Resolving Everything: VeriSign Adds Wildcards

DragonHawk writes "As of a little while ago (it is around 7:45 PM US Eastern on Mon 15 Sep 2003 as I write this), VeriSign added a wildcard A record to the .COM and .NET TLD DNS zones. The IP address returned is 64.94.110.11, which reverses to sitefinder.verisign.com. What that means in plain English is that most mis-typed domain names that would formerly have resulted in a helpful error message now results in a VeriSign advertising opportunity. For example, if my domain name was 'somecompany.com,' and somebody typed 'soemcompany.com' by mistake, they would get VeriSign's advertising." Read on below for some more information.

"(VeriSign is a company which purchased Network Solutions, another company which was given the task by the US government of running the .COM and .NET top-level domains (TLDs). VeriSign has been exploiting the Internet's DNS infrastructure ever since.)

This will have the immediate effect of making network trouble-shooting much more difficult. Before, a mis-typed domain name in an email address, web browser, or other network configuration item would result in an obvious error message. You might not have known what to do about it, but at least you knew something was wrong. Now, though, you will have to guess. Every time.

Some have pointed out that this will make an important anti-spam check impossible. A common anti-spam measure is to check and make sure the domain name of the sender really exists. (While this is easy to force, every little bit helps.) Since all .COM and .NET domain names now exist, that anti-spam check is useless.

VeriSign has published white papers about their implementation and also made some recommendations."

Comments

Verisign would look nice in gasoline and flame

[netmask]

This is really sad.

Not only will mail have problems, as the "non-existent domain" check will always fail.. but this is completely criminal it seems.

I hate to mention, but they are giving Microsoft a dose of their own medicine.. taking away their ability to bring you to their 'search' page for non-existent domains.. and AOL's own feature similar to that. It hurts google, since Verisign teamed with yahoo on this one for search services (Although, google provides yahoos search functionality for now).

All .com domains are resolving with an authoratitive section of Verisign's server.. and .net's with the list of root servers. It would seem that no domain should ever resolve with either of those as an authority.. The real dns server for the domain should. Hopefully BIND and other DNS packages will start blocking domains that have a root server or a verisign server as the authoratitive dns server.

Further.. they'll be harvesting bounced email addresses for sure. If you get spammed from a bunk domain, and it gets returned.. or you typo and email address.. they are nice enough to run a mail daemon on port 25 to harvest those addresses. It lets you helo, from, rcpt, and data.. and then closes your connection.. just long enough to snag all the info it wants from you.

This entire thing is a mess, and seems like it should be highly illegal. Hopefully OpenSRS and GoDaddy and others will have a fit over it. This just seems completely wrong.

Now let's see

[psyconaut]

Porn companies aren't allowed to run sites with slightly mispelled names because it's considered unfair practice, but a 'registrar' is allowed to catch anything that might come their way?

-psy

Re:Abusing the Power that be

[ScrewMaster]

Verisign has forgotten that they don't own the Internet: they were granted the power to run the root servers and manage primary DNS by the federal government. That government-granted monopoly is revocable. This is a risky maneuver, as it will have global implications. They will probably get their wrists slapped.

Re:network operators are pissed at this

[Wateshay]

I wonder how long it will be before Verisign decides to sue the backbone carriers for some kind of unfair business practice crap.

Re:network operators are pissed at this

[Alien Being]

That would leave browsers waiting to timeout. ICMP-Rejects wouldn't be much better.

We'll need to hack the resolver libraries and/or DNS servers to translate 64.94.110.11 into "no such domain". Verisign will add some more numbers, and soon we'll have blacklists.

Re:Agreement by typo.

[JayBlalock]

That's not hillarious, that's maddening beyond my ability to properly express. Especially, #10 - Sole Remedy: "YOUR USE OF THE VERISIGN SERVICES IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ANY OF THE MATERIALS, RESULTS OR OTHER CONTENTS OF THE VERISIGN SERVICES OR WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, OUR PRIVACY STATEMENT, OR OTHER POLICIES, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE USE OF THE VERISIGN SERVICES OR OUR SITE." If you don't like what Verisign is doing, get off the Internet. This could well inspire even our current Administration to smack them down. This is the most hubris-laden abuse of a monopoly I've heard of in a long time.

Contact ICANN comments@icann.org

[Teflon]

If you want this "feature" of verisign's turned off (I know I sure do), contact ICANN now. This is yet another example of Verisign having far too much unchecked power over the .COM and .NET registries.

Re:Contact ICANN comments@icann.org

[innocent_white_lamb]

What is this, better living through DDoS?

No, this is receiving feedback from the affected administrators, engineers and other interested persons; said feedback hopefully leading ICANN to do the give Verisign a short, sharp lesson in "WHOA!".

You know, the job that they are supposed to be doing and all that kind of thing.

Re:Complain to ICANN *NOW*

[tuba_dude]

If ICANN was still there for the good of the internet, yeah, that should work. Otherwise, you should only bother complaining if you're a CEO.

Re:Boycott Thawte (Verisign's SSL subsidiary)

[mino]

Email your Thawte rep to explain why you or, better yet, your huge organization :) won't be renewing your certificates with Thawte.

Superb idea, ajks. Have a cookie (or a certificate).

Here's a form-letter version of the email I'm about to shoot off to our rep, the delightful(!) Barbara:

Dear [Thawte Rep Name],

I am an employee (and listed CSO) of [company name], which purchases 128-bit SSL certificates from Thawte. We purchase approximately [x] certificates a year, which works out to approximately $US[y] per year.

As you might be aware, Verisign, parent company of Thawte, has recently introduced a deceptive and misleading practise with regards to DNS resolution of non-existent domains. Any attempt to locate the IP address of a domain which is not registered (www.non-existent-domain.com) will, rather than returning an error message, return the address of a Verisign advertising server.

This practice is not only ethically dubious, it is also something which promises to cause untold headaches for network administrators all over the world, as well as confusion for end-users of the Internet, all purely for the financial benefit of Verisign.

I am not writing this letter to you in an official capacity as representative of my company: however, I wish to advise you that come certificate renewal time, I will be strongly recommending to my company that we change to an alternate SSL certificate provider, rather than Thawte, if this practice of Verisign's is still in place.

As the listed CSO of this company, I strongly expect that my stance will result in the direct and immediate loss of this $US[y] worth of annual business to Thawte.

This is an selfish and narrow-minded move on the part of Verisign, and I have no hesitation in recommending that my company withdraw its business from Thawte.

Kind Regards,

[Your Name],
[Your location]

We're a small company: but even in our case, [x] and [y] are are 10 and 3000 respectively. It won't take that many to make a sizeable hole in Thawte's pockets.