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Verisign Recommended to Keep .com & .net

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-mine-now dept.

An Anonymous SAIC Employee writes "The 'independent' company hired by ICANN to advise them on who should run the .com and .net registry has recommended that Verisign (fact sheet) should be chosen to continue to run the registry. Is it any surprise? Telcordia was owned by SAIC (Fact Sheet) during the time the study was conducted. SAIC bought Telcordia (fact sheet) (then Bellcore) in Nov. 1997 and sold it March 15, 2005. Network Solutions was bought by SAIC in 1995 and sold in 2000. Also, Telcordia worked with Verisign on the ENUM project. Is the fox guarding the hen house?"

12 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Exactly... by ral315 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would we honestly expect any different? Anyone who actually read into the situation expected VeriSign to get the contract, and it looks as if that's what's going to happen now.

  2. Depends on what their contract says by dmoen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't mind this, if Verisign's contract was amended to prohibit domain-typo hijacking, and more generally, to require them to remain compatible and RFC compliant. And I would want those same contract provisions regardless of who runs .com and .net.

    Doug Moen

    --
    I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
    1. Re:Depends on what their contract says by toddbu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, but the problem here is they serve both as a registrar and keeper of the registry. The only way to get rid of this problem is to split the two functions and prohibit one single company from doing both job functions. Kind of like the U.S. Mint - if you don't know how to make the paper *AND* the ink then you can't print your own money (unless you own a laser printer :-)

      --
      If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
  3. Sitefinder by Uber+Banker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't hijacking every and any unclaimed URL for company profit while providing no public service in an organisation whose very objective is a public service reason enough?

  4. Not surprising by Jailbrekr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Virtually every company in the IT world is connected to each other. Its like a big stupid beowulf cluster of beaurocracy that uses IPX instead of IP for its communciation protocol.

    Welcome to the techo-appalachians, where everyone is related to everyone else in some manner.

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
  5. Re:Whats all the fuss about? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why all the fuss about who should administer these? Is it doing any difference if it's Big Corporation A or B?

    Yes, because some people would drop the price to $2/year if they were in charge. It's a small difference in absolute dollars, but the relative difference is huge and exposes how much VeriSign is overcharging.

    Also, VeriSign has a bad habit of implementing evil stuff like SiteFinder, although other companies would be likely to try the same thing if they were handed a monopoly.

  6. So What by pHatidic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is just a recommendation. I have full faith that Joi Ito and the rest of the board will make the best decision when the time comes.

  7. Re:Why change? by Desert+Raven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    because we know if someone else takes over, the internet will go down for at least a week

    You mean just like it did when .org was transferred?

    Oh, wait, nevermind....

  8. Simple question: If not them... by dark-br · · Score: 3, Insightful

    who else?

    If there's not another option that is *much* better then the current one why bother? Keep in mind that a change like this could result in a *real* mess.

    1. Re:Simple question: If not them... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      who else?

      Anyone.

      Keep in mind that a change like this could result in a *real* mess.

      Ahhh, so you've never personally dealt with them. OK, here's the short answer for people who've never experienced that dishonor:

      It would be darn nigh impossible to screw up anything worse than Verisign. They are absolutely, positively the worst "the problem must be on your end" pack of frickin' screwups ever to bungle network management. Network Solutions? Only if the problem is "I have too much money and time - please help me blow it on getting my domain back from the hijacker you gave it to without asking me first". I would give the job to Microsoft before I'd willingly let Verisign have another crack at it, and that's not something I'd say lightly. If they built cars, people would have died in the Verisign Pinto. They're the New Coke of networking, and I'd swear Terry Gilliam had a crystal ball and based "Brazil" around their bureaucracy.

      It. Can't. Get. Worse. This is it. You're looking at it. The lowest common denominator is carrying the treasure. People hate them so much that they built entire alternative DNS hierarchies to fix the theoretical disasters that Verisign somehow managed to drag to life. I'd buy a SCO Linux license before I'd pay Verisign to register another domain.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  9. As I posted to this same topic on technocrat... by the_rajah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    yesterday.. "Verisign is right up there with MS and Intuit in my list of evil corporations. All the dealings I've had with Verisign / Network Solutions as a registrar have been nothing but a huge hassle. Please get someone who we can trust. I don't use them at all any more. Godaddy is a LOT less expensive and their telephone support is nothing short of wonderful. Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Godaddy, but I do have some 90 domains happily registered with them.

    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

    --


    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
  10. Why is this still centralized? by MrDomino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I honestly find it hard to believe that a single entity can maintain control over such a large part of the Internet for so long a time; in the net's early days, a centralized domain registry might have been acceptable, being that it was a small thing and the overhead to implement anything more advanced would've outweighed the benefits. Now, though, with the Internet the size it is, I honestly think that something better needs to be in place: get rid of this central-domain-registry crap. Whoever's in charge of it--Verisign, Microsoft, even Google--is going to profiteer to some extent, simply because that is what companies do.

    If you ask my opinion, a decentralized system would make much more sense here. Store addresses in a Kademlia network or something; allow anybody to register a domain name, and it'll propagate as it's accessed. With a PGP-like trust system implemented, there need not be a central registry anywhere. The only way to prevent abuse of such a large monopoly is to prevent any single entity from controlling it, and the only way to do that is to decentralize the process.