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CentralNic Enables uk.com Wildcard DNS
JamesS writes "It appears that CentralNic has
enabled wildcard DNS matching.
Many Slashdot readers will remember the backlash aimed at Verisign the last time it did this nearly two years ago to the day, introducing SiteFinder to the world at large."
How about starting something useful Instead of wildcarding DNS why doesn't one of these venders wildcard TDLAs making them optional. What's that - you get more money by selling N domain names where N = TDLAs. Yeah it would be hard to wildcard TDLAs but after a few years it wouldn't matter, as the DNS names would become the selling point more than TDLAs. I guess the system could default to .com then .org or it could just show you the possible combination and learn which is the most popular based on your country or something. Regardless of the grainy details but I just would like to see the \.[.]{2-3}$ go away.
It's a private company which does this with private subdomains. Verisign manages GTLDs, which is quite a difference, both impact-wise and policy-wise.
For a minute I thought this was about the .co.uk domain, a real TLD, but this is just like slashdot deciding to sell joesblog.slashdot.org to someone. What they do with their own domain is up to them.
It's the same as me offering subdomains on my privately-held domain, but having a catchall as well. Why is this even an issue?
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
[Disclaimer: Vested interest]
I don't see why it's such a big deal for CentralNic to do it, really. UK.com is their domain for them to do with as they wish.
I worked for CentralNic day-to-day for a few years, and the company last enabled this in, er, 2000 I think. It lasted 3 days, during which we were subjected to a barrage of emails from people saying 'wah wah what have you done you've stolen my site' because they'd forgotten to put the 'co' in 'co.uk', and IE had attempted to be clever and autocomplete with '.com'.
I think the change now is probably because they're doing a bit more with portals, and it makes sense for them to increase the eyeball level by doing this.
But, er... doesn't seem such a big deal.
Smegma.
wildcard DNS's are very common in subdomains, CentralNIc are just re-selling subdomains (for 37 quid !) of course some people have been giving away subdomains for years
this company are nothing more than scam artists, charging 10 times what a real domain would cost but with none of the responsibility of a genuine NIC
Don't tell anyone I told you.
CentralNIC is a second-level domain owner. They can do whatever their customers will let them do with *.uk.com.
The outrage at Verisign was over their misappropriation of a root-level domain space where they were merely the custodian.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
These registrars were handed a giant chunk of value, ownership registration on our 21st Century language - Internet names - along with the trust of the public that their answers to queries would be "objective", not reflecting some local vested interest. Like which company paid them to return their link. They're "leveraging synergies" between DNS queries and advertising customers. But one person's "synergy" is another person's "conflict of interest".
Real wildcard queries return all of the matching items, not just the one preferred by the database. These registrars do have a synergic value to offer, as they have info about "close matches". Wildcard queries should offer "disambiguation" replies of all matches, DNS-wide, not just those in the local registrar. And even if they make money placing "sponsored" responses, they should have to actually match the query criteria, not just an arbitrary association bought for money. Sponsored links should appear in a column alongside "real" links, like Google adWords, so they're not in the way of retrieving the real responses. And some proceeds from the sponsorship should be returned to the community from which the system derives most of its value: registrants and queriers. Probably just fund the IETF or IANA, which serves the community equitably. The whole system should be optional, leaving queries to default to the original "failure mode", where null responses return only an error message, not a list of "maybe you wanted" responses.
These servics are probably inevitable. And they're probably useful, in returning some financing to the organizations that keep the Internet running. And letting them put what amounts to advertising into the error responses gives a revenue stream to DNS servers. That offers incentive for more servers, which would make the system more reliable, more distributed - competition might even produce inherently valuable innovations, not just these capitalist innovations. But we've got to demand they do it right. If the Internet DNS layer becomes just a smartass "TV Guide", as "brought to you by" takes over our seamless navigation, we might as well all go back to watching TV.
--
make install -not war
I treat anyone whose web site is a sub-domain of uk.com with the same contempt as I do .biz and .info.
This is a particularly clueless article, and TheReg ought to have known better than to publish it.
It's interesting, fdsagfdwagdsa.uk.com leads me to the uk.com website. But fuckyou.uk.com and fuckoff.uk.com can not be found? They're not just banning fuck*.uk.com though, cause fuckmeintheass.uk.com goes right to the uk.com site.
It seems they know this is going to be an unpopular move.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Try reading the article. Lets say you register: rtfa.com for $15USD. How much do you pay to then register idont.rtfa.com?
I am with you there! TLDs only serve to cause confusion. Was that website .com, .org, .co.uk, or .org.uk? And some people will happily exploit that confusion by setting up their website on the same domain with a different TLD. So then you'll have to buy your domain on all likely other TLDs, too. Yech!
.com names, for-profits with .org names, Dutch sites with .nu names, etc. etc. The supposed relation between TLD and function doesn't hold, nor does the supposed relation between TLD and country. And nor could it, what with country TLDs and function TLDs in the same namespace...
.com anyway. You'll have to solve the load problem for the .com TLD, and once you've done that it's not that much harder to throw the rest of the TLDs on that same system.
/less/to/more/specific/all/the/way!
And what's it all good for? I've seen non-profit organizations with
People have told me that TLDs help the system to function, because the hierarchy allows better load distribution. I call bull on that one. Almost everybody wants the
So, eliminate the confusion and buy my pure names today! How does "theregister" sound as the name of your website, instead of "theregister.co.uk"? Only drawback is that nobody's browser actually supports these new names.
And while we're at it, lets also do away with the inverted order crap. What's with the more specific name going in front of the less specific ones in the DNS name, and the more specific name going _after_ the less specific name in the rest of the URL? And what's with the dot as a separator?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
CentralNic have at least issued a statement that they don't run mail servers on that ip, so as long as admins are aware, they can happily work around this with a block on 213.146.149.160 as well.
Sure, it involves a few extra seconds work, but it isn't the end of the world.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
There difference here is that CnetralNic is not a registry. They bought a domain name from Verisign, just like slashdot did, and then started selling the 3rd level domains off. Ones that people don't buy, they're basically showing adds for their subdomains. No different than what http://co.com/ has been doing for a couple years now. Check out http://co.com/ http://something.co.com/ and http://another.co.com./
This is not a huge potential problem like it was in the verisign script. The domain is registered (register a domain and you get all the sub domains, duh). Very few people are writing software to deal with making custom scripts / programs to treat uk.com as a TLD (which is not). The program with verisign was they wanted to take any unregistered domain and redirect. There are LOTS of programs written for TLD's to check all sorts of things, from your web browser letting you know that the page is not registered, letting the mail system know the domain does not exists, spam checking valid domains, etc.
I actually work for one, but I wouldn't recommend my company. We're overpriced. I'd say go to Tucows. On their reseller site, they have a "refer me to a reseller" feature at http://referrals.tucows.com/.
Try reading the article. CentralNIC owns uk.com and sells third-level domains. It has the right to do whatever it wants to its third-level domains. CentralNIC's main asset is not a TLD; it's a second-level domain (uk.com) that it's wildcarding.
Plenty of companies do wildcarding to redirect users to a main page if they mistype a subdomain. Try http://nos.slashdot.org/ http://generic-man.slashdot.org/ http://p0rn.slashdot.org/ etc.
For more information, click here.
The problem isn't TLDs, the problem is that they're just suggestions. They should be enforced so that in order to get a .com you should have to provide a business license, in order to get a .org you have to be a 503(c) or whatever, and in order to get a country code domain you have to actually be connected in that country.
.com, but the local burger joint would have to get a .com.us. Similarly, Mozilla could still be mozilla.org because it only exists on the Net, while the local charity would be .org.us.
.net and such would be.
Additionally, TLDs with no country code should be strictly limited to international or virtual organizations only. For example, McDonalds could qualify for a
Function TLDs other than com and org would work the same way, of course, although I don't know off the top of my head what the criteria for
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've never actually visited a uk.com address. No-one gives a shit about anything other than .com or .co.uk other TLD's just arn't prestigious enough. Although you could make an exception for .ac.uk .gov.uk .org and .net that's pretty much it. .com really is _the_ TLD, everyone's first choice is a .com because no matter where you are in the world everyone recognises the phrase 'dot com' like coca-cola.
Anyway that was side-tracking, this thing is a pretty evil abuse of the system, although my hat goes off to them for their capitalist achievement.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It is common practice among ISPs to enable DNS wildcards for subdomains by default. hoststar.ch is doing that for instance.
I am sorry but if I own a domain, like myself.com, I have every right to do whatever I want with the third level subdomains unless I clearly declared somewhere in my terms of service that, I will abide and governed by the same rules that applies to tld dns providers like verisign.
typing fskjljg.com to your browser and typing fskjljg.myself.com are two different concepts. For the first one, no one claimed ownership by paying money and verisign in the recent past, decided, they can do anything they want. So they basically claimed rights to every unpublished domain name available.
Whereas uk.com in this example, claimed stake at this domain by paying anregistering this domain name. If you are hitting their server to access another and you have the wrong information, they can do whatever they wish, as you, the surfer, chose to visit a webserver (not a DNS server only) hosted by them.
I am not really thrilled how the two concepts put in the same category to ruffle feathers personally. Must be a slow news day at the register.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
No matter what domain you type in your browser (i.e. foo.bar.slashdot.org), you will redirected to Slashdot's own webpage, featuring advertising and a ridiculous number of duplicate front-page stories.
The benefit to slashdot.org is clear - increased sales and advertising revenue - but the system by which the redirection is carried out, called wildcard, has been criticised by the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) of Internet overseeing organisation ICANN as putting the stability of the Internet at risk.
My company frequently goes to industry shows and conferences, where we typically have a booth to demonstrate our wares to prospective clients.
We can NEVER count on an Internet connection, even when using a cellular network card - so we have a used laptop set up with the same software as on our public servers, configured with Linux, HTTP, DHCP, PostgreSQL, and DNS, connected to a hotspot. Effectively, the "Internet" that the hotspot is connected to consists solely of the laptop server. This way our salesforce can connect with their laptops and demonstrate our wares easily, while the server and hotspot sit in the corner somewheres near a power outlet. The DNS is wild-carded to our website hosted on said server. Even the user's homepage is co-opted, so if their homepage is goole or yahoo, it redirects automatically to our website.
It's quite funny when, at conferences, we hear people two booths down swear after connecting to our hotspot and all they can get to is our website! People have gotten *MAD* at us for "taking over the Internet"!!!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
its a short domain name someone happened to grab and sell names under.
as such afaict its basically unregulated and a fairly stupid place to put your site.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register