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Network Solutions Overhauls Whois Results
Robert Accettura writes "Network Solutions has updated its whois interface, giving it an interesting new twist. On top of regular info provided, it shows data that appears to be from Alexa, including a screenshot of the homepage (though not terribly recent), as well as looks up your IP, and displays lots of information on it. It even shows the server type, if it supports SSL, DMOZ, Yahoo listing, traffic ranking, and lock status. This comes right after they announced rapid DNS updates. Perhaps they are trying to win over the geeks before they turn on sitefinder?"
I ran a WHOIS query on my domain, kravlor.com, and it was placed in Chicago, IL, as opposed to Minneapolis, MN! Apparently I'm an e-commerce site, whatever that is, too!
Perhaps they are trying to win over the geeks before they turn on sitefinder?
Maybe. However, my bet is on friendlifying (hey, I just coined a word!) the service for something far more sinister. This wreaks of targetting manadrones with all sorts of feelgood updates that don't serve that much purpose for real geeks...
Maybe I'm paranoid, but when you're dealing with a group like this, you can't look at it with too much suspicion.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Whois.sc displays screenshot of website homepage at least a couple of months ago.
I assume you're referring to Sitefinder?
Yes, bad ideas happen. However, actively destroying expected behavior of the entire internet is just plain sinister. The only thing they can fall back on is that "technically" they didn't break anything in the sense that wildcards are legitimate.
Mistakes happen, sure. Sitefinder, however, was just malicious profiteering and status abuse.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
The info appears against my Network Solutions domains, but not my Tucows ones.
And in some respects the Tucows approach is better. A Network Solutions query shows all my details directly. Tucows requires a query to input a grahpics based password so it is harder to harvest the info.
Tried testing it out through a proxy that strips the referrer and user-agent fields (no tin-foil hat here ;-) ). Just kept giving me 302 redirects back to the same front page
Just what we need - a fussy site.
I'm a bit disappointed that you cannot perform a whois lookup on .us domains.
.us people? Were they denied access to the data?
Doesn't Verisign like the
Register.com lets me do a lookup. Perplexing.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
So Alexa is an Amazon company and they are making money by taking screenshots of copyrighted material?
Maybe everyone who has screenshots of their website in Alexa should file a DMCA complaint Amazon. Seems fair to me since Amazon loves bogus patents.
"Yeah, Yeah, Yeah." - Lennon, McCartney
They'll impress me when they PUT SOME FUCKING SECURITY ON THE WHOIS SEARCH. Stupid ass companies like Network Solutions are the reason at least 50% of my spam is sent to a DOMAIN REGISTRATION ONLY email address.
Would it be terribly difficult to implement a system like whois.sc, where it shows images of your email address instead of text? I think not. I could probably do it and I'm a pretty green PHP coder.