Paul Vixie On What DNS Is Not

CowboyRobot writes "Paul Vixie (AboveNet, ARIN, ISC, MAPS, PAIX) has a fresh rant titled What DNS Is Not about the abuses of the Domain Name Server system. 'What DNS is not is a mapping service or a mechanism for delivering policy-based information. DNS was designed to express facts, not policies. Because it works so well and is ubiquitous, however, it's all too common for entrepreneurs to see it as a greenfield opportunity ... a few years ago VeriSign, which operates the .COM domain under contract to ICANN, added a "wild card" to the top of the .COM zone (*.COM) so that its authoritative name servers would no longer generate NXDOMAIN responses. Instead they generated responses containing the address of SiteFinder's Web site — an advertising server.'"

Comments

Re:not only Verisign

[NoYob]

Remember: These changes are often invented by marketing and then pushed through even against the explicit protest of the technology people.

Every technological marketing gimick that has been invented was the result of some techie wanting to get rich quick (or kiss up to his boss) and I don't blame them. If I found a way to exploit DNS further or any other part of the net and was able to get rich from it, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

And so would most of you, too.