.net