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Verisign's SiteFinder - An Engineer's View

Posted by simoniker on from the find-this dept.

ixs writes "CircleID has an interesting article by David Monosov about Verisign's plans to reintroduce Sitefinder. The article presents the thesis that the Internet engineering community is partly to blame for Verisign's ability to mess with the .com and .net root zones. According to the author we spend too much time with our systems and not enough with politics. The writeup was previously posted to NANOG and received a favorable response from Paul Vixie."

2 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They shouldn't draw attention to themselves by Clinoti · · Score: 5, Interesting
    No, what Verisign does understand is (sorry) the Microsoft model of monopoly, where a broad presence pillows the muffled cries of an infant industry. (I digress, I know the age of the net.)

    What Verisign will learn is that the kid has already gone outside into the world and cannot be kept under thumb.

    Also, does anyone remember, speak of the devil, Microsoft's viewpoint on this? They essentially do the same thing on the lower level with default browsers for their search engine. Any insight?

    --

    Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep

  2. This is terribly old news by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It happens all the time, every time.

    Engineer has an idea. Engineer implements the idea. Engineer is happy. Engineer's peers are happy. Non-engineer picks it up and uses it to get a lot of money, tarnishing the original idea in the process. All engineers are outraged.

    The article states that engineers should be more aware of politics. That's bull.

    An engineer that takes politics into account will accomplish nothing, because he is battling windmills. Trying to protect your inventions against corporate meddling is impossible. The problem is that those who invent simply do not have the power to enforce the "right" use of their invention. Being aware that that power lies with people who are mainly interested in squeezing money out of ideas will only make you despressed.

    And there are reasons that this is the way it is. The two main ones are (1) the innovators are the grease-monkeys of the corporate and political worlds; and (2) the fact that innovations can generate money is the catalyst that allows engineers to innovate.

    These two reasons lead to three possible solutions for the described situation.

    Solution 1: More engineers become politicians, thereby gaining influence on law-making and getting the ability to bend the laws to idealistic purposes. Unfortunately, engineers (just as scientists and artists) do not want to be politicians. It's a frustrating job, especially if you are idealistic. If someone is only interested in money and power, it can be a fulfilling job, but I don't expect idealistic law-making from such a person.

    Solution 2: Engineers refuse to work for corporations and develop their ideas for themselves. Unfortunately, this will mean that they do not have the funding to work on their interesting ideas, and even if they succeed, a big corporation will notice them and run away with them.

    Solution 3: Engineers do not create inventions that can be or need to be exploited for money. Translated: Engineers won't innovate at all.

    Conclusion: All three solutions won't work in practice. Since that is a depressing thought, perhaps you better not read this comment.

    Too late.