Slashdot Mirror
DNS Stressed From Financial Maneuverings
jcatcw writes "The Domain Name System is showing signs of being out of control. Automated software systems are being used to re-register large batches of expired domain names. In addition, speculators are using a loophole in the registration process that lets domains be tested for their potential profitability as pay-per-click advertising sites during a free five-day "tasting" period."
Here is a slick, free typosquatting search tool that lets you find and explore the kind of problematic domains mentioned in the article. Try playing with the various search options - it's addictive. For instance, there are 141 registered domains that contain the word "slashdot", and 199 more that are a one-character misspelling of "slashdot". That's within just 4 TLDs.
The firm also offers a novel service that allows companies to recover lost traffic without necessarily filing lots of lawsuits.
Full disclosure - I am CitizenHawk's president. That being said, I can say we are intimately involved in tracking DNS updates daily - and I agree. Tasting is a serious problem that threatens to push the DNS system beyond its limits.
It was news 2 years ago when it first started happening.
ICANN which (on paper) "measures community consensus and implements it as policy" is the entity that had to approve the policies that lets this happen.
No domain expires any more, the registrars snap them up on principle, try them out and if they get one click in the "don't have to pay yet" grace period then they keep the domain. Very very few, if any domains actually expire back into the free pool.
What strikes me as hysterical is the people that went on to become ICANN accused the alternative root people 10 years ago of wanting to do exactly this. To be honest we hadn't even thought of it. We just wants to see no centralized single-point-of-failure control over the dns.
I note with irony itoldyouso.com is taken by squatter.
Need Mercedes parts ?
This article seems not to understand that the DNS system and the Registar system are completely separate entities.. The mass registrations are done through the various registrars for .com, .net, .info, etc., with current estimates that there are are about 5 million domains being "tasted" at any given time. This number is fairly constant so it's not producing spikes or a significant increase in DNS usage at any one time.
The method for squashing "name tasting" (the expoitation of the five-day grace period) is well known: impose a small fee for each returned domain. The Public Interest Registry (maintainer of .org) recently became the first registry to impose such a fee of 5 cents per name. VeriSign has not followed suit. Some argue that this is because enough "tasted" domains are registered that the sales benefit from the practice outweighs the stress on the infrastructure. ICANN is requesting a position paper from a coalition of registrars on the topic.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
Fix #1: Eliminate the free tasting period.
....
If you register fo0.com on May 1 and on May 2 you realize you goof and you meant to register foo.com, fine. But your registration still expires next May 1. In addition, you only get 1 or 2 "free goofs" after which you pay a paperwork fee, maybe a few pennies or less, to cover the actual costs of changing things around.
The people who run DNS should neither gain nor lose if I register 1 name for 1 year vs. I register 100 names for short consecutive periods that add up to 1 year. Currently they lose big time.
Fix #2: Meaningful domain-lapse rules
In general, if a domain is revoked or lapses, nobody except you should be able to claim it without your permission for a certain period of time. I'd suggest a minimum of 30 days.
I theory this is the way it was supposed to work but in practice
Obviously there will be special cases, such as names transferred by court order.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
(posting anon because I used mod points)
Who does the testing period benefit besides spammers and squatters? Does someone who legitimately want to use a domain name "test" it for five days... and then what? Of course someone who wants to the domain is going to keep it. But if you don't want it, why did you register it, unless of course you were testing it for how many people accidentally typed your domain name, and then we come back to the spammers and squatters. I'd be interested in knowing a legitimate purpose for this five day testing period.
It's worse than that. And it's all ICANN's fault.
ICANN has become a trade association for domain registrars. Which isn't surprising; they're the ones that pay it money.
A big problem is that registrars are allowed to speculate in domain names. ICANN has the power to prohibit this (see section 4.2 of the Registrar Agreement) but has not done so. To speculate in domain names, it helps to be a registrar, which isn't that expensive. ICANN's pricing starts at $4000/year. As a result, there are now about 800 "registrars", most of which are fronts for domain speculators. Most of them don't register domains for others at all.
As a result, ICANN's constituency is now composed primarily of typosquatting slimeballs. That's why we're in this mess.
After such a domain is detagged, Nominet try to contact thet registrant to confirm that they no longer want to use the domain. Only if the registrant confirms this, or fails to settle an invoice if one exists within 30 days, does the domain become 'suspended'. After 60 further days, the domain is cancelled and can be registered by someone else.
Nominet even make it a policy to dissuade domain spammers from registering expired domains: Why does Nominet not publish exact dates for when domain names are cancelled?
Giving an exact date would compromise Nominet's policy of allocating domain names on a first-come, first-served basis. It could lead to an increase in speculative applications for domain names, which may result in an abuse of Nominet's registration automated systems.
My point is that the system is failing miserably, although most head-up-the-ass promoters of "unrestricted capitalism" probably haven't figured it out yet so the social unrest which is on its way will be a real surprise to them.
Probably because they think of watching 24/7 "news" of Paris Hilton while cherishing their ability to buy truckloads of useless plastic crap from China for their "interest-only" financed 6000 sqft paper and sticks house, while having no savings and a negative net worth in general as "success".
Communism is alive and well in many places where it was always alive and well: Quaker and Mennonite communes. Oh you meant the State Capitalism / Totalitarian Governance combo which the Soviet Union practiced? That one croaked indeed. But not because because it could not out way desire for "extraordinary success". One set of supreme jerks simply lost to another set of supreme jerks. Oligarchs replaced Politburo appointees and then got replaced by ex-KGB "businessmen" who conduct business via 9mm pistol rounds.
I have news for you: the governing principle of our supposed Capitalist society, the very reason it appears acceptable for the general populace, is that one's wealth is supposed to be proportional to one's merit to society. You break that rule badly enough, long enough and you will end up with Feudalism, Corporatism or some other Fascist abomination.
No I am "shooting" for proportionality of reward to merit. That is all.
No man or woman is 1000 times (or more) "smarter" then even the dumbest of janitors. No fashion model is more meritous then a productive cancer researcher or an accomplished researcher in quantuum physics. No CEO is worth 400 times the average worker in salary and 1000 times in bonuses when the very company he is heading is going bankrupt. No trust fund kid is "better" then that of a minimum-wage diner waitress just because he inhereited $2 billion from papa. And so on.