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McLaughlin Defends Site Finder As 'Innovation'
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."
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.
appears to be the same defense used by spammers.
Let someone else "innovate"; someone not trusted to serve the .com/.net root zones without biased interest in the outcome of how it works.
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.
Rank Presidents by th
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
myselfmusic
Bookmarks are pretty sweet. Almost every modern browser supports them, I think they even have it in Netscape 2.0. Did the throbbing M have 'em? I forget.
... in the form that we have recently come to know it.
This sort of innovation followed by the "This will stifle innovation defense." must surely infringe on a Microsoft business process patent
I smell another lawsuit on the horizon.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
personally, I just autocomplete (have to type it right the first time, and the first couple of letters...I know it's hard), or have it bookmarked...
I will agree that some of this was knee-jerk, but implementing this for everyone without anyone else's input was definatly the wrong way to go about it.
Why is * in bind so special? Here are some more 'innovative' wildcards: rm -rf /* (innovative on sco's lawyers machines... won't take much time at all to complete...)
cat * > /dev/null (Zero loss compression of verisign's arguments...)
and the best yet...
cat * > /dev/sda (or /dev/hda) (Method of preserving the data, but making it useless - similar to press releases by verisign)
... street beggars have announced that the "innovation" of pointing loaded guns at the people they are asking for money greatly increases their profits. "Well, we the panhandling industry can't just remain static. They should be thanking us for innovating new sources of revenue" said one street bum as he was being arrested...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
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.
Internet Explorer can do that with MSN search and it usually works well enough. (Too bad you can't use google instead...or can you? I don't have their toolbar since I don't use IE.) .com registrars as an added bonus.
Site Finder, however, takes EVERY invalid domain request from every kind of program on every platform, and breaks the DNS standard, with screwing over the other
I just innovated 4 of my domains over to
another registrar.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
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?
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Since the Site finder breaks some anti-spam tools and makes web admins jobs more difficult due to every address having an IP address returned it cannot be considered an "innovation" a new type of computer that ran a little faster but messes with the voltage on the power line so that other devices would'nt work right wouldn't be an innovation, it would be a piece of crap, as is site finder
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Sometimes I misspell URLs and I actually *like* having a service that attempts to find the site I'm looking for.
So set your browser to do that. Most of the popular browsers will, and you can even chose your search engine.
No need to force that behaivior on every user of every Internet service. The Internet is not (just) the web.
First he continues the Web==Internet BS, then he strongly implies that Verision Sitefinder's drawbacks had a technical solution other than complete negation of what they'd done. If they think there's a technical alternative to making Sitefinder useful and only show up for WWW users, suggest it. I've heard of no such thing.
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.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
the problem is versign signed up for the status quo.. its called an internet standard!
don't like the standard, than stand down as regsitrar and start your own internet!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Starting nmap 3.28 ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2003-09-15 06:36 PDT ... good. :365 .1%D=9/15%Time=3F65C0E9%O=80%C=-1)% IPID=Z%TS=U)= AS%Ops=MNNTNW)g s=AS%Ops=MNW)A CK=S++%Flags=AS%Ops=MNW)O %Flags=R%Ops=))
Host sitefinder.verisign.com (12.158.80.10) appears to be up
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan against sitefinder.verisign.com (12.158.80.10) at 06
Adding open port 80/tcp
The SYN Stealth Scan took 94 seconds to scan 1643 ports.
Warning: OS detection will be MUCH less reliable because we did not find at least 1 open and 1 closed TCP port
For OSScan assuming that port 80 is open and port 36304 is closed and neither are firewalled
For OSScan assuming that port 80 is open and port 43206 is closed and neither are firewalled
For OSScan assuming that port 80 is open and port 44655 is closed and neither are firewalled
Interesting ports on sitefinder.verisign.com (12.158.80.10):
(The 1642 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: filtered)
Port State Service
80/tcp open http
No exact OS matches for host (test conditions non-ideal).
TCP/IP fingerprint:
SInfo(V=3.28%P=i386-portbld-freebsd
TSeq(Class=TR
T1(Resp=Y%DF=Y%W=16A0%ACK=S++%Flags
T1(Resp=Y%DF=Y%W=16D0%ACK=S++%Fla
T2(Resp=N)
T3(Resp=Y%DF=Y%W=16D0%
T4(Resp=Y%DF=Y%W=0%ACK=
T5(Resp=N)
T6(Resp=N)
T7(Resp=N
PU(Resp=N)
TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=truly random
Difficulty=9999999 (Good luck!)
TCP ISN Seq. Numbers: 673A4C36 652AB817 BBE534C3 685BB54A
IPID Sequence Generation: All zeros
Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 137.552 seconds
The linux hacker
i think at least some internet users will find Site Finder a good service, especially when you're not too sure about a URL, or mistyped one.
the annoying part is the opportunity for verisign to make a good profit out of this as there are quoted millions of mistyped URLs daily.
however who wants/can to provide a sevice (which costs money) for free? or even, who wants to not make a profit when there is profit to be made?
anyway, if site finder is associated with a neutral web directory like dmoz.org, it might be a different story.
You have the entire Internet bookmarked so you never need to type in a URL?
That's so cool!
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.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Trust and responsibility is nothing new, he's right.
A quote from the article:
"That error page can lead to a dead end, with no options on how to get to where you tried to go."
Perhaps Mr. McLaughlin should try something like Google, where a service is performed at your request, not the advertiser's/coporations insistence.
I dub thee....
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
"You keep using that word. I believe it does not mean what you think it does." -- The Princess Bride
Excellent! Normally I'd have to pay top dollar for such high-grade bullshit.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
The whole idea of sitefinder is "implemented" by other companies, and this destroys all of the "competition", so how are we the anti-capitalist saying others should be able to handle DNS errors their own way, rather than have them shove their stuff down our throats using somthing that goes against RFC, they are one of the most important companies to run the net, and they don't obide basic RFC, I think the gov't should step in and take away their .com and .net privledges away and give them to someone we can trust...
Sig: I stole this sig.
I like wood. It can be used in innovative ways. Therefore, I believe everything (cars, spaceships, skyscrapers....) should be built with it. If I were a government-granted monopoly with the power to mandage use of wood, I'd do exactly that. Surethere'd be technical problems here and there, but as long as the engineers talked it out with me, everything would be fine.
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.
It used to be easy but not it requires a registry change. But it certainly works with google.
IF Verisign had vetted this idea first. Gotten feedback. Instead, their "innovation" was shoved down all our throats, with no care given to any ill-effects it might cause.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
He wants to innovate? Submit an RFC (Request For Comment). Let the community decide whether or not this innovation is good for the Internet.
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.
Are we talking about a means to a monopolistic "sitefinder" that steals legitimate users from the sites they wanted to go from in an effort to make money, or are we talking about the internet being destroyed due to lack of innovation, ...and the something about the discovery of the west continents? I fail to see how one can link an advertising based search engine to Christopher Columbus... I guess he's been talking to Darl McBride a lot as of late...
Claiming critics of Verisign are stifling innvation is ridiculous. If the internet is going to work, it needs to use open standards that everyone agrees on. The problem is that Verisign, as a commercial company, implemented their own implementation on a whim! If they thought this was such a good, altruistic idea, why don't they try submitting it as a standard for the internet and get it peer-reviewed instead?
or even better some of us don't like to have to rewrite tons of scripts that use the DNS system for something besides the web. I mean there is more to the internet then just the World Wide Waste :). When Verisign decided it would do this, I noticed all my domain checking scripts stopped returning NXDOMAINS, and had to be hacked real quick to look for the magic site finder ip, and then before that wonderful Bind patch, had to worry that they would change the magic ip thus breaking my scripts again.
Then to add salt to my wounds, they send me an e-mail saying that my domain name is expired and I should call a friendly Verisign scumbag^H^H^H^H^H^Halesperson to help get my domain back. This was the last domain I had registered on them, and it was moved to OpenSRS 5 months ago. I don't see how someone this incompentant and this greedy should be put in charge of something this important.
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
inovation is a joke. Nobody buys that. I'd like to see him explain exactly why Verisign should own the rights to the "bad domain" page. Obviously he can't, thus the "inovation" argument. If he could explain how the user gets the slightest bit of value out of this, I'll eat my underwear.
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.
As were the first spammers.
As would have been the inventors of anthrax.
Being first doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing however...
The Mothership
there is not much difference between versigns service and internet explorer forwarding you to msn search, except you can choose not to have internet explorer do that, with versign you can't.
I would'nt exactly call reducing choice inovative at all.
It's called Google.
Verisign clearly want to innovate so much that their homepage contains 87 HTML errors, check the w3c validator, in less than 300 lines of code.
That has to be some sort of innovation record!
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
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.
.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.
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
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.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...they can just remind us that they are the ones who got rid of sitefinder and we should shutup that they just broke everything else.
But, the internet is dying, right?
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
You can use google, believe it or not. Search sidebar (Ctrl-E), Customize (Alt-Z or toolbar option on top of search sidebar), Autosearch Settings.
Web Browsers have been doing this for non-existant domains ages.
The web browser is the right place to implement such a feature. Providing extended functionality to the user is the role of the user agent.
Implementing it all the way down in DNS is just bonkers.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
For that I have google, which will then happily keep track of everywhere I've visited.
yes I know using so many caps is like yelling. sheesh.
... it's what the rest of us feeling like doing anyway.
S'okay
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
' But there is another issue here, one that is hardly ever mentioned and that's the coining of the term "innovation." This word, which was hardly used at all until two or three years ago, feels to me like a propaganda campaign and a successful one at that, dominating discussion in the computer industry. I think Microsoft did this intentionally, for they are the ones who seem to continually use the word. But what does it mean? And how is it different from what we might have said before? I think the word they are replacing is "invention." '
Perhaps Verisign will help the world see through this concept of "innovation" and let us get back to inventing things.
Actually, and someone please correct it I'm wrong, I do remember Mosaic having bookmarks.
morcego
Personally, I think this kind of innovation is a Good Thing. However, the innovation should be done at the application level, not at the infrastructure level. Let applications determine how to handle the case where a DNS query returns NXDOMAIN. But don't break the infrastructure and force all applications to go south just because you want a web browser (1 port out of 65K) to handle DNS differently.
</rant>
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Good, I hope 'innovation' all over, such as the likes of Microsoft innovation, is stiffled. This way perhaps we can get back to 'invention' again.
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.
Great. Where can I send donations to their lobby group/PAC that is lobbying for repeal of the DMCA/UCITA/Palladium/whatever and fighting for our digital freedom?
What? They have no such group? They don't really want to strengthen the internet in general? Just the parts that profit them?
Phew, glad that was cleared up.
Pass the crack pipe back to Darl.
You shouldn't bogart man, it's rude, dude..
innovation \In`no*va"tion\, n. [L. innovatio; cf. F. innovation.] 1. The act of introducing something new. 2. A change effected by innovating.
In no dictionary did I find "breaking compliance with well-established standards" as a definition of innovation. Verisign must not have included research in their operating budget this year. Go figure.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -Douglas Adams, THHGTTG
Could I opt out of it? No (changing my hosts file or something similar doesn't count). Did I have to opt in? No. Did I get a choice of any kind? No. Did I know that it was comming, was I given a chance to learn about it? No. Was it agreed upon by people who know what they're doing, who know what's good for the internet? No. Did it break existing internet "custom", which was almost a rule), without my consent? No. Was it shoved down my throat with no warning? YES!
Look, I can see where something like sitefinder could be helpful, but they went about it the wrong way. I don't like them messing with DNS responses breaking the protocall. I don't like them adding in search results. In my example above, I wouldn't mind if it autodirected me to slashdot.org. I wouldn't mind if it presented me with alternate spellings. But if I'm trying to get to compusa.com and I mistype that, I don't think that it should give me links to CDW, Newegg, or other computer stores (I don't know if it did this, but I wouldn't be suprised). They went about this in COMPLETELY the wrong way, and screwed themselves out of anyone rational who might have though that their service was a good idea, at least to start.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The only time I just type something in is if I want a pr0n site. They're usually the ones that have the domain names for legitimate stuff. Like www.whitehouse.com. I always forget the .gov. ;-)
There is no spoon or sig.
You know, this is just going to place a good bit more load on everyone's nameserver, not just the roots. Every request that used to be discarded from NS caches because it didn't exist will now be cached normally as a "good" request. 10-12% more data load might not be much for small DNS uses, but for companies like AOHell and other large ISPs, VeriSign is just screwing them over.
On another note, this would have to be some form of nameserver hack, not a root file hack(correct me if I'm wrong). But not all of the root servers are controlled by Verisign. Are those independant roots going to go along with this? Why should they?
I put my back out during yardwork last week, so Slashdot's editors shouldn't post articles that make me laugh so hard. How about a warning next time, k guys?
Redirecting from a dead-end link to a preselected webpage is innovation? Uh, let's see where I've run across this before Verisign implemented its SiteFinder service:
* Microsoft's "friendly" HTTP error messages
* Domain squaters that buy common domain name misspellings
* My own proxy server project that displays a custom HTML page following a bad look-up
It's obvious, and in the case of an important 'Net infrastructure like domain name services, it's unethical exploitation. Why don't they just spam people like every other company out there?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Build a similar feature into a browser such as Mozilla.
This will prove that:
* You can achieve the exact same effect without breaking other applications
* The thing that bugs verisign is not that people can't find the site they need, but that they can't use their monopoly to force people to do it through their site.
My original proposal-in-a-nutshell:
Browser/options/network (or something):
When server does not exist
[.] Display modal error message
[.] Display non-modal error message
[X] Redirect to:
[.] Domain search site A
[.] Domain search site B
[.] Domain search site C
[X] Custom search:
[ http://www.indiesearchguys.net?host=%h ]
The sooner this gets implemented, the easier it will be for everybody to see through Verisign's lies.
You just paid someone else to register it with them.
Ah, the joys of a monopoly.
I hate M$FT as much as the next guy here, but their autosearch solution was innovative* (* not sure if it was their idea). Without changing how the internet fundamentally works, they chose to render a failed DNS lookup as something more friendly and functional than a limited, rather useless OK popup. Something well within the right of a client application, and easily checked off if it doesn't float your boat. And it only affected those people that voluntarily chose to use their product (don't beat me up on the voluntarily bit).
With Verisign, there is no choice. They took a common community resource that should benefit all equally and biased it in their favor. They were selected as guardians of the system, not burdened with a mandate to "improve it". If they really think themselves clever, have them deploy a new, distinct system and compete for our patronage.
What the hell happened to the definition of innovation? It used to be that innovation was a positive change, a beneficial development. Now it is merely a smokescreen for nigh-criminal, underhanded manuevers like this Verisign ridiculousness and Microsoft's retarded defense.
It sounds like the popular meaning of "innovation" has metamorphasized to just "change". Specifically, it has been used to cover the tracks of profiteers trying to escape retribution for their foolish transgressions into privacy and user-end choices.
I hope that this term is returned to its former positive definition and that those who are responsible for its misuse realize the futility of their efforts.
njord
P.S. I wish I had some mod points - what's up with these comments? Take these flamers to the cleaners! Melisa? Learn to spell!
Why is everybody assuming that innovation is a good thing? Seems to me it is really a bad thing.
Sitefinder was essentially trying to make a profit of peoples typos, just like typosquatting. Typo squatting was equally innovative. I run bubba's books and register amozon.com. If I give the consumer better deals, where's the harm. Likewise, I have a licensed archive of naked people, and wonder how I can make money off it. I register disnay.com, put the pictures up for free. Again, consumers benefits because they get to look a free naked people, and when disney comes a knockin', I reluctantly give up my business for 100K.
It is true that sitefinder may be providing a service, and it is true that they have not yet put up pop up ads or links to porn sites, but if they are allowed to continue what is there to stop them?
Typosquatting probably isn't a a valid business model and clearly verisign should not be encouraging it. Unless of course part of their business model is to encourage typesquatting, transfer the domain name to victim, and then have the victim pay the registration fees into perpetuity.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The problem with the word "invention" is that law professionals have co-opted the word to refer to a process or material composition that is the subject of patent claims.
Will I retire or break 10K?
How much fact and reasoning does it take?
Couldn't you determine their magic site-IP dynamically? It seems to me that you could just look up an invalid address and then compare the result to what you got when looking up your questionable one. Looking up example.com should work, for instance. Even if Verisign deliberately broke things by making a distinction between reserved names line example and other errors, you could pretty much guarantee that your chosen domain was invalid by using a string of 30 random alphanumeric characters. Not, of course, that this justifies stupidity like sitefinder.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Dear sir,
Your comment: "This is a significant test for the entire community because if the community can't find a way to introduce new services while reaching a resolution on technical matters that might arise, then the Internet infrastructure will never improve."
You must have been at an SCO "boot camp" recently. The technical community did indeed reach a resoluton to the new "service" you called "Site Finder" which messed up the infrastructure.
TG
Since when did it become acceptable for adult executives of important corporations to act like children?
.well they thought they could get away with something stupid, but hopefully they'll come back to their senses and make things right. Now, I think. . . what a lot of NERVE for this brash imbecile to think that he can not only violate the public trust, but can come up with a lazier set of schoolyard lies than I'd expect from a middle-school truant-in-training.
Not only is his argument a blatant lie, but it is a poorly constructed one founded at the logic-level of a 3rd grader who just got caught doing something obviously wrong. Even HE knows that he is being dishonest but he seems to be hoping that by using important-sounding cliches that he's read in the paper, that his company will get away with it.
At first I thought. .
If Verisign is run by immature imbeciles like this buffoon, they should have their charter revoked. [period] I don't want to depend on ANYONE who lacks such a basic level of respect and sense of responsibility that they can't even conduct themselves at a minimal level expected of any high-school senior.
To think: we live in a world where Dan Geer is fired for trying to protect the public trust and this subhuman dolt maintains an important post that we HAVE to rely on. Who the hell is in charge of this damn country?
if he says that stopping SiteFinder will slow down innovation.. I say they are slowing down the innovations. We could innovate Mozilla, IE, Safari, etc to automatically go to specific server on DNS errors. And sites like SiteFinder could contract with those browser owners for redirects. Guess we can't do that cuz Verisign killed that innoviation with their innotivative SiteFinder
bobIf someone wants to change their web browser to be more intelligent about bad domain names, that's fine. It's not Verisign's place, however, to force a standard, especially without the consent of the community that pays for and uses the system.
Vote for Pedro
Does anyone else see the parallel between Mark Mclaughlin's defense of SiteFinder and the ATA's defense in stopping the National Do-Not-Call List?
No bluster. I think you just don't realize a. the scope of this issue and b. the potential for future mismanagement. The problem came in because Verisign tried to think for itself, but it doesn't have a license to think! Their job is to competently maintain a prescribed service, not to "innovate", and frankly they failed on both counts. You may consider this no big deal (if you were the admin of a major network you might feel differently, I suppose) but do you really want a bunch of marketing drones making decisions that affect the root servers? That's what happened here, whether you like SiteFinder or not. If they aren't put squarely in their place now, the next time they make some stupid little decision it may have worse impact. Verisign likes to make a big deal out of trust, but they don't understand that trust comes from predictability: the knowledge that a trusted entity will behave in a known way. I (and pretty much the rest of the planet) don't want these people to innovate ... just run the damn servers they way you contracted to run them. And I will tell you this: they are a lot less trusted now then they were before all this foolishness.
... fine. Some people might even pay for it. But what they did was utterly irresponsible for a company in their position.
As a developer of Internet-aware applications, Verisign already caused me some grief. We had a problem with one of our customer's data acquisition systems failing because they misconfigured the name of a remote server and the software couldn't tell! Ordinarily the software would have simply rejected the bad domain as unknown, but it (and we) had no reason to suspect that a long-time network standard would be violated simply because Verisign's marketing department saw an opportunity. So don't tell me this was no big deal: our problem was repeated the whole world over. I lost the better part of a day over it, and I have better things to do.
If Verisign wants to offer SiteFinder as a service
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Don't feed the trolls, even if they're in the Slashdot story itself!
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
The only innovation here is in the Owellian doublespeak that transforms bad into good and complaints into crimes.
... oh no, wait, I think there may already be prior art...
Perhaps Verisign should patent THAT
OTOH, maybe this will spur TRUE innovation by encouraging people onto alternative networks (eg Freenet).
decentralizing the DNS system... or at least promoting alternatives 8)
http://www.opennic.unrated.net/ would be a good start.
this posturing (pulling some low tech trick and crying "you are against innovation" when the ruse is discovered) is the kind of business crap that gives technology a bad name. This is the sort of stuff at the level of pop up windows and spy ware on your PC. This is the sort of stuff that some Joe Average AOL user in middle america runs across and when you explain it to them, they go "Huh?" and get more scared of using the computer or the web. This is the sort of shit that is KILLING the user base and hence STIFLING adoption of technology.
Finally something to replace all the Darl McBride jokes.
Last time I checked, there were 569 protocols defined as well-known services on my machine. The ONLY one that could have any benefit from the Verisign land grab is HTTP.
Breaking 568 protocols to deliver a marginally useful, if at all useful, service is technical idiocy of the highest degree.
The only thing innovative about it is driving stupidity to new heights.
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.
No, this would just mean that if you ask for a beverage (or entree) that they don't have, they give you root beer, and you can't return it.
You can change IE's default to Google with this
I mainly use Mozilla and I use the Google toolbar from here.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
It sends you to sites of VeriSign's choosing. Say they wanted companies to pay them for it. They could kill small companies and damage competition, which is very bad news for consumers and the economy.
Really the whole issue has nothing to do with capitalism vs socialism as much as it has to do with putting one's hands in the cookie jar to the detriment of the entire business community.
Verisign, by stealing DNS, has done three things:
a) made dns a problem on people's minds where it wasn't before.
b) shown that anyone with the power to police dns has the power to abuse it.
c) opened the doors to other dns's and ultimately the fracture of the global internet.
The decisions to use DNS or any other naming technology is always one that is based on commercial practicality. If companies such as Verisign try and use the DNS to leverage their own services, then, why use DNS?
This is my sig.
I have been bugging verisign about their Term Of Use allowing me to "opt-out'.. They finally replied just now, here is portion of it:
I am writing to update you on VeriSigns Site Finder service. On Friday, October 3rd, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) directed VeriSign, Inc., to temporarily suspend service no later than 6PM PST, Saturday, October 4. VeriSign requested an extension from ICANN for 3 additional days for the shut down in order to provide the technical community time to make any necessary system changes. Unfortunately, ICANN refused this request. Accordingly, in response to this demand, VeriSign is temporarily suspending the Site Finder service as of Saturday, October 4 at 6PM PST.Note the bold.. UMMMMMM I don't remember them giving us time to adjust to their SiteFinder!
bob...when an intellectual response just is futile and all you can do is raise your arms in digust and scream "what in gods name do they put in that morons cereal?" "innovation" has become the poster child of malleable semantics....the most operative part of semantics being its last two syllables.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
What angers me is the assumption by him that the internet is the WWW, that is just one protocol, the DNS changes may have been find for http, but it hurt every other protocol! If people need a spell corrector for www mistyped domain names the place for that is in the browser, not in the DNS. The astonisting thing is the way he feels has the right to run it, why should Versign have the monopoly right to own the wildcard entry. If there is to be a sitefinder, I want the record auctioned off with no renewal right. ICANN says the need cash well that would give them more than enough.
James
SiteFinder wasn't an 'innovation'; it was a marketing, ploy pure and simple. Verisign hoped to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals by routing domain-name typos to a site they controlled, ostensibly to then re-direct Internet users to sites and services that Verisign stands to make a buck on. MacLaughlin is insulting the collective intelligence - or, in some cases, the lack thereof - of Internet users by labeling his marketing gimmick as a service to help users resolve Internet errors. It's bullshit and it's disingenuous to call this an 'innovation' - with that logic you might as well call SPAM an 'informational opportunity' for the millions of users forced to wade through it. Get real.
ICANN pulled the plug on this little power play and I'm thankful they had the courage to do it. It's nice to see ICANN finally show a little backbone for a change. Verisign wanted to alter a fundamental part of how the Internet works - they wanted to change how the network responds to errors. ICANN correctly smacked this down. Imagine if the post office started sending malformed letters to the Direct Marketing Association: the public would be up in arms about it. Are we any more surprised that Internet users don't appreciate the same treatment? Looking at it this way underscores what so outraged ICANN but it ignores the fact that Verisign began this whole stunt when they bypassed what few Internet standards processes we do have. Did Verisign submit an RFC to suggest their change in Internet standards? Nope, not that I'm aware of. Did they address the issue with the Internet community and gain approval that way? Again, not that I'm aware of. They unilaterally decided to make the change, regardless of how the change might affect other Internet users, and that's why ICANN told them to knock it off.
Here's a thought Mr. MacLaughlin: do us all a favor next time and just ask before you decide to make a major change in Internet standards. The whole reason the Internet is useful to its users is because we cooperate, because there is a method and a process for change that everyone else follows. Internet users don't care if you make a buck on-line, but we'd rather you did so up-front instead of using (or, in this case, abusing) your privileged position as a registrar and the maintainer of the .com database. And quit crying because ICANN brought you to task for being the on-line version of a schoolyard bully. You tried, you lost, now move on and do something constructive. Oh, and stop listening to everything those guys and girls down in Marketing tell you - try listening to the techies for a change. Maybe you'll learn something.
well example.com wouldn't work as it's registered to iana, but yes in hindsight now(and what I will do if verisign turns the blasted thing back on), I could just look up *.tld, and get the magic address and store it. The problem was. Right when this was going on we where in the process of taking over another ISP, so trying to figure out if which of their domains was still valid, on on the hosts in question, got a lot harder...
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
VeriSlime's sitefinder is innovation is much the same way that the SARS virus is evolution.
They break all sorts of applications that rely on proper DNS behaviour, and typosquat EVERY domain name, and they call it innovation?
Hell, there isn't even an entry in sitefinder for every domain, (Try searching for my site, novasearch.net, on sitefinder. No hits.), so it's not even good at the task they purport it to be for!
My concerns about the SiteFinder:
- Who decides what pages are shown? Is it a completely objective search or are we under the cover of corporate sponsorship?
- What kind of user control do you have? So far I see three options available to me, and I could really care less about content filtering so where is everything else?
- Where are the other languages? Google supports just about every language known to mankind, living, dead, and ficticious. Why does America think it runs the world?
- How does this make the Internet stronger? So far, this move has defeated spam filters and caused other network problems.
As far as I'm concerned, this is an abuse of their administrative powers and ICANN has done the right thing for a change by putting a stop to this operation. They should revoke Verisign's power if abuse continues.THese guys are crying Microsoft now.
Ah, come on now. The net was doing just fine before Verisign started their crap.
Pure unadulterated BULLSHIT!
Innovation? Disregarding RFCs, breaking the expected behaviour of the Internet, for the commercial gain of a single company is 'innovation'? That's almost as good as Microsoft's 'Freedom to Innovate' arguments... sorry... couldn't help myself there :)
Call me recalcitrant, but I think that major changes to the functionality of the Internet should have at least some technical merit to the billions of people who use it.
threatens that stifling 'innovation'
I could make a special-toed boot specially designed for kicking people such as McLaughlin in the arse. I will of course, have features that makes it optimal for aiming directly towards that great rectal divide.
Then, when McLaughlin tries to press charges, I'll just state that my device is an innovation, and just because it damages the way he works doesn't mean it isn't useful to somebody...
Of course, I wouldn't have the power to force the masses to use such a device... but really I think that a swift-kick-in-the-arse is probably a lot more useful for many people than sitefinder ever was.
Also, has anyone ever noticed that antimicrosoft.com takes you to Linux.com
It would be a sad irony that if in the interest of the status quo we stifle innovation, because in the end all that will lead to is less investment in these important networks.
It's a shame all of us can't see we are stifling innovation. If it wasn't for verisign, we wouldn't have redone some of our programs. Think of it as an upgrade, we are providing yet another "upgrade" to our application/scripts. Thats innovative!
This is innovatation as defined by marketing 'droids...
I use DNS to match IP addresses to domain names... When I want to search for something, I'll the use the search engine of my choice.
Site Finder is like trying to use a fuel additive to change the colour of your car
Of course that idiot is going to say it's "innovation". He's trying to save face, when in fact he's made a bigger fool of himself.
...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.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
Need I say that anti-spam applications, networked printers, mail forwarders and mobile IP users were hung because of these highly-modified genetic root servers?
Should I point out that Mae-West traffic actually shot up because spammers were having a wonderful and rare day for unfeterred spamming?
He must be smoking crack...
I'm not assuming that innovation is a good thing, but .museum has been doing it for longer, so it really isn't new. In fact, not only is it unoriginal, it's also rude, greedy, and generally harmful.
Obviously, somebody is paying good money for Verisign to take the heat off SCO. I'll give you three guesses who, and the first two don't count.
The thing is, despite the absurd, self-serving nature of this "innovation," I can see how it might be useful for a browser to behave this way. This would be perfectly fine as an application-level behavior, and I'd go so far as to say I'd like to see it as an option in Mozilla. Google could have a "domain guessing" service, Verisign could have a service, Microsoft could have a service, your local floral shop could have a service, and the user could decide which one was most useful.
A few people have already mentioned this, and I'm just agreeing. What I don't agree with is breaking DNS for the sake of getting Verisign a few extra hits, then calling it "innovation." What utter crap.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
If operators and businesses are discouraged from exploring the bounds of the Internet, it will mean less research and development and less investment into the network infrastructure. In short, a weaker Internet.
you are correct: historically exploration has created more development, at the cost of that which is explored. Lewis and Clark explored a free land immersed in beauty; their exploration helped to eliminate the landscapes that caused them to explore.
oil surveyors explore some of the most beautiful landscapes left on earth... to destroy them with development.
I hope that the internet is kept as pure and free as it can be in such an age of pollution and greed.
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
I found sitefinder to be very helpful while it was online. The thing is, it could usually figure out what the site you were going to was supposed to be (no surprise since they have the name database). I can see the arguments of the people who claim it broke name resolution...i think there needs to be a way so that something like sitefinder can still work while still reporting properly a bad lookup so that programs that need that can have it.
"It returns valid values for every query."
Including invalid queries. There's an error code for nonexistant domains for a reason.
*applause*
meaning "get your rules away from my pocketbook." didn't used to be that way, but it's the new definition.
be very afraid when the "I" word comes up.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
If we think of the SiteFinder plan neutrally, granted, Verisign is offending most internet users and probably scerwing up the internet. But we should also think in terms of the average internet user - which is Joe Click-a-mouse.
These two things are probably more closely related than you think, in that when things go technically wrong, the people who get the most upset are the "Joe Click-a-mouse"s, who only know that they're getting more of those viagra e-mails now than they used to without any real idea why.
The internet is not all about linux, unix, code etc. It is also about usability. And if we think in this fashion it appears plausible that, *i might be wrong*, sitefinder might help people find the site they want?
tell me, how else would they find what they want if they dont have a complete URL? Suppose you had a wrong URL or did not remember the right URL? How would you find out the right one? Its impossible without sitefinder.
As others have pointed out, there are plenty of good search engines out there. Users have a great deal of choice in that area, they can pick Google, Altavista, Yahoo, Hotbot, Dogpile, etc. In the case of Verisign, however, they get what Verisign tells them they want, because Verisign is the one with the root servers. Not cool.
And again, a lot of the problems that people had with site-finder is the side-effects, such as the breaking of several spam-filtering tools, which trickles down to your buddy Joe, and the only difference between him and us is that we know why.
What's with this latent animosity towards ICANN? Yes, I'm probably too young (or too newbie) to know the story so please fill me in.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
If Verisign was *Really* trying to do this the right way, they'd only redirect web hits to their site. If they had done that, everything would have been fine. But instead they redirect at a very low level , in the namespace, so you can no longer tell if a .com address is valid in software. (which is why spam went way up when Verisign did this switch - mail servers can no longer tell when a return address is a bogus hostname.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
In contrast, sitefinder's suggestions were never even close and it broke protocols to boot. Amazing here that Microsoft could actually have come up with the right solution. I never liked their error pages, but it was only because the error number wasn't immediately obvious. If they had just added "404" or "505" in big letters I would have been happy with them.
Someone ought to tell Verisign that they didn't innovate anything. Microsoft already had this idea, and they did it way better.
Perhaps Verisign is getting money from spammers for launching sitefinder. My inbox got flooded with nearly triple the amount of spam I used to get before sitefinder launched. SpamAssassin and other filters that check for valid domains were all tricked into letting the spam through.
Couple that with the violations of certain RFC's and ICANN has a great case against Verisign. I'm sure plenty of people will come out and file "friend of the court" papers backing ICANN on this.
I own over a dozen domains with them, all registered years ago, and will be moving them elsewhere. Names4Ever only charges $7 a year. hmm, $7/year or $35/year, which one should I use?
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
Did anybody notice that SiteFinder only worked for Verisign customers? I have 6 .com and .net domain names, 3 of them are registered through Verisign, and 3 others are registered through another registrar. The only sites that were "suggested" by Sitefinder were the Verisign ones.
Nice "innovation"! Promote Verisign customers only!!!!
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Another problem with Sitefinder, which I haven't heard anybody mention yet, is that the suggestions offered were often not the actual domain you were looking for, but various typo squatters. So how is this helping the consumer?
This innovation requires an immediate patent, with a minimum per seat fee of $10^6. Perhaps we should support strategic closed source patents...
From the article: The decisions made over the next year about Internet innovation will influence the depth by which Internet operators are encouraged to continue to invest in these networks.
Fine, FUCK OFF, see if we care.
Someone else will GLADLY take over.
You and your so called "Innovations" are not wanted here.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
NICE troll!
Verisign would not have foisted it upon everyone with no warning. What was going through their minds? I think they actually thought no one would make a fuss about it. Sorry, Verisign, didn't work this time.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
If this was really a service that everyone needs, all they need to do is inform the ISPs that they would be glad to accept DNS redirects for all invalid domains. ISPs could, even on a per-user basis, deliver the wildcard address to their users whenever an invalid lookup is made. Someone would develop software to take advantage of this, an xml schema for encoding the return data to non-browser apps would be published, software developers would implement it, and the public would demand that their ISPs support it. As long as it didn't affect me, I wouldn't care.
I'd be curious what his response to such a suggestion would be. Probably that nobody would bother and this "innovation" would go unused. And that's the point.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
His right to innovation ends when it kills off the effectiveness of my networks spam detection programs.
I was suprised to see so little coverage of this issue on eff.org, so I sent the following e-mail to ask@eff.org:
Greetings.
Verisign's damage to the DNS system (called "SiteFinder") is one of the most egregious abuses of power that the Internet community has yet encountered. Although SiteFinder is currently suspended, recent comments from Verisign's officers make it clear that they intend to fight hard to resume SiteFinder in the future.
I am writing to ask EFF to elevate Verisign's abuse to high importance on the eff.org web-site.
Specifically, I ask that the eff.org web-site include an item about Verisign's abuse on the "Hot Topics" list (on the home page) and on the "To Do List" (on the Action Center page).
I urge EFF to use the eff.org web-site to deliver a loud, clear, and unambiguous message against Verisign's abuse of the Internet, and to assist the Internet community in organizing against their abuse.
Thank you for posting EFF's positive reaction to the suspension of SiteFinder on the eff.org home page (03 October 2003).
All the best,
(name / address)
You said they rolled out sitefinder "without warning", but I disagree, and that has been my problem with this from the beginning.
There WAS advance notice. And what didn't happen then was quite surprising: ICANN should have come down hard on VS for even suggesting that they might do this. They waited, and now they look like reactionary cowards instead of proactive stewards. ICANN looks weaker than Verisign at the end of the day, and Verisign isn't really discouraged.
I think they should ALREADY have their contract pulled, there should ALREADY be a termination date delivered to them, and there should be no discussion. THAT would send a message that says "this is not something you fuck with, and this is damned sure not a fuckup you have the opportunity to make twice in your position because, guess what, you're out of business. Have a nice live. Goodbye."
I really don't understand why that hasn't happened, except that ICANN is too weak and has too many conflicts of interest to make that happen and be done with it and we can wash our hands of Netsol and Verisign once and for all.
I don't speak for my employer, but they feel that way as well, and would say so with fewer f-words...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
(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.)
IF the STATE has given you the sole authority to distribute beverages to all fast food chains, THEN you have an analogy...
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
There is an article in the latest PRWeek on verisign with this little blurb regarding their corporate strategy. If you ever wondered what to expect next, this would be it - It also gives you perspective on what they believe they are accomplishing.
"But Tom Galvin, VeriSign's VP of public affairs, said this is just one big misunderstanding.
"The coverage has been largely technical, expressing the fears of the technical community," said Galvin. "It hasn't focused on internet users, who we created the service for. The media is not focusing on the end user. We think they're the most important audience.
VeriSign is working with its US agency, Bite Communications, to reach out to the media.
"We're doing a lot of outreach, and explaining Site Finder as a way we are innovating and improving the user experience on the internet," said Jim Hock, Bite's director of technology policy communications. "There's a fundamental misunderstanding of what Site Finder is all about. We're educating the media that this is a debate that needs to happen."
"I think the reason the media is writing about this is that it has to do with innovation," said Galvin. "The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were the first to write about it. We're putting it in the context of the benefits to the end user.""
--
|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
Note: This post has been censored for your reading pleasure.
Jesus, what else is this a**hole going to say? It'd be great if they could say what's really on their mind:
"Profit is our number one motivation. F*ck the Internet, f*ck standards, f*ck all you others who get in the way of us making a profit. We are duty bound to make money for our shareholders and we aren't going to apologize for it. Now f*ck off."
Instead, we all pretend they are making valid arguments when they talk about "service to the community," "innovation," and all the other "we care" b*llsh*t they spew. The bottom line is that when anything gets in the way of the bottom line, they will f*ck their own mothers to get ahead. The sooner we realize it the better.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Am I having a McCarthy-Era flashback here? What is the big deal even if the resistance to any corporation flexing its muscle to get you to do whatever it wants and buy whatever it wants you to is considered anti-capitalist? I thought capitalism usually took the market into consideration, and if the market resists enough, the best thing for any corporation is to immediately stop and either find a) a viable solution/compromise or b) cease and desist. It does not call for whining, and we seem to have an awful lot of whining lately. Maybe somebody needs to breastfeed all these babies (i.e. RIAA, SCO, Verisign, etc.) so they stop. And what big favor did Verisign cause me? Well, it generated at least one emergency phone call for a new client of mine, whose previous network administrator had DNS (in DHCP for the lan) pointing to SBC's DNS servers instead of to the Win2k active directory server. Thus a DNS query for _ldap_._mcs..... didn't fail for the non-existent domain and the system never fell back to WINS for resolution... thus nobody could log on.
It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
I beg to differ. I think the more accurate phrase is:
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Whether or not it is better to do so requires an ethical decision on the part of the asker.
"VeriSign's two root servers withstood the attack, in large part because we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fortify them and have hired the very best people to run them."
Those are some real expensive PCs they got there.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Internet Explorer has had that feature for years, as well as many other browsers. What they tried to do is knock all other site finders out of service, regardless of user preference.
Sure, there is no law that can stop a monkey to fart in public while wearing a Verisign tshirt but, there is a big posibility that the police will take you in for an related issue (as indecent exposure/obscene act or such...). Sure, you can get an expensive lawyer that will defent your right to free speech and such... Sure, you may even win the case. BUT, for most of of the common sense humans you are just a piece of garbage... So, go ahead ,open the Yellow Pages at the lawyers section...
Now don't you want to thank VeriSlime for their Internet innovation.
Yeah, why WOULD it matter that the "vocal minority" got upset about you hijacking the entire internet? We're just the ones who BUILT it, you ass.
According to this article, VeriSign spent millions of dollars to develop SiteFinder.
What I'd like to know is this: what exactly did they spend all that money on? For a cool two million, you can pay 20 really smart people $100,000 each for a year's worth of labor. It's hard to imagine that it really took that much manpower to redirect requests for non-existant domains to their web page.
I'd guess that they'll spend a few million bucks on lawyers if they decide to try to push SiteFinder past ICANN. But I just can't believe that 20 very expensive man-years went into developing their "product."
Mark McLaughlin may be right.
Perhaps the internet as we know it does need some innovation. It really is so sad to see it in its current state of disarray. (I really thought they were going to clean the internet last April 1st; and I logged off for that 24 hour period, because I could tell it needed some cleaning). Perhaps if enough of us had logged off they would have cleaned SCO from the internet? But NO! some selfish people stayed logged on, and SCO is still here. (Take heed interdroids.. please log off next Apr. 1st... perhaps they will clean the net of intervangelists such as Mr. McLaughlin. Didn't you guys get that email or what??).
Now, just in case Mark is in fact correct in his assertions that the internet is in need of innovation? I would suggest that VeriSign has had their kick at the cat, and ICANN should wildcard mistyped URL's to a different TLD each month, but exclude VeriSign for the first 36 months.
What do you think Mark? Is that innovative enough for you? Perhaps when a user types verisign.com a random link generator could take that user to a pr0n site just for shits and giggles? Innovative enough yet Marky?
Sheesh..........
Are Mark and Darl dating? or do they just have the same dealer?
There WAS advance notice.
I'm dubious. I read one of the very first, if not the first, announcements on NANOG, and it was after-the-fact (or approximately at-the-fact). There was certainly not the at *least* six months of warning that would be necessary for a change like this.
Also, has anyone noticed that Verisign and Microsoft, two of the largest tech companies that play the nastiest and are the *worst* at coming out with new tech (actually, to be honest, I don't know Verisign's history well enough to know whether they're historically like this or not) are the ones that *constantly* claim that any interference with their operations would "stifle innovation"?
I don't see Google pulling the "stifle innovation" card. Google's research lab comes out with exciting, helpful, interesting things on a regular basis. I don't see Apple pulling the "stifle innovation" card -- and while Apple may not be the tech luminary that it once was, it still comes out with decent and out-of-the-ordinary products. The only people claiming that their "innovation" is at risk are those who *aren't* innovating.
May we never see th
I don't think that the concept of sitefinder was a bad one. Sure if you end up at a 404, preforming a like name comparison might be a nice touch. The problem with site finder is that it was forced upon the population in an automatic way, changing the rules of how things work without consulting the people that have to abide by those rules. Instead of handling this at a network level it should be handled at an application level. Perhaps a checkbox in a drilldown menu in your web browser that says consult sitefinder on site not found errors.
Change and innovation are generally a good things even if their only usefull purpose is to teach you what not to change.
At first I didn't read the article, figuring that it was just a longer sappier version of the summary posted here. The summary does it no fucking justice.
More likely, ICANN caved under the pressure from some in the Internet community for whom this is a technology-religion issue about whether the Internet should be used for these purposes.
For this vocal minority, resentment lingers at the very fact that the Internet is used for commercial purpose, which ignores the fact that it's a critical part of our economy.
At this moment the veins in my forehead are bulging, and I'm envisioning a fate for this man pulled out of Crichton's Congo.
Apparently this gigantic ass doesn't realize that we are the critical people that make it function as a critical part of our economy. It also happens to be the fucking critical part of putting food on our plates. Somebody needs to get this through his thick head before the next time he hops into his 6 figure car heading back to his 7 figure house.
This unforgivable libel needs to be answered on the pages of news.com, and I think we should be petitioning to get this guy canned. He is not of the moral character I want near the big red button of the Internet.
I need to go cool off...
McBride... McDonalds... MC Hammer... And now, McLaughlin.
Do you approve of the job Verisign's CEO is doing?
Don't forget to submit your opinion in the forbes.com online poll.
This is NOT an empty signature.
The SiteFinder fiasco was the final impetus for me to remove my last couple of domains from NetSol's hands to a more internet friendly domain registrar. Apart from saving me money in the process I'm pleased I finally got off my ass and voted with my wallet!
A little planning goes a long way...
Exactly how is the sitefinder service any different than some domain name squatter using a commonly misspelled version of a domain name for commercial gain?
Verisign puts up ads on these misspelled domains, and will probably in the future start charging people for placement in certain domain name variations. This is EXACTLY domain name squatting.
eTrade SUCKS
You often learn more by not looking at what people do as to how they do it.
He neglects to say that in almost all cases, innovation concerning vital infrastructure had better be deployed and tested in a lab environment, not in the wild as in the SiteFinder case. This goes before all contractual, legal, practical and commercial questions.
There has to be a good bricks-and-mortar analogy for this -- I just can't find it!
-- H. Wilker
With all due respect, this could be very problematic if Verisign is allowed to continue it. .com and .net domains essentially belong to Verisign to do whatever
Not only because of all the technical implications, but, more importantly because it sets
the precedent that the
they choose with. If ICANN cannot stop this, then ICANN truly has no power to manage
it's resources in the public interest. If ICANN cannot do that, there is noone elase with
the public mandate to do so. This could be very bad going forward.
Given how hard Verisign is working on the PR engine against this, we should make it
as clear as possible that this is a significant operational issue with significant impact
to the community. We should stand united that this is a bad thing first and foremost,
and worry about the infighting about how bad later.
Owen
Sorry... Maybe the only application you use on the intenet is Web Browsing, and, so you
aren't effected by the things they broke. Lucky you.
However, for those of us that use other applications (email, ssh, IPSEC, etc.), which are suffering
incorrect error messages at best, and, significant malfunctions at worst as a result of this
action by Verisign, it's not a good thing. If you get a 404 page, you're welcome to go to
sitefinder yourself. You're welcome to go to google or any other search engine.
This isn't knee-jerk reactionism, it's response to painful stimuli. Additionally, Verisign made
this change without public review, without public comment, without public notice, and, without
approval from any of the governing bodies (IETF, IAB, ICANN) or the operational communities.
Further, when the governing body that owns their contract (ICANN) asked them nicely, they
refused to fix it. They had to resort to threatening legal action.
I hope this will help you understand the issue a little better and realize that most of the people
making the most vocal reaction are responding to real pain in trying to keep their networks
running. Most of us don't have time to be chicken little.
Owen
While I think that sitefinder is the wrong way to innovate (it caused me problems as well), I do think that DNS needs some innovation.
.com part is there and it sometimes is .org or .net or .countrycode or whatever.
.com or a country code. This has never been the intention. Registrations on the second level should have been limited.
.biz domain with the same name. Or with the same 100 names they already held.
The hierarchical model of DNS names was invented by techies, for reasons known and understood by techies. Today, the Internet is used by people on the street, and they do not understand (or want to spend effort to understand) this hierarchical model.
They just see a name like "company.com" as a reference to that company, and do not know why the
The first apparent failure of the hierarchical model has been that everyone registers productnames, advertisement slogans, and whatever you can imagine as a second-level domain under
Now that extra top-level domains appear, this failure is only multiplied. Every business that already registered a name now also registers (or should register) a
It is very clear that this hierarchical structure does not work in the real world.
DNS needs an innovation to remove this dotted-name system and replace it by something more intuitive, and less prone to abusive registration of many names referring to the same thing.
Finding a form that this should take is of course quite a challenge. It goes beyond a silly innovation like registering a wildcard domain.
I'm sorry but I don't think a story like this deserves to be recognized in any remotely respective manner. Statements like Verisign's ridiculous diatribe over the nobility and innovation exhibited in their blatant a**f*ck of the online community are insulting to the intelligence of anyone who can walk upright and think for themselves.
What is with our society? Are we going to turn the other cheek when corporations so cavalierly violate our sensibilities? We have biased news networks trying to copyright the term, "Fair and Balanced"; we have corporations controlling what is and isn't a "scandal"; we have blatant violations of the law ignored in favor of sensationalized triviality. Things are getting out of hand. What Verisign did was 100% wrong as well as a violation of their agreement to provide services. It's about time we terminated the existence of the totally limp-dicked organization called ICANN and not let corporations railroad over the Internet and then tell us it's "Innovation."
ICANN should be dissolved. Verisign should have its contract to manage the TLDs immediately revoked. A new, non-politicized organization with balls should be formed. And the TLD services should be put up for public bid. The reign of arrogant incompetence and exploitation that was born out of NSI needs to be terminated!
This is probably not of much use now...
;-)
127.0.0.1 sitefinder.verisign.com
in your hosts file should handle this neatly. It won't give you a DNS resolution error, but atleast it will stop going to sitefinder.
For those running a webserver on the same machine, I would suggest using some other non-existent IP address
those have had wildcarded DNS for years now. sitefinder's nothing new.
"fools and their leaders, they have no doubts." --levellers, "believers"
For some users, I can see where Verisign's sitefinder might be helpful. But thats not the point. When you make a drastic change to a fundamental Internet service, such as the change Verisign made to DNS with the introduction of their Sitefinder service, it can and did have an adverse affect on the Internet (as several other /.ers have pointed out). Verisign argues that they were trying to innovate, help people. The bottom line is that while there service may have helped some people with fat fingers, Verisign took it upon themselves to modify a fundamental service of the Internet without going through the proper channels (ICANN). I think innovation can be a good thing, but in doing so a company such as Verisign should not be able to make changes that could potentially have an adverse affect on the entire Internet. If you want to innovate, I say innovate browsers, that is, leave the autosearch features in the browsers, and give the users more autosearch options. Personally, if I mistype a domain name or type a nonexistent domain, I like to see some kind of error message. I think by default, all browsers should return an error message. For those people who have trouble typing correct the URLs, let them change their browser configuration to do an autosearch.
from the article: "More than 20 million times a day, Internet users receive an error message when they mistype a domain name"
;-)
and "Thus far, people have used these tools more than 40 million times to get where they want to go."
Sitefinder was online between 9/15 and 10/04, i.e. 19 days. 19 * 20 million is 380 million, so about 90% of all users don't use Sitefinder. That's not just us, that probably also includes my mom
(Yes, I know...not really accurate, but who cares!)
The internet is not all about linux, unix, code etc. It is also about usability.....tell me, how else would they find what they want if they dont have a complete URL? Suppose you had a wrong URL or did not remember the right URL? How would you find out the right one? Its impossible without sitefinder.
What about the phone? I am sure that millions of people everyday dial a wrong number and have to do something about it. Most of us understand how to find phone numbers when we need them, yet we don't work for the phone company (NOTE: Author actually has worked for a Telco).
It is not impossible to find a site if you mistype it. I do that all the time, I just resort to typing a search term into my browser's search box and look for what I need.
If people have an implicit understanding of what to do and where to go for information, SiteFinder is redundant and useless. This is an issue of raising the technological savvy of a people at large, not obfuscating what is happening.
I see a disturbing trend starting here. Mark my words: you're gonna hear more of this kind of talk from companies in the future. Terms like "anti-capitalist" and "techno-religious" will become buzzwords used by corporate bigwigs to marginalize criticism from people who fully understand the consequences. The ultimate goal will be to get Capitol Hill to think the same way - that such people are fringe groups, conspiracy nuts, unworthy of serious attention. And yes, you may call me paranoid. Just make sure others don't call YOU that without your consent.
Hee-hee. Dying tickles!
Nonsense, it's not the least bit extraneous.
M$ is forever going on about it's bullshit "right to innovate". Commenting on how another similarly parasitic company is trying the same lie is entirely appropriate.
--
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an intellectual property creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
This is getting to be an age old argument pitting the ethics of academics, scholars, programmers, developers and scientists against the needs of businessfolk, stockholders, accountants and salespeople - these are two different conflicting views of what is 'right' and 'good' and as long as the former need to find jobs to pay the bills the later will usually win out. Cf Microsoft, et al.
Innovation to an academic means advancing the state of the art - Innovation to a businessguy means a new gimmick or trick for making lots of dough.
I was just watching a tribut to Gary Kildall, who stated that it was not 'right' for an os company to own the applications, and envisioned a competitive environment of many companies - of course others didn't see it that way and won complete control.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Varisign is free to provide a web service, such as sitefinder, which can provide web-enabled answers to queries for a web site. Our problem is that they did this by forcing every client performing a DNS search to suffer as a result.
If varisign's functionality is desired, and they do it better than anybody else, no doubt, it will be used. They can make the service available without breaking DNS and, heck, they can even set up a parallel DNS2 if they think innovation is required.
But they are presently playing with a public trust. It is not for them to decide how DNS works, but rather to implement and execute it in accordance with Internet standards. If they want to innovate by changing standards, they know how to write an RFC.
VeriSign can't arbitrarily raise their resgistry prices. See Verisign's contract with ICANN, section 22, and also Appendix G.
Nowadays is called an anti-capitalism.
Apparently broad groups of criminals think they have a capitalistic right to grab money (at the cost of others), i.e. steal. This is a perversion of the capitalistic system.
The slashdot article suggest that a standard was broken. It is not, and the editorial does not mention it. For the record, the Internet Architecture Board wrote:
Last, contrary to what VeriSign claims, it DOES break (parts) of the Internet. See all examples mentioned in the IAB advisory above. For example, consider what happens if you type "myprinter.mydoman.com" instead of "myprinter.mydomain.com" in your CUPS configuration. Without the wildcard, you get a simple message that you made a typo. With the wildcard, you have a hell of a job finding out why you can't connect to your printer.
Did I miss something, or did McLaughlin manage to avoid discussing any of the issues ICANN raised in their demand to take down Sitefinder? Instead, he just gives a tiresome "ad hominem" attack on ICANN and its motives. As if that's supposed to build sympathy for his cause...
Well, so far I (and my company) was concerned there was little notice. Things just stopped working properly, that was our "advance notice." The fact that they might have told ICANN something is immaterial if that's where the information sat until the rest of the world figured it out.
... making excuses for Verisign is dangerous. There are a LOT of companies that would love to opportunity to take this over, and I think perhaps it's time to give one of them a try. I know ... the devil you know versus the devil you don't, but Verisign is making me nervous.
But I agree
ICANN is worse than useless, and we should do a clean sweep of both.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Someone told a citizen of Hiroshima the atomic bom was an innovation...
Hmm. Let me see...
According to Verisign, Sitefinder is dying. People opposed to innovation are stifling it.
According to this post, Sitefinder runs on BSD.
Clearly this is more evidence of BSD's demise? If they'd hosted Sitefinder on a Windows 2003 server, today Sitefinder be growing by 30% a day, returning an extra third of our inaccurate URLs as paid advertisements for Viagra and porn.
What I find sad is Verisign's inability to just manage the .Com and .Net domains without messing up. Why can't they simply do the job they were contracted to do, which includes following defined standards, and shut the fuck up? It should be easy money but obviously, their greed is getting in the way.
With its Internet Explorer, if it doesn't find anything it goes to MSN Search. Isn't this the same, and if so, can the ICANN get onto M$ too please...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Just block the site. This will have the effect that Verisign will not have the "hits" needed to support the site and in the end it will close...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
They took something that worked to a well-established specification that's been around for decades and broke it. That is not good nor is it innovative.
But don't take my word for it. I will defer to this guy to elaborate and this guy to explain how stuff broke.
As many people have mentioned, you do not alter the functionality of core, Internet functionality in the global domain at the behest of some fools from marketing. If you want to make a change to how things work, propose a change or start your own network. Don't fuck with a service that billions of people use and depend on.
Join Tor today!
It's innovative! That makes everything alright. After all, if I want to rob the local 7/11 and not get a friendly visit from the men in blue all I need to do is rob it butt-naked, because that way I'm innovating the storerobbing business. Right?
I'm sorry... never mind me. For some reason, in my haste, I looked at your post and thought you were defending Verisign's nonsense. :-)
Please confiscate my crack pipe and I promise it'll never happen again.
Join Tor today!
How is this any different from the phone company deciding that any time I accidentally dial a number that's no longer in service, they guess what number I really wanted, and connect me to that instead. Heck, if nobody's home at this new number, I might not ever find out it's wrong... just like automated e-mail servers don't know incoming spam domains are wrong with Sitefinder in place. Meh.
"Oh no... he found the
Being innovative is not a defense for doing bad things, they're not at all mutually exclusive.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If Verisign got away with this, they would consider their "innovation" experiment a success.
Successful experiments lead to repitition.
Eventually, DNS would become about as useful for name resolution as MS Passport is for security.
Verisign has a great deal of power, and if they try to start "leveraging that asset", the web will be at their mercy.
Slashdot is a reactionary minority, yes, but a reactionary minority is needed to let the people with power know what could happen. It's a vital part of any healthy debate.
As for unthinking, there are always going to be some idiot posts in an open discussion board, but
content management for designers
While I agree with much of what you've said, I have to disagree that "there WAS advance notice".
If you shout your plans into a hole in the ground, that does not comprise advance notice. And since Verisign clearly can't tell assholes from holes in the ground, telling ICANN is... oh never mind.
I have been a DNS admin for well over a decade (I have a 3-character NIC handle) and they sure as hell didn't send me any advance notice!
I would expect VeriSwine to call it 'innovation'.
I wouldn't expect anyone at the registrar to call it what it really is, vandalism and theft.
Vandalism in that they broke the net, things no longer worked the way they were designed to and caused probably 10's of thousands of manhours worldwide just trying to cope.
Theft in that they did not pay for all the unregistered domains they highjacked to sitefinder.
I'm furious as hell and have mailed (not emailed) various authorities requesting an evaluation of both ICANN and Virisign, with a view to replacing both.
However the fact that I can't find a way to do the following is driving me onto something else.
How complex would it be in Mozilla to add a configurable regex processor on the address input?
I mean, I have never, ever required to go to an address with a comma in it. So why can't I tell the browser to always swap them for '.'.
The same goes for things like .. and .comm.
Of course I'd like this to be set up by me, rather than some dodgy microsoft default.
So. Any ideas on how complex this would be to add to Mozilla?
I don't want verisign's override, or the annoying MSN search option.
Wrong. Plenty of the programmers who've used it over the past three weeks said it was broke. I trust them completely on this, because they're smarter than me. I'd be willing to bet money that they're smarter than you, and I don't think there's a doubt in anybody's head that they've got more integrity concerning this. The simple reality is that ICANN listened to them and decided to smack you down. You deserved it. End of story.
Slime around somewhere else...
-----------------------
You are what you think.
This can be acheived quite easily in the browser, without upsetting the other functionality. IE does just that - when you mistype a domain name, it returns to a MSN search page.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
... I'm patenting the concept of having telephone calls that reach non-existant numbers redirected to telemarketers.
Has anyone else noticed that google sucks these days? I mean, the other day I did a search for "Makefile syntax" and the first result was a message board post asking a question. Alltheweb returned the makefile manual.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
just one more time used to defend one of these greed/power based moves, I may go mad. Thank you M$ and Bill for the exponential rise in the abuse of this word. Bastards.
ICANN is not the STATE.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
You say the medical system in the US is 'the best', and then you give an anicdote about how it sucks?
Sounds like someone needs to brush up on their retoric skills.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I agree that the feature is useful sometimes. However, this feature should not be implemented at the TLD controller level, rather it should be at the application level (a.k.a. your browser software: IE, Moz, Opera, other?) I do not forsee any other 'fair' way of providing such a service. 'nuff said.
Two thoughts:
1) There's nothing wrong with SiteFinder. What was wrong was unilaterally changing the meaning of all DNS queries regardless of purpose, in order to force us all to go there whenever we fat-finger a URL, breaking the other 65534 Internet protocols in the process.
2) Oh, boy, let's also stop requiring manufacturers to make screws with standardized threads-per-inch and pipes in standard sizes. We've been crushing innovation. Let gas stations sell 30-octane fuel if they like -- shoot, don't even require it to be gasoline. Throw out those anti-business laws that forbid the "extension" of flour with sawdust. Eliminate the unnecessary burden that shoes must be manufactured in some specific size. Who cares if nothing fits or works, so long as we have Shiny New Products introduced every 28 nanoseconds?
- a troll
- an idiot
- about as inovative as my Arse
- A Criminal
- A Spammer
Well what else can I say, Verishites move is messing up the standard behaviour of the net, and thereby costing people and companies money, (my work had to waste time and money, istalling and configing patches to get around stuff Verishite had broken with Shite Finder), the whole thing is Greed not inovation, and just another form of spam.I didn't want to see there adverts I wanted to see the site I meant to type, Verishite's forcing there crap down my throat is a violation of my free will, and act hateful to a God who refuses to force the free will of even those who spit in his face.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
this is not funny!!!
Your company now stinks as bad as SCO. And I'm sure it will be treated the same.
how long until
At the going rate, fifty years from now, the meaning of "innovation" will have shifted from its current meaning to "an unimaginative and unethical marketing tactic".
Now, if you'll pardon me, I've got to go write a Pac Man clone in which the power pellets are square and blue.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
They still behave like they have the government contract a la IANA. They have a monopoly on the product. I think if you tried to compete with them you'd run into some serious opposition from the government. They are the closest thing the Internet has to a federal regulatory agency, and they have worse processes and less protection to the consumer. For all intents and purposes, they are the state.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Yep and if the Us Government was even vaguely serious about protecting the internet as vital infrastructure, then McLaughlin and cronies would already be behind bars awaiting trial, this whole thing is the most unbelievable breach of trust, and threatens to undermine the infrastructure of the internet in ways that know terorist could even dream of doing.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
That'd be great if the Internet were nothing but discreet individuals, manually driving browsers over port 80.
But there is email, FTP, voip, etc...
All have functionality based on having nxdomain returned.
Plus VS is using this to collect data on browsers.
I read the article. One word to describe Mark McLaughlin: "ASSHOLE".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
When you ask for a DNS name->address translation you don't give the service (port) you are looking for.
Yet DNS *does* have a way of telling you what the e-mail server for a domain is. It does have some protocol-aware stuff built in, although I'm aware that it isn't much.
The point is this: If they can't do it for just port 80, then they have no business redirecting it to what is basically JUST a website server.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
92% negative rating currently. More of you should vote this clown into the toilet.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
Interesting point, Grizzly. The destructive economic potential of the root servers is, well ... damn near thermonuclear. In many respects, the world's major economies have placed an awful lot of eggs in those thirteen electronic baskets.
So, naturally, we put a bunch of marketing guys with the ethics of used-car salesmen in charge of it (my apologies to any used-car salesmen in the audience.) I would love to have been a fly on the wall when some marketroid at Verisign first brought up the idea of hosing NXDOMAIN. The expressions of disbelief on the faces of their engineering staff would have been comical, I imagine.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Aw, come on, vote for RAW. You know you want to.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
In Internet Explorer, I don't like the "search from address bar". I don't want MSN to review every URL mistake I make. So I turn it off! I also have the option to change search engine, I think. Address bar search is on by default and it invokes MSN by default. I guess the developer of the Greatest Web Browser in the World, the People's Choice, deserves that perk. I'm not screaming murder about it because I can turn off "search from address bar" on every computer I use. (Though I feel bad about the exploitation of the simple users who trust the address-bar search to help them, even as it exploits them.)
But HOW DO I TURN OFF SITE FINDER? I can't turn it off. That is why I find SiteFinder BEYOND UNACCEPTABLE. Verisign has made itself the enemy. I will block and oppose SiteFinder every way I can, and so will everyone else. On my firewalls I will block their IP addresses. The more traffic I block from accessing this unfair fraudulent contract-breaching SiteFinder, the better. The SiteFinder Innovation is so well-loved that ISPs blocked it. They know it's wrong.
It's bad enough that Verisign always sees every errant domain name that gets passed to DNS lookup. With SiteFinder they get to see the entire URL as well. (Bad requests for .html .htm .asp etc. brought up the SiteFinder. Bad requests for .jpg .jpeg .gif etc. got back 404 pages, from domains that don't exist.)
By what right does Verisign's paid advertising server get traffic from every unregistered domain? Why Verisign? Why not somewhere else? Verisign has the ability to grab that traffic. Very sad that they chose to do it. It was a power play, a money grab pure and simple. Verisign manages a database. That is their job. If there is to be some kind of helper for resolving errant domain names, it should be agreed upon IN ADVANCE. It should have fairness or equal access or nearly-equal access. (Not so clear how to do that. A browser configuration is the only precedent. (And that product placement was Grabbed as well...))
SiteFinder is really just typo-squatting in the extreme. Effectively Verisign bulk-registered 36^20= 1.3*10^31 names to themselves. At $6 a year, who gets the 8.0*10^31 DOLLARS for these registrations? I guess Verisign could just write themselves a check for $80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 every year. Then there would zero domain names available -- Verisign could then ration out domain names any way they see fit -- they can auction each name to the highest bidder. A whole new kind of scalping -- since, after all, they OWN the database.
Everyone who owns a website has an objection to SiteFinder. Verisign is squatting on EVERY un-registered variation of EVERY domain name. So the Verisign typo-squatting encourages companies to try to register all their typos to prevent Site Finder bypasses -- more direct money for Verisign.
Domain names are an addressing scheme. SiteFinder is an abuse of that scheme. Everyone who understands what Verisign has done (us vocal minority) knows that SiteFinder is a violation of a trust.
McLaughlin sidesteps all of the real issues and raises a smokescreen of non-issues. I'm not opposing innovation. I'm not opposing commercial use of the Internet. Verisign has no right to do what they did. Their Innovation inspires ISPs to innovate ways of blocking it out. Verisign's ability to impose itself does not give it the right to impose. DNS is a monopoly and also the foundation of the WWW. SiteFinder was always possible. If implemented it is a new monopoly. Don't confuse Amazon's success, due to millions of people typing in A-M-A-Z-O-N one letter at a time and clicking links that uniquely address that corner of the WWW, with the imposed monopoly of SiteFinder. No one will ever type in SiteFinder or ever
No one seems to have considered that what Verisign did was theft of thousands of unassigned domain names. These domains are a valuable commodity that Verisign was entrusted to administer, not the property of Verisign. For them to post their own revenue-producing messages every time an unassigned domain was typed was illegal co-opting of these domains without paying a dime for them. I can't get free domains, you can't get free domains - so why does Verisign think they should get free domains?
My domain is coming up for renewal as well - I think I will switch my registration from Verisign AND WRITE THEM A LETTER TELLING THEM WHY.
Now they attempt to hijack xxx million sets of eyeballs daily just because they have the ability. They happen to occupy the position as final authority for a big segment of the Internet.
It Is/Was An ABUSE of AUTHORITY and nothing else, and ICANN was correct in asking them to cease and desist.
Veri$ign should forget about trying to hijack eyeballs, and get back to the nuts & bolts of customer service and marketing.
--robin
...Boycott Disney
There's nothing at all "innovative" about redirecting DNS requests for selfish purposes. I've been doing it for years at home using DNSKong and a hosts file. Maybe I should patent the process?
There's nothing at all "innovative" about redirecting DNS requests for selfish or nefarious purposes. I've been doing it myself for years, even at home, using DNSKong or a hosts file. I even do an analog of that with HTTP requests, grabbing certain URLs before they reach the browser and trans-mogrifying them. Maybe I should patent the process?