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Verisign Plans to Revive SiteFinder Advertising 'Service'
kiddailey writes "Claiming that their own independent examination of their controversial redirection service has found 'no security or stability problems', and that 'Internet users consider the service a helpful tool to navigate the web', Verisign has announced that it will give a 30- to 60-day notice before resuming the SiteFinder 'feature' that it voluntarily shut-down a couple of weeks ago."
Repeat after me, the World Wide Web is not the entire Internet. Now many applications will resolve a screwed up domain name and try to make a connection to Verisign's site. Instead of getting a "unknown host" programs will get a "service not found" which is a very different error. Or at least that is how I see it, I am only moderately knowledgable about DNS issues.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
"The Internet" is far different than the WWW, as I am sure has been mentioned several times by now.
My prediction is that WWW will go out quite like Gopher, and will be replaced by a slow-emerging alternative client/server, preferrably untouchable (for the moment) by ultra-capitalist org's like Verisign
From the Verizon site article:
"Prior to ICANN's October 3 directive to shut down the service, Site Finder had
been used more than 48 million times by Internet users to get where they want to go online."
"...has been used more than 48 million times...". Makes it sound like folks are eagerly flocking to the Verizon web site to 'use' this service. It's as if the highway administration shut down all lanes of I-95 and then celebrated the increased HOV usage.
The Army reading list
I can only hope that Verisign will upset enough of the wrong people that there will be a move to dethrone them from the .net and .com domains. We would do better to have a not for profit running the show. Here's hoping that Verisign continues to be the pompous greedy company that we all know them to be!
VeriSign is trying to impede on the world's Web adresses. ISPs and big networks should unite in giving them a good correction ASAP.
"Internet users consider the service a helpful tool to navigate the web."
I'd guess that most Internet users, not being part of the Slashdot-loving geek crowd, aren't even aware of the service to begin with. More than likely, the poll asks a question like, "Would you, as an internet user, appreciate a service whereby a system locates the correct web site when you make a mistake?" I can see most people saying "yes" to that.
NOW!
There is a fundamental issue of standards that Verisign is not getting. The whole point of standards is so that everything runs smoothly, especially systems that rely on many many interconnected entities, like the internet.
Whenever someone blatantly blows off standards to line their pockets a little, it has serious implications for the continuity and integrity of the system.
If Verisign would like to continue making money from the internet, they should play by the collective rules that allow fair access according to standards. If they are not willing, they should be treated as an error, and routed around.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Let's just hope that ICANN actually follows through with their earlier threat of legal action. Boy would it be nice to see Veri$lime lose their contract.
It's _MY_ internet. I can do whatever I want.
.COM anymore. I cant afford to sue or anything, but I can refuse to make their "service".
3 words to Verisign: Fuck it all.
Well, the internet IS far different than WWW. Btw, what ever happened to hotbot?
The ICANN Information page on Verisign's Wildcard Service" elicits comments from Members of the Internet community. Emails are to be copied to wildcard-comments@icann.org A selection of comments is viewable here.
I'd suggest making your comments now.
Regarding the Verisign survey...more information about it is in this article. Excerpts:
The survey, a telephone poll of 1,000 internet users who could recall seeing Site Finder, was conducted by Markitecture and Harris Interactive and commissioned by VeriSign. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5%
On the opposing side, Tucows Inc, a domain name registrar that competes with VeriSign, said a poll of its resellers (generally ISPs and web hosting companies) indicated that 90% of respondents wanted Site Finder turned off.
The guys that brought down osirusoft and monkeys.com should redirect their efforts to shutting down Sitefinder instead of picking on those poor RBL's.
(yes, I know it's against their own interests, but I'm just saying...)
So, let's say the phone systems worked in just this way. If you dailed a wrong number, you wouldn't be told you had a wrong number, you'd get to listen to an advertisement.
Quick, someone get the number of a patent lawyer
The most annoying thing is that the don't admit that it's a way making money by taking advantage on a privilege they have. Saying that users enjoy the service is a load of ....
Dont just mail it - Maileet
"'no security or stability problems', and that 'Internet users consider the service a helpful tool to navigate the web', "
Translation:
It potentially makes money for US, and we don't give a damn about the rest of YOU.
Why not use a decentralized naming system based on public key crypto, and get rid of verisign and the rest of the leeches?
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Please, ICANN, you've always sucked before, but maybe there's hope for you yet. Enforce the terms of the contract with Verisign with extreme prejudice and terminate these scumballs.
Under 15 U.S.C. 1125d, cybersquatting is the illegal act of registering a domain intentionally to be confused with another. Thus, Ford could not register Chevrelet.com to themselves and hope people looking for Chevy's mistype and go to the Ford site.
From what I understand, sitefinder is being used in almost the exact same way as the scenario I just mentioned. Verisign's activity is prohibited at least by the spirit, if not by the letter of the law.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
If Verisign tries to pull this crap again it just might be the excuse that ICANN needs to yank Verisign's contract.
Technoli
How many out there have domains registered with Network Solutions? I think it is time to move them elsewhere.
Are there SSL certificate athorities other than VeriSign? Time to sign up.
So, how long before some ingenious person will run a DDOS attack that does random packet flooding of random .com addresses (ie, asfdadsfsdf.com) thus double whammying the versign servers.
1) a banker
2) an enginee^H^H^H^H^H^H^H MSCE
3) 3 Marketing droids
4) the woman in the coffe shop across the road
5) and
They must have quite the dream team of experts to come to such a conclusion.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
Besides technical aspects and that www is not the only use of the internet.
It can't be that a single company has the right to exclusivley claim a certain service.
What about the users freedom to choose wich service he uses to find a site?
I don't want to be dictated to Verisign, I don't want any dictatorship at all.
Is there anything ICANN can do about this? Can they revoke Verisign's right to the com's and net's? Or could they just make a "suggestion" to some governmental body?
The Internet's the like Wild West and Verisign is setting itself up like a company town.
What is music when you despise all sound?
the question is can ICANN find a replacement for verisign in 30-60 days.
.com
Time to find a new home for
Jason
It doesn't really matter if you are for or against the ICAAN because Verisign has and always will be not welcome on my computer. On my Windows 2k box I have adaware.... So f$@* Verisign!
Why am I in minority on this one?!? I actually liked the SiteFinder service! Whenever I would mistype a domain name or was unsure of the proper domain name spelling (especially when dealing with foreign domain names) SiteFinder would offer me a bunch of valid choices. That was great! A LOT BETTER THAN A BLOODY ERROR PAGE!!!
Aside from Verisign "destroying the www", why wouldn't a service like this be useful?!?
Oh those wonderful guys at VeriSign, giving us this 'service' free of charge! I mean, this is something I'd pay $30, even $60 a month to use!
They've always been one of those 'for-a-better-internet' companies.
God Bless Them
But the word temporarily really meant what it usually means...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
DNS queries would be taken at random from the three providers. The registrars would, instead of registering with just Verisign, register with all three. Any registrar that didn't would find its customers complaining about DNS resolving issues.
And to prevent Verisign from trying to drop a spanner in the works by not reregistering the domains it controls, ICANN could introduce the changes slowly, having, say, two of the root servers pointing at the alternative providers at the beginning, with the others still pointing at Verisign's network. Verisign's customers, assuming Verisign tried to fight it, would get poor DNS service immediately, without it becoming unusable. Everyone else wouldn't. Verisign's Registrar end would thus lose customers fairly rapidly.
Why would this benefit ICANN? Well, it's fairly obvious: by doing so, ICANN can easily simply suspend Verisign (or any other abusive DNS root operator) without negatively impacting the Internet. Right now, Verisign believes it can get away with what it's done because it has a monopoly on .COM/.NET, and has enough of the registrar market to be able to prevent a switch. ICANN cannot switch to an alternative DNS operator without the direct cooperation of Verisign, and Verisign has said in the past they wouldn't cooperate.
If ICANN is serious, it needs to do something about Verisign's monopoly immediately. Because of the Registrar/Infrastructure split, it now has the capability of doing so. Rather than sending letters containing vague threats of action, it's time it actually did something.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Verisign!= Internet..
I doubt their independent study as ICAAN's own independent study indicates otherwise and when Verisign was aske dto submit such facts it stalled
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Pardon my ignorance, but does anyone know what exactly they are trying to pull when I regularly receive spam from these guys asking me to "Please, when I have some time, update my website information" or they will no longer be able to "list" my site? I *never* respond to these messages because I always assumed they were complete bunk, but I'd like to know what kind of wool they are trying to pull over my eyes. Thanks in advance to any patient souls who deliver enlightenment . . .
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
This one has the potential for getting really ugly.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
It's interesting that people seem to be missing the real fight. For probably a majority of desktop users (those using IE), they already have this "functionality" in the form of a redirect to search.msn.com. So it's kind of a fight of Verisign vs. Microsoft, not just Verisign vs. people who like good web standards.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Looks like I'm gonna have to put my verisign-sucks.net back up.. (odd.. wonder why it's down?)
LostboyTNT MercyHosting.Com
Server-Status.Com
50Bux.Com
TLDR.Com
I'm an Internet User, and I don't consider Internet Highjacking a helpful tool to navigate the web.
Verisign has announced that it will give a 30- to 60-day notice before resuming the SiteFinder 'feature' that it voluntarily shut-down a couple of weeks ago.
Is 30 to 60 days long enough to de-authorize Verisign as a DNS registrar and find someone else to run those top-level domains?
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
Of course, that's misleading -- SiteFinder doesn't provide a cure for 404 errors, which occur when the site is found but the page doesn't exist. So it looks like they need to find better marketing propaganda if they want to actually support their (fundamentally bogus) claims.
Once again, Lets all send them an email to all these addresses, which are all set with , and all to be copied and pasted. If they get an email dos attack, they cant really say people want the service, now can they? consultingsolutions@verisign.com, verisales@verisign.com, clientpki@verisign.com, mss@verisign.com, dnssales@verisign.com, digitalbranding@verisign.com, websitesales@verisign.com, websitesales@verisign.com, internetsales@verisign.com, paymentsales@verisign.com, vts-mktginfo@verisign.com, premiersupport@networksolutions.com, channel-partners@verisign.com, websitesupport@verisign.com, dbms-support@verisign.com, webhelp@verisign.com, support@verisign.com, renewal@verisign.com, vts-csrgroup@verisign.com, authenticode-support@verisign.com, objectsigning-support@verisign.com, enterprise-sslsupport@verisign.com, enterprise-pkisupport@verisign.com, vps-support@verisign.com, privacy@networksolutions.com, practices@verisign.com, id-support@verisign.com, info@verisign-grs.com
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
Well, duh. Did anyone actually expect something different? The ball is now firmly lodged in ICANN's court. They've done their legal blustering and letter writing - now they need to take it to court if Verisign continues flipping the bird to the Internet community.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
Explain this verisign. An important site I use for business was doing fine, and even reregistered it's website domain recently, and yet when it expired, your bullshit service decided to post it's DNS as the proper place to go for that domain instantly. EVEN THOUGH THE SITE WAS ALREADY PAID FOR. Essentially you Highjacked their domain, and made it impossible for me to do business (over the internet) with them for 3 days straight.
You claim there are no problems? HAH. There are so many holes and bugs in your services, I am surprised you aren't fighting down legions of class lawsuits.
~ kjrose
These guys don't give a shit about users unless those users make them money - period. As for their research, without the details of how the research was carried out its irrelevant to the issue. Just suppose that it was judged that this was a 'good thing to do', then what gives them the right to exclusively offer this service? If I have to have this shit, then I think I would prefer google to provide it. If they get away with this I suspect the law suits from the other search engines will come flying. Best thing to do would be for all sysadmins to block this at source.
.. I just did. The link about how "users like" that crap has a spokesperson contact number. Remind them that the Internet is just a teeny bit larger than the WWW and applications other than web clients use DNS and expect certain responses to certain errors.
Loading...
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
been used more than 48 million times by Internet users to get where they want to go online."
...as if they all chose to go to Site Finder instead of directly where they intended to go. I'm generally pro-business and pro-creativity, but this is a despicable exploitation of people making honest mistakes. IMHO, this should warrant a DOJ investigation.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Please burn your Ayn Rand books forthwith. It has come to our attention that it has given you illusions of being an Economist and the ability to understand simple organisational constructs. You may wish to visit your Doctor, who may prescribe Prozac and a smack around the head with a clue bat.
Yours,
The real world.
Let's see if we can knock his approval rating down a peg or two more (look what happened in September, /. effect?).
Vote
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
In their press release about their "survey"... they provide a comment from a user about how 404's are a pain.
Agreed, 404's are a pain... but the site finder service did absolutely nothing to prevent them or to help the user when they happened.
Last time when Verisign sprung this on Internet users, for the most part, people worked around them. The changes to BIND were not exclusive to Verisign, they just tried to address what they considered to be a flaw exposed by Verisign. This time is different. ICANN has told them not to do it, and they're still going to do it. This time, it's time for a punitive reaction.
Here's what I propose. If you write software that interacts with DNS keep track of how often Verisign hijacks a non-existant DNS entry. Each time they do that, increment a counter. Then, the next time someone asks for a valid Verisign address use that counter to decide whether to return NXDOMAIN or not.
If Verisign insists on pretending that they own the net, instead they'll discover they've disappeared off the net.
Now sure, there will be casualties from this. It will even hit people who are trying to remove their domains from Verisign's authority, but what's the alternative? When someone does something this outrageous, it isn't enough to work around them. They have to be punished too.
Enforce the terms of the contract with Verisign with extreme prejudice and terminate these scumballs... with extreme prejudice.
There we go, much better.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If all else fails, maybe a bigger hammer would be an option.
.com domain name, and start pounding the living crap out of that name if it doesn't resolve into anything else then sitefinders IP. If a lot of people would use this, Verisign would be DDoS-ed in no time, and since the program wouldn't target an actually existing domain name, it couldn't be liable for any damage done unto Verisign....
Everybody knows that what Verisign is doing is wrong, but I don't think that there is actually a legal lever to pull in this case. So when the law doesn't provide, maybe the community should.
Maybe I should write a program that generates a random
Mozilla is broken and refuses connection!!!
One is an internet company run by a bunch of jerks, the other is a telephone company run by a bunch of jerks.
I have 5 domains registered with netsol. Can anyone reccomend another registrar that I can easily transfer my domains to? I will make it very clear to verisign why I'm moving my domains away from them, and i suggest anyone else do the same.
Don't Tread on Me
In other news, Underpass Bob said that his own independent analysis of his acohol consumption concluded that "it wasn't a problem", and that "most people panhandled found his commentary on thier socio-economic status helpful".
I was more surprised by the initial pulling of the "service" (read hijacking) than I am by this lovely fig-leaf study.
This is why we have representative government, folks. A chance to convince someone who will actually listen. The sad thing is that the other side can convince, too- and they generally do it with money.
It is a sickening fact that the rest of the world has to suffer based on what we as Americans do. But hey, that's what being the new Romans is all about.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
The last time I had the pleasure of "Using" Site Finder I read their wonderful Terms of Use.
I don't like their terms. How do I Opt-Out of using their service without reconfiguring every machine I use or walk up to and use.
Verisign's statement is probably true: Many users (excepting myself) would probably prefer being offered alternative instead of an error message.
However, the proper place to implement this is at the browser level, not at the network level. So, you can grant their statement is true but it doesn't justify their case.
talk about re-directing folks? they come to read about 'stuff that matters', & are subjected to a plethora of corepirate nazi payper liesense ?pr? ?firm? scriptdead deception.
nsi is such a lowlife organization, that won could accurately exclude them from survival, post big flash, without having to go over&over about their latest last gasper softwar gangster endeavors.
va lairIE/robbIE et AL, on the other WAN, appears to present that they are not at least as corruptdead as sum of their '.contemporarIEs'/other stock markup FraUD scamsters.
lookout bullow.
From the Verisign press-release:
"As a heavy but non-technical computer user it has been extremely frustrating for me to encounter 404 errors. Naturally, they happen at the busiest times," said Roy S. Lahet, vice president of Planning for Mercy Behavioral Health. "Alternative suggestions instead of a project-stopping 404 is a welcome and functional improvement to my use of the Web and related searches. It is difficult for me to see a downside to this user friendly enhancement."
While I may not expect an end-user to really know what 404 means; but, Verisign should know better than to quote wrong information in their press release!
The second (article || press release) yields a clue as to how it was done this time:
Somehow I suspect that the people who don't find 404s "extremely frustrating" and do have the knowledge to "see a downside to this...enhancement" weren't part of the survey. So 53% of clueless PHBs think SiteFinder "improves the Internet". BFD.*
.
* "Big Furry Deal." - Dogbert
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Ok, I'm a small fry. I only have two domains remaining with Verisign and those I hope to transfer soon. True, Verisign will still collect a "wheat tax" but not the USD 35/yr they get now (it was interesting that when I transfered my last domain I got a special "get it now" renewal offer of only USD 19/yr). Imagine how much they stand to lose if large numbers of folks register somewhere else. Besides the monetary savings and the sending of a message I see my transferring of domains as a safety measure. How long before ICANN gets tough and Verisign tries to blackmail all of us by shutting down their servers? Or claims that your domain belongs to them? Jump now while there is still time.
Let's see how long, in the current economy, Verisign avoids using pop-up ads. I can just imagine typing in a wrong domain name and having 15 pop-ups such as "what the monkey and win a prize" or flash ads that take over your screen.
I hope ICANN follows through with their threat and sues them so the first steps in getting a better DNS oversight agency can be taken.
Or perhaps it's time for backbones and providers start thinking about a better system. DNS is a protocol that could use an overhaul.
--tasty and delicious
tasty and delicious
I think we should have Microsoft crusherize them.
:)
Next patch to Internet Explorer, they should throw in some code that brings up their own search page whenever a domain name resolves to Verisign's computers.
I have few complaints with Microsoft's service, because the behavior is happening at the application level, not the infrastructure level. I mean, what good is having a 95% browser share if you can't smack down the little bastards that try to muscle in on your turf?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
When will they withdraw the top level domains from Verisign's control?
They have already been shown to be untrustworthy on several occasions.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Anyone know of any alternate root servers that I can set up in BIND to bypass Verisign's authority on .com and .net domains? If not, anyone willing to set up alternate root servers? I highly doubt that ICANN will follow through on their legal threats.
If there are no alternatives, I'm going to point all web traffic from my network destined for Verisign to go to GoDaddy instead. That's not a lot of traffic, but no one on any of my networks will be able to reach Verisign's site any more. So, they can have their SiteFinder profits, and I'll make sure that there's a dip in their domain registration and secure certificate profits.
IE is not breaking any standards doing so. Redirecting failed DNS lookups on the _client_ side is actually a reasonable idea. Honestly, if Google had a good browser-plugin for Moz or IE that delivered a properly verbose "that site doesn't exist, here are some similarly spelled sites" I might use it.
Verisign is fscking every client that would want to do this.
How easy would it be for implementing the same behaviour to a browser? Instead of an automated reply from Verisign, I'd love this to be an option (ie. I would be able to turn this off, or even change providers, not like IE's MSN search). Maybe an automated google search or something. The possibilities are endless. And the choice goes to the consumer.
Anybody sharing my feelings?
---- Fear the mighty TsEA
The award for the ownership of the most packet-filtered IP address in the world, previously held by Mr. Spa Malaur - a mail server operator from China, has been awarded to Verisign.
http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/
Big deal... it's not like I removed the firewall rules from the last time or anything... Once a spammer, always a spammer.
...that Verisign is selling off Network Solutions. Sitefinder becomes, then, an abuse of network infrastructure to prop up, based on who's buying the company, a troubled business. Shame on that.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
i don't know what the big deal is. whenever i mistype a web addresss, the internet takes me to a wonderful search engine created by microsoft. the address i was looking for is usually on the 2nd or 3rd page. it's so convenient. everyone, join me in thanking microsoft. thanks microsoft!
"The Value of Trust" seems to have shifted from "It's worth something to doing business with someone you can trust" to "Since we're trusted, we can make money by abusing that trust!"
This seems more short-sighted poor corporate ethics, like Enron made famous.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Your browser should decide what to do if it encounters a 404 error, not the DNS server.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
I already plan on taking my business elsewhere by moving my domains to another registrar.. but what else is there to do? Where are the organized movements to express frustration with Verisign?
Please post links.
I know I'm a small fish, but I'd still like my voice to be heard.
"As a heavy but non-technical computer user it has been extremely frustrating for me to encounter 404 errors. Naturally, they happen at the busiest times," He's claiming to be non-technical, but he knows what a 404 error is and what it means... something smells fishy if'n you ask me. Seems more like a ploy to drum up "grassroots" support, or at least less media opposition.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Gotta love Verisign's attitude about this whole thing:
---
"Larson suggested that "you guys don't think consumers are relevant" and that committee members were unduly focused on the travails of network operators affected by the Site Finder changes.
"We're going to have to stop this discussion and turn to a different venue," Larson said."
---
Of course users are important. But the opinions of those in the trenches making things work is more important. Think of it this way:
What if a car maker declared to its customers and put up signs along the roadway stating that people could drive on whatever side of the road they want. Of course users (drivers) would like this, because they can cut corners and zip around traffic more easily. The Department of Transportation would be throwing fits, demanding that those signs be removed, citing safety concerns, etc. "But the drivers all think this is a great idea!"
Customers will certainly enjoy SiteFinder - until the nature of the beast starts breaking standard functionality. Then they'll yell at us - the nerds who make it all work - that the Internet is broken.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
And please learn what you're talking about. Pull your head out of youre ASS! VeriSign *did not* break the Internet. Get a CLUE!
The "SiteFinder" privacy policy stated "if you don't agree to the terms of this policy then don't use the "service". Nothing would solve the problem better than Verisign providing a method for internet users to have an option to "not use the service".
The best method I can think of would be for Verisign to provide an alternate set of root servers that didn't use the "service".
In another story, random members of the families of high ranking Verisign executives were asked about their days. "We spend so much time on the phone now that we have little free time." was a frequently heard complaint. "But I guess we can't get on the Do Not Call list really as the callers all seem to be doing polls and they're all about Verisign. I a bit of responsibility to answer their questions because of my family relationship."
Those interviewed said they'd never been bothered by ending up at one of the Verisign pages. "DNS? whats DNS?" one respondent said. Another said that the nice systems geeks from Verisign had set up their computers and had told them that the household would be getting "Special DNS service". Evidently this special service goes directly to special Verisign servers in order to help those connected with the company to be able to reach the network even when there were problems with other DNS servers.
Well, with this decision they made and the lie that internet users find it a helpful tool (and it is a lie), I guess we'll just have to introduce them to Mr. DoS. :)
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
where are those internet users that find this helpful? I want to beat the fuck out of them!
Alright, I know WHY it bothers people, but why is it that people are more bothered by Verisign doing this. Yes, they are a big company with control over a domain. And they are using (or abusing) that control to generate more revenue. But exactly how is this different from the site leeches that register misspellings of popular websites? If you don't know what this means, just try mispelling google.com or yahoo.com. You'll find out right bloody quick. And you'll probably be drowned in ads, popups, and Gator downloads. What difference does it make if Verisign does it or Dan The Shut-In across the hall does it?
All i can say is 8 Words....1
5F05:2000:80AD:5800:0058:0800:2023:1D7
I hope we get all this dns junk figured out before ipv6. I'm not typing out addresses like that all day.
Hey not to mention, itll be fun when trillions of ips are all wanting some kind of dns name.
Maybe now we can all jump tot a alternative non-hierachical dns structure? Dns is by design not hierachical; It's peer to peer. That it has any root at all... well, that's just a historic misfeature...
One alternative is OpenNic.
What I cannot create, I do not understand
eye gas that form of censorship/manipulation is just about as valid as va lairIE/robbIE's pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) devise, which, as we know, is whoreabully infactdead.
lookout bullow. you know who to consult with/trust, regarding matters of the heart, mind, wallet, etc... see you there.
The present root servers only serve that purpose because we (who have name servers) allow them to. There is a file that comes with recursive name servers that "seeds" them to know where the root servers are (you have to start with some IP addresses). Many people might not yet be aware, but there are separate servers for the "." zone (the root), and top level domains (TLDs) like ".com" (more correctly "com."). It is the root zone that delegates authority to the top level domain servers. By configuring your name server to be authoritative for the root zone, you can choose where each top level domain is delegated to.
What I proposed a few years ago, which seems even more important these days, is that name server operators (and anyone can operate their own for their own use, and the use of anyone they allow to use it) "take back the roots" and control which name servers they want to refer to for each top level (or lower) domain name. This would allow genuine competition in things like different policies for domains like "com" or "net", and the introduction of new names as soon as someone wants to offer them.
It would also have the effect of fragmenting the internet, as many have pointed out in my past postings of this proposal. But I say that's a good thing; I'd like to be fragmented from spammers, RIAA, etc.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I want to be in Roy S. Lahet's "Vice President of Planning for Mercy Behavioral Health" job. At the "busiest times" of his day, he has time to randomlyy type URLs into Internet Explorer (or maybe AOL. You can never tell.) Plus, he can't even type, or he never would have found SiteFinder in the first place.
"Verisign" with "Germany," and "SiteFinder Advertising" with "Jew Extermination," and you won't generate that much more revulsion than is being felt in the tech community over this move.
It's worth noting that "ordinary" typosquatters have to pay 7 to 35 dollars a year per domain. Given all the possible names on which Verisign can squat, how much money is it looting from users of the Net? Perhaps it should be required to contribute that amount to a worth Internet-related cause.
their own independent examination
How can it be independent if THEY DID IT?
Seriously though, what type of hardware/software is Verisign running to support such a massive "service"? Can we hit it with a DDOS?
I doubt that they could enforce their T&Cs on me, since I'm not based in the US, but I personally dislike the idea that I can be obliged to accept a contract just by making a typing error. Further, I really dislike being told that I'm not able to refuse to accept this contract; if I don't like the T&Cs, I should be able to stop using the service.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
The Verisign press release includes an infomercial-style testimonial from one Roy S. Lahet, vice president of Planning for Mercy Behavioral Health. Do I really want to trust the testimonial of a VP of planning whose projects grind to a halt when he mitypes a URL? Is there any non-contrived situation you can think of where SiteFinder would be actually useful -- not for buying spam type products, but where you'd actually welcome that 'service'?
Me, or your lyin' eyes?
(As the man said to his wife, on being caught in bed with the housekeeper)
That's all there is to it. Infrastructure has to be neutral. That means that HTML must be a platform-neutral standard, DNS resolution must be vendor-neutral, etc., etc.. If your browser doesn't want to follow standards, or if it wants to go to its own page AFTER getting a neutral (Error 404) reply, then so be it. But implement it at the browser level, NOT the infrastructure level.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
... but STOP USING THEIR SERVICE.
I've moved all domains I have to another registar and refuse to have anything to do with them.
They are coming into my life and inturrupting my surfinng, I really don't want to see Verisign's little "I am all over the web and you an not do anything about it" service.
MOVE ALL YOUR DOMAINS NOW!
"I'm not ashamed I can't function in society like I'm supposed to." - Paul Westerberg
IE will let you use other internet services other than HTTP. FTP comes to mind. You can also type in telnet://
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Dotster.com floats my boat. They make it very easy to transfer a domain to them. Of course, Verislime still gets $6 of that transaction to publish the record in the root zones.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Verisign is pulling out of the Registrar (not Registry!) business
0 31016.html
http://www.verisign.com/corporate/news/2003/pr_20
I wrote to Verisign... They posted the following contact information on their press release:
VeriSign Media Relations: Tom Galvin, tgalvin@verisign.com, 202.973.6600
VeriSign Investor Relations: Kathleen Bare, kbare@verisign.com, 650.426.3241
I was quite surprised by the results of their usbility study, so I asked them if they could provide so more data to back up the results. I also provided some other statistics from objective sources that voiced opposite opinions.
Will this single email be effective? Probably not. But I think its important to provide a continual stream of feedback to Verisign. Negative user feedback worked for the general good with Intuit... maybe lightning can strike twice!
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
yeah.. we buy that.. just like bu$h administration can investigate itself.. HAHAHAHA.
I suggest that Network Solutions be allowed to restart the site-finder once they implement a system allowing for only Web requests to respond with the wildcard address, allowing all other services to correctly give no record. We all know that this would be easy for them to implement, and once done all other services would continue to operate correctly. Anyone here want to write an RFC and send to VS/NS.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Now is a good time to start organizing one.
I can't beleive Verisign is jeopardizing most of their revenue (6$ / year / domain) as top .com/.net registrar just to make some additional cash.
.com/.net maintainer will not be revoked.
They must have received some kind of guarantee from the government that their role as
Considering the composition of the Bush government at this time (shady businessmen, ex sleazy CEO's, petrol kings), I would look closely at the connections between its members and Verisign's top execs.
SiteFinder is to the Internet what Disk Defragmenter is to Windows users...... Both are services that are claimed to be "helpful" to its users but are not supposed to be there in the first place...:-)
Verisign's press release --0 3100 7b.html?sl=070804
http://verisign.com/corporate/news/2003/pr_20
Thoughtfully provides e-mail addresses and phone numbers of who to contact at Verisign for more information:
For more information, contact:
VeriSign Media Relations: Tom Galvin, tgalvin@verisign.com, 202.973.6600
VeriSign Investor Relations: Kathleen Bare, kbare@verisign.com, 650.426.3241
Gratuitous typos included. i cn speel relly gud --- VeriSign's primary strategy in keeping their SiteFinder service alive is to keep the controversy in the arena of effect it has on the average user who only uses the internet for WWW/HTTP browsing. The internet is an extremely diversified network of countless data-transfer protocals which are by no means similar to HTTP. This is the personal opinion of the writer, but VeriSign is endangering its position of having the right to run the TLD name servers which govern these additional protocals. VeriSign insists that the technical difficulties SiteFinder introduces to the internet are "negligable", justifying this opinion by what the common user is capable of casually percieving. This demonstrates a desire of VeriSign's to willingly jeapordize the rest of the internet for the sake of their marketing strategies depending on a single protocal. VeriSign only further incriminates itself by offering its latest defense to complaining professionals, "you guys don't think consumers are relevant". This is a gross mis-statement, as VeriSign is only considering its own consumers while damaging the operations of other companies and *individuals* worldwide. As an IT professional, who has no legal authority to inforce his opinions, I'm of the mind that VeriSign needs to have its rights to host the TLDs re-evaluated. The company has demonstrated its willingness to compromise the entire internet, by which I refer to all data transfer protocals and not simply HTTP, and attempt sway support of the general public to its cause by taking advantage of its ignorance. It is our duty as administrators to simplify the operation of the internet for ordinary users, so that they are not *required* to have an exhaustive knowledge of protocals and how they inter-operate. It is a testament to our resolve that users are able to utilize the internet effectively without knowledge of protocals other than HTTP. Taking advantage of this ignorance, especially to selfishly sway the opinion of the masses away from their own intersests for the sake of imagined democracy, is highly irresponsible. I'm very sure the actual administrators working for VeriSign know *very well* the harm of what they're doing, but it isn't them who are making the decisions. We need only look as far as the commentary from VeriSign's ranking executives to see that it's all fluff, with a blind eye turned to anything remotely technical.
Remind me to use Preview more often, it ate all of my returns!
The problem isn't only with Verisign, although they have certainly put the focus on the problem. Some other top level domains than .com and .net also return results for non-existing entries, including *.nu and *.museum.
.nu does is any more ethical.
Others, like *.name and *.no use wildcards, but use extra logic to return a "not found" (nxdomain) when the second leel domain doesn't exist.
It's time for ICANN to enforce the standards, both against Verisign and the others. Since Verisign is the TLD entity that has the largest impact, they should of course go after them first. That doesn't mean that what
Regards,
--
*Art
According to the referenced article, VeriSign does not concede the existence of security issues with their wildcarded name resolution. This suggests a false, yet underlying, assumption: that the user will not provide sensitive information to VeriSign's servers because the servers have not identified themselves as legitimate recipients for that information.
Email breaks this assumption. RFC 2821 section 5 clearly states that when a fully-qualified domain name has no MX record, the MTA should treat the A record as an implicit MX with priority 0. In other words, if you typo the domain name of an email address and VeriSign resolves the domain to their address, VeriSign can receive and review messages that should otherwise bounce...you will not see an error unless VeriSign wants you to, and you will generally have no opportunity to withdraw the email before your mailer attempts to send it to VeriSign.
While many of us know that email (and DNS itself) is inherently insecure, the fact is that cleartext emails sent across the internet routinely contain sensitive information. The fact that VeriSign could (but currently does not) receive these is a security issue that merits consideration. VeriSign is arguably not playing nice with domain name resolution, and nobody should have to rely on them behaving nicely in handling mis-addressed email.
If I was a company that had applications broken by the Verisign change, I would write them a letter informing them that I will be seeking damages to cover the cost of changing my software and any lost business I experience due to their changes.
Uhm... can someone explain how this will stop 404 errors?
VeriSign says that this will prevent 404 error messages from happening. How did the original SiteFinder prevent that? It prevented NXDOMAIN errors in the .com and .net TLDs, but it never prevented 404 errors, as those are handled by each individual webserver and have nothing to do with DNS, but only with not being able to find a file on an already-resolved webserver.
From the press release:
"As a heavy but non-technical computer user it has been extremely frustrating for me to encounter 404 errors. Naturally, they happen at the busiest times," said Roy S. Lahet, vice president of Planning for Mercy Behavioral Health."
a google search for him came up with this picture as the second result.
out there... somewhere... a Verisign PR guy is limping with a smoking gun and wounded foot
They want the traffic that Sitefinder brought in, as shown here on Alexa.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I wrote an e-mail to verisgn about if I can just have the good 'ol 404 error message instad of being foced to abide by thier TOS to sitefinder. Thank you for contacting VeriSign Customer Service. Unfortunately there is not a way to opt out of the Sitefinder service. The terms and conditions apply to the web site navigation and the search functionality, not to the Sitefinder service itself. Please learn more about Sitefinder by visiting our FAQ's, we have also provided some technical issues to be aware of: http://www.verisign.com/nds/naming/sitefinder/faq. html
If you require further assistance please contact us by replying to this
email.
Best Regards,
Tom Correia
Customer Service
VeriSign, Inc.
www.verisign.com
sitefinder@verisign-grs.com
...in navigating the web?
If I enter a bogus URL I get a web page instead of an error message. That's helpful to the web user how? If someone's looking for a web site and they get slapped in the face with a sales pitch (``Now you can own "www.gogole.com" for only...'') every time they press ``Enter'' following a URL with a typo, how long before that user gets fed up with the Web?
How helpful would it be if you misdialed a phone number and, instead of getting error tones, you have some automated answering machine telling you that the bogus phone number is available for use?
How helpful would it be if, when you were lost, you stopped asked for directions, and, rather than saying ``I don't know'', the person you asked gave you directions to some business in another city?
Jeez. I'd attribute their behaviour to cluelessness if I wasn't already positive that it was really greed driving them.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
My company produces web based orject oriented database software that relies on dns reporting broken domains for some important internal operations.
Site finder totally broke my software and we had to send patches to all our clients who all reported software failure on the same day sitefinder was launched.
As a small business what am I supposed to do about big corporations changing the way the Internet works?
Our software is complient with the RFC's, now we have to be Verisign complient too.
----------
Phil Harvey
Construct Software Limited
Object Oriented Content Management
If we could patch ever nameserver to never allow a wildcard for a root domain, would that fix it permanently? If Microsoft where to send down an auto-update with a patch to DNS, that would certainly get us in the right direction, no?
--D
I'm just an underqualified media weenie, so I can't say exactly what should be done about this.
But I really hope those that are in positions of power and knowledge get it right this time. Sixty days notice seems like more than enough time to write a patch that is rock solid.
Is this a reasonable assumption?
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
Whoops! You made a typo. We *like* Verizon today. :)
I just called the media relations number listed at the bottom of the press release and spoke to a very nice, albeit uninformed receptionist. I said I was from [insert local newspaper name here] and I questioned the accuracy of the press release, vis a vis 404 != nxdomain. She first said she would transfer me to Tom Galvin, but then returned and informed me that I needed to speak to a gentleman named (I believe) Tom Hoch. According to her, he is on a conference call right now, but she took my name and number and said he will call me back.
It is fun to play reporter!
Is Verisign doing it to help us ? Great. Errr. Lets check that.
Why don't ICANN gives an ok for Sitefinder, as long as it does not contain ANY advertisement (even Verisign own advertisement) ? If they are doing it only to help, I'm sure they will agree.
The thing that really amazes me is not what Verisign is doing, but that people are really buying this crap about doing it to help the users.
morcego
They took my money, had a problem transferring the domain, and told me when I called them that it was their standard policy to keep your money regardless of whether they provide the f**** service you paid for (transferring my domain). I said, "So you're not going to transfer the domain." "That's right. "And you're not going to give my money back either. "It's your problem."
Needless to say, I'm with DirectNIC now. GoDaddy is a bunch of slimeballs like VeriSign.
If you type a domain name incorrectly, you don't get a 404 error. It's a lie. A 404 error comes from a web server that cannot find the page you are requesting. The Site Finder service does not eliminate 404 errors.
It makes me mad that they print these lies. They know better than that.
Isn't Microsoft's biggest attack on Google the fact that they automatically send you to their search engine if you can't find the DNS entry?
This would put a huge damper on that attempt.
Of course, if it damages Google, perhaps they could just wait for the damage to be done, and then "license" their search engine to Verisign/Network Solutions?
This sig is the express property of someone.
This is not the text you are looking for (Lameness Filter)
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
I find it odd that no one has been discussing the Sitefinder TOS. Specifically, paragraph 6, which states:
6. Modification by VeriSign.
At any time VeriSign may modify or terminate these terms of use, its websites and the VeriSign Services and may at any time discontinue your use of the VeriSign Services without any notice to you, and without liability to you, any other user or any third party. Please review these Terms of Use from time to time so that you will be aware of any changes. Your continued use of the VeriSign Services constitutes your agreement to all such terms, conditions, and notices.
So I can be found to a "Terms of Use" agreement simply by mistyping a domain name? How is this legal? And are there any situations where a user could be caught in violation of this "agreement"?
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I'd like to remove them from my /etc/dnsroots.global and I think anyone who runs a dns service should do the same (or from your "named.ca" if you run bind).
If I recall correctly, VeriSign is only adminstrating four of the root servers, so removing these will leave you with nine more to query. If enough admins take this measure, I'm sure that ICANN, if not VeriSign, will get the hint that VeriSign has crossed the line, has abused thier authority, and is no longer trusted to provide that service.
Read, L
If you have a domain name through another registrar then Verisign may be trying to hijack you (as a customer). Verisign and many other unscrupulous registrars regularly spam entries in the DNS lists to get the domain owners to transfer registrar business to them.
Also take a close look at the link, if there is one in the email. If it has a long string of characters, in the middle of which you see "http:" (not at the beginning), then they may actually be trying to send you to a bogus look-alike site that will ask for account names, passwords, credit card numbers, etc. That one is an attempt to scam you.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Thanks for the reply. I had heard of the scam avenue before, but everything looks legitimate about the e-mail, URL, etc. I believe that you're right - they're simply trying to hijack the registrar business. Thanks.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
I doubt that anyone finds sitefinder.com useful. It reminds me of one of those 'top 1000' roms/crackz/pron sites that just lists links to 1000 other 'top 1000' roms/crackz/pron sites, and this goes on all day until you find that no sites are really available from these links, just an endless array of popup adds and more links to lists of links. If you are actually looking for something useful, like a Metal Slug rom, you will never find one this way. Sitefinder is a site Pimp, unlike a search engine, which is actually a useful tool. If you were looking for a hoe, would you go to a pimp? Of course not, you would search for a hoe on the street, like everyone else. I find this an accurate parallel to the sitefinder/search engine relationship. I'm sure pimps would like it if you went to them first, then they could be sure they were getting all their money. (kind of like verisign) Verisign should change the name to sitepimp.com
TallGreen CMS hosting
127.0.0.1 sitefinder.verisign.com
Fixes my problems!
(127.0.0.1 verisign.com works well also...)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
"As a heavy but non-technical computer user it has been extremely frustrating for me to encounter 404 errors. Naturally, they happen at the busiest times," said Roy S. Lahet, vice president of Planning for Mercy Behavioral Health. . .It is difficult for me to see a downside to this user friendly enhancement."
So, the summary of Verisigns argument seems to be that while network administrators and the like think SiteFinder sucks, end users are the ones who we should care about.
Examine this logic closely. The judgement of network administrators, aka experts on the internet, regarding issues related to the infrastructure of the internet, is irrelevant.
They are out-and-out advocating that a lack of understanding of the technical foundation of the internet is exactly what qualifies one to make reliable technical decisions.
Is there no lie too bald-faced, no distortion too absurd, or no consequence too detrimental as long as there is money to be made? Am I the only one who doesn't think like that?!?
I'm ready to run a background wget that surfs a random URL 10 times a second.
Please join me.
If Verisign turns their hijacker back on, add something like to the bottom of your web pages.
That'll cause every web browser that visits to request Verisigns's page and display it in one pixel. The more people that do this the better.
It's not a DDOS attack because Verisign is intercepting the lookups and redirecting themselves. They can shut it off anytime they want.
I found it extremely amusing that Verisign selected the CTO of Brightmail as part of the group doing the technical evaluation. Brightmail is an anti-SPAM vendor that is very heavily invested in signature based anti-SPAM systems.
While Site Finder broke a wide number of different systems on the Internet, crippling DNS based anti-SPAM probably had the greatest direct impact on the lives of end users.
From my perspective, I can't help but think that there might have been some kind of conflict of interest here.
404 is the server telling you that the page isn't found (therefore the DNS was working correctly). SiteFinder won't prevent 404s.
So, who'll be the first to write a browser plugin to make it use "site not found" behavior when the URL resolves to the sitefinder IP? For that matter, who wants to write me a program that'll make all DNS queries on my computer that would resolve to the sitefinder IP come back as non-existent domain? I'd pay shareware money for something like that for Windows.
I had a transfer that didn't work because of Verisign and GoDaddy promptly refunded my money.
Sorry you had a bad experience with them.
Verisign has a problem with how ICANN and the technical community want the gTLD nameservers run. Perhaps ICANN should take steps to insure that their views no longer cause Verisign any issues, say by handing the relevant gTLDs over to another registry operator.
In the meantime, ISAGN for an RFC on DNS that says, basically, "If the zone for a domain does delegation to people other than the zone's owner, that zone can't contain wildcard RRs unless everyone with subdomains below it agrees to them. Also, you can return RRs for names in the zone but you can't return RRs for names in undelegated subdomains unless everyone with subdomains below you agrees to them (eg. Verisign could return an A record for "www.com" but not for "www.unregistered-domain.com").".
Al Gore didn't invent the "net" part of the Internet (the technological side, including IP, TCP, and the common application protocols), but he did sit on the board that invented the "Inter" part (connecting local area networks into one nationwide, and later global, network).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Some people, I guess, just have better luck than me.
Oh wait, make that "All people."
My company currently owns 41 domain names, and not a single one of them is registered through Verisign/NetSol. I say, with all the low-cost registrars out there, hit verisign where it hurts, and send a message that we don't want their silly ads every time we make a typo.
I fail to understand how people think sometimes. If my employer went out every day and put up roadblocks in every route that I took to work, after a while I'd get the hint that maybe my services weren't wanted anymore. Take the hint, Veri$ign, and let it die.
The World Wide Web uses more protocols than just HyperText Transfer Protocol. FTP resources (for example) are part of the WWW as well. This is why Tim Berners-Lee (whose definition of term is pretty darn authoritative, I'd say) took the trouble to include a protocol designation in his specification for the Web's URLs (not realising at the time that one day millions of people would find themselves having to type that awkward "http://" construct over and over).