McLaughlin Defends Site Finder As 'Innovation'

simeonbeta2 writes "Mark McLaughlin, Senior VP at Verisign, has an editorial up on news.com. McLaughlin casts the debate over sitefinder in terms of 'innovation' versus the status quo and threatens that stifling 'innovation' will lead to a weaker internet." There's more -- read on below.

psimeonbeta2 continues:"Additionally (shades of Darl) he suggests that an anti-capitalism animus is behind the resistance to sitefinder. This despite the known problems that sitefinder caused and despite the fact that breaking the DNS standards may have constituted a breach of contract on Verisign's part. Resistance, he concludes, must be due to some sort of techno-religious fervor.

While Verisign's chutzpah certainly doesn't rise to fiaSCO levels, I find the similar tones in spinning the issues at hand to be truly disturbing. Not only did Verisign screw us by changing how the internet works at a fundamental level, now they purport to be irritated that we didn't thank them for the favor! At least in this case the good guys(cherish this moment, ICANN!) won."

Comments

Utter Crap

[l810c]

He makes this sound like the entire future of the Internet hangs in balance on this decision. Like routing all typos to Verisign is some critically important new technology.

If someone types in a bad domain name, they should get a message that states just that. I don't know if there are any statistics on this, but for me 9 times out of 10 it is a typo. If not, then you can go to the search engine of Your Choice and search for the name.

The decisions made over the next months and years will determine the future growth and vitality of the Internet
Should Read
The decisions made over the next months and years will determine the future growth and vitality of the Verisign.

Let someone else innovate

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

Let someone else "innovate"; someone not trusted to serve the .com/.net root zones without biased interest in the outcome of how it works.

Re:Let someone else innovate

[Ohreally_factor]

Or better, let Verisign innovate, but without the terrible encumbrance of having to administrate the .com/.net TLDs. Give that responsibility to another organization that can handle it.

Innovation?

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

Spammers do a lot of creative things to get their messages through. So, would it be "stifling innovation" to make spam illegal?

There's a difference between actual innovation that benefits society vs. people just finding a way to take advantage of the system.

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[g0at]

Congratulations.

On the other hand, some of us like having the choice to let the user-agent do that when NXDOMAIN is returned, which uh, it never is with Sitefinder.

(I mean, I like root beer. Therefore, I think that all fast food chains should make it the default, and not provide user choice... after all, I like it.)

-ben

Of course it was innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

It was obviously innovation. Nobody had ever done it before, yes. (Sure there were wildcards in other TLDs, but they weren't trying to provide the service SiteFinder was.)

The thing is, not all innovation is good. In this case, VeriSign innovated, and most people didn't want their innovation.

If they like, they could provide the *exact* same innovation by distributing a fully opt-in browser add-on.

Look at it from both sides...

[thecampbeln]

Looking at SiteFinder from the viewpoint of a "stupid user", it's pretty damned neat! I mean, it's kinda like calling the wrong 800 number and the person who answers says "Oh this happens all the time, the number you actually want is...". This is a nice feature!

Now looking at Sitefinder from the technical perspective, it's a scary ass "development". As once again, calling the wrong 800 number, the person could say "Oh this happens all the time, but I know a better place get (insert product/service here)! Try calling...", here in lies the devil!

It would be nice to have the feature in the first instance, but we all know that it will end up being served as in the second instance (besides all the anti-SPAM issues, et la). <rant>Since the CEOs of now are children of the 80's, everything always boils down to the all mighty $</rant>. BUT... is there any way that this idea could be put to good use?

The Internet Will Break...

[FsG]

ICANN appears to have bought into claims that the Internet has broken or will break. Anyone who has used it in the last three weeks knows that claim to be false.

Bullshit. This is clearly written from the perspective of the user, who will click the pretty buttons while completely unaware of what's going on in the background. Instead of asking "anyone who has used it," why not ask a DNS admin or someone who is similarly qualified to make a decision on this point? Those people will tell you loud and clear that this thing indeed caused serious problems.

Re:The Internet Will Break...

[FsG]

A valid point, but I think you misunderstood. My point was that the admins who run the networks (not just DNS admins) are often the only ones who see when something breaks. Users are often entirely unaware of the problems going on in the background, the ones that cause these admins to stay up all night. As long as the buttons still go clickety-click, the users are happy.

DNS admins should have a louder voice on this not because they're "fellow geeks," but because when something goes wrong, they are the first to notice. Therefore, their opinion on the question of "did something go wrong?" is more important.

"End to end" was the innovation.

[dpbsmith]

There's nothing innovative about having the network do centralized processing, and perform those specific functions that Ma Bell or Verisign or whomever thinks it can market and charge money for.

What was innovative was the concept of a network that just provided connectivity, and allowed the users at the network termini to provide the innovation.

To call SiteFinder innovative is like cutting the wings off an airplane and saying that you've created an innovative new form of ground transportation.

Standard are there for a reason

[rborek]

They exploited a known feature in the DNS system, and abused their monopoly. There's no innovation there - just an abuse of a government-granted monopoly position. Had they actually proposed something innovative, and proposed it as an RFC (even if it was an Informational RFC), then maybe things would be different. Instead, they decide to do something that was not contemplated by the IAB for the standard. The Internet is built on standards - and sometimes standards can be slow to change because of the sheer number of different systems involved. You can't expect things like DNS standards to change overnight.

Innovation? No, world's second oldest profession

[morelife]

Dude, abuse of power, greed, and lying to the public are not exactly "innovation". Can we please have our "weaker" Internet back? Uh, thank you.

Wrong place

[countach]

The problem is not that something like sitefinder isn't a good idea. The problem is that putting it in the root name servers is the wrong place for it. Something like a browser plugin or browser feature is the correct place for it. Users can have the feature, and it may even be good, but this is the dead wrong way to implement it.

Re:I kind of like SiteFinder

[ScrewMaster]

Uh ... no. Verisign altered and partially busted a rather critical piece of Internet infrastructure and caused significant problems. The Sitefinder aspect of their "innovation" was only part of it. Billions of lines of code out in the world were written to function with DNS servers that behave in a certain way, to a particular well-defined specification. Verisign altered they way the root servers respond to DNS requests, and they did it unilaterally, without warning, and for profit. That is precisely the kind of mentality we do not want in an entity that maintains systems and equipment that we all depend on.

Suppose your power company decided, all on its own, without consulting you or anyone else, that they were only going to supply 90 VAC to your home or office instead of the usual 120. Some pieces of equipment would work fine, others would simply fail, or even destroy themselves. You would probably not have any idea what the hell was happening. That's pretty much what Verisign did to programs that interact with .COM and .NET domains. There are other ways of providing SiteFinder-like capability with causing worldwide disruption, and if Versign is unable to handle their assigned responsibility it should be given to someone who can.

What Verisign did rocks the foundation of trust that other nations have in America's ability to operate such globally important services. Verisign's upper management needs an attitude re-adjustment, or better yet complete replacement with more ethical businessmen.

Re:Sitefinder not innovative

[ComputerSlicer23]

Implementing it in the DNS isn't "bonkers". Implementing in the _root_ DNS servers, with no warning, no RFC, no discussion, and no debate is bonkers. While I agree that the most appropriate way to do that is in the user agent.

I mean if AOL wanted to put this sort of rule in their DNS server, more power to them. If cox.net wanted to do it, great. If my work wanted to do it fine. If they are prepared to suffer the consequences, and will allow me to route around it, I'm fine with it.

The people who run the core of the DNS system for the two most commonly typed domain names? Gosh darn irresponsible. Just insane. Bonkers. Foolish. Strange. Inappropriate.

I don't mind others breaking their perspective of the internet. However, I have serious issues with people who break my corner of the internet.

Kirby

It's not the sabotage I mind...

[The Gline]

...so much as the sneaky excuses.

I'm reminded, distantly, of a hoax that took place in the art world in the Sixties. A modern art exhibit was set up at a small downtown (NY) gallery, with about forty paintings, and an art critic for one of the major rags came down to check it out. He started doing this gush to the curator full of the usual ArtSpeak jargon, and then the hoax was revealed: the paintings were all the work of a two-year-old boy. There was a pause, and then the critic shifted gears as if nothing had happened and started gushing about the purity of a child's untarnished perspective!

The more I live, the more I see that people will do absolutely anything to pretend that everything is just hunky dory, even if it means being a consummate horse's ass. VeriSign are just the latest heirs to ass-dom.