Good ideas, but the best way to beat these guys is to publically protest and get the word out to the masses about such abuses.
Also, most encryption used in comsumer products are based on trap-door functions...easy to multiply a bunch of factors together, but very difficult to get them back out...or is it??
If anyone finds an easy way to crack such encryption and 99%+ of the protection schemes used in comsumer products are toast and will make DeCSS look like a walk in the park for the RIAA, MPA, etc.
Even though the article appears to be bogus, it's plausable and that's what makes it so damn scary.
In any event, it's hopefully encouraged more people to get involved and donate to the EFF, write their representatives, etc to help make a meaningful difference.
After reading the RIAA suing MP3.COM article the other day here, I immediately donated $100 to the EFF and bought a DeCSS T-Shirt.
RIAA and MPAA and whoever else can go to hell!!
I never bought many CDs anyways and now I don't plan to ever buy anymore, except from independent artists. Anyways, since most of the major record labels songs also are played on the radio...why buy anyways?? Many of my friends just rip songs from their friends' CDs, or grab them off the net, or if desparate copy the song right off the radio.
The music industry has forgotten that they're not selling music, they're selling an experience. The Greatful Dead understood this and encouraged copying and distributing of their music - and they prospered for over 30 years!
ICANN has been using the issue that trailing dash domains could be registered to infringe on other people's trademarks for much of their basis for revoking the 846 trailing dash domains.
My answer is that is up to a court of law, not ICANN nor NSI.
If ICANN is going to revoke trailing dash domains based just on the reason that they may cause confusion, then please revoke all domains that have dashes between each alphanumeric character or worse multiple dashes in a row.
That would really help us trademark owners out - thanks!!
See the problem of using the rationale of revoking domains just because they may cause confusion. There's many examples and if ICANN revokes trailing dash domains based on this reason alone, that may be a slippery slope to mass domain revocations in the future based on dubious reasons.
It's not looking too good for people with trailing dash domains, but I feel if ICANN follows through on requiring the mass revocation of those domains, they should fix the "races.com" domain registration while they're at it.
"... They also provide that those registering domain names must agree to cancellation of the registration in the event of a registry or registrar mistake, and in the case of every one of the trailing-hyphen names the registering party did in fact have such an agreement."
So why hasn't "races.com" been revoked yet and the registration corrected either back to the original owner or the the correct owner John McLanahan???
In the case of "races.com", there was certainly a registrar mistake and the various parties (NSI Registry, NSI Registrar, Register.com) agree this to be true so when will it be corrected???
Or am I misreading the sentence from ICANN's website that states: "They [the agreements] also provide that those registering domain names [Registrars] must agree to cancellation of the registration in the event of a registry or registrar mistake,..."
Note the important word REGISTRAR!!!! So while some like NSI have claimed John McLanahan is SOL, it appears that ICANN is either not aware of the "races.com" situation or doesn't follow it's own rules of correcting such mistakes.
I can only hope ICANN, NSI, and/or Register.com do the right thing and restore the "races.com" domain back to the proper owner; and restore people's confidence in the domain name system. Imagine if "business.com" had been lost during a domain transfer...that's exactly what happened with "races.com"!!
Rent Vomit Comet Plane For Zero G Sex
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Sex in Space
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· Score: 1
Seems to me that if one wants to experience some zero G sex, just rent the Vomit Comet for an hour. The flight has periods of Zero Gs lasting upwards of 40 seconds at a time which is enough to give one a good feel as to what sex would feel like in zero Gs.
On an aside, a porno scene I'd PAY to see:
A nude male and nude female jump out of a plane and get it on while falling towards the ground - that would be cool to watch. I'm not sure how they'd slow themselves down...but hey, who cares if the sex is good:-)
Many companies, especially startups, are turning to using catchy domain names as the way to promote their site and products. Even many non-profits and research groups now register domain names that reflect what they do since many people just type in domain names into their browser - and ironically having a domain name actually helps in being indexed by some search engines; one may debate if this is good or bad, but it's a reality.
Until there's a standard, the search engines will continue to miss more and more of the sites out there. XML may be the answer to indexing and exchanging data. However, on the bright side, the difficulty of finding data makes censorship much more difficult for the censors - and that's a good thing.
This story, if true, is VERY SCARY!! Most people including myself were under the assumption that a domain couldn't be lost during a transfer assuming it was fully paid for and not involved in any disputes. According to NSI, this is not the case. This comes down to the credibility of the domain name system. People will not trust domain registrations if they can lose them for no just cause.
*** YES, NSI IS RESPONSIBLE AND MUST FIX THEIR MISTAKE AND HERE'S WHY ***
NSI is claiming that while they made a mistake, there's nothing they can do since the domain was registered by someone at Register.com. Nice try, but here's the problem:
Keep in mind that NSI also controls the *central registry* for.COM,.ORG,.NET, and.EDU and John McLanahan in my layman's opinion has a case against NSI since they control the central registry and are negligent for the mistake - KEEP IN MIND THAT NSI HAD PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROBLEM AND YET IT HAPPENED AGAIN AND NOW NSI REFUSES TO CORRECT THE REGISTRATION - in my laymans opinion, this is the legal strategy that John McLanahan should persue in regards to getting relief. If anything NSI may at some point just settle out of court and at least John would get something for all his trouble and teach NSI to take their business more seriously since domain names are critical infrastructure.
According to some reports I've seen, the random number generator in the Pentium III may be flawed generating numbers that appear random, but aren't. I personally don't know how true that is, but considering the news a few months ago about the secret NSA key in Microsoft Windows, there may a grain of truth to the random number generator in the Pentium III being suspect.
IF there's a faulty random number generator in the Pentium III, anything encrypted based on numbers from the generator are vulnerable and could be cracked by anyone knowing the patterns in the pseudo-random sequence.
Bottom line is that one should be very wary of the Pentium III; what you don't know could hurt you!
Set up an ANTI Perdue website...that'll teach em not to mess with you. Register in all gTLDs. Works for me. Or perhaps better yet, PERDUEUNIVERSITYSUCKS.COM (and of course.NET,.ORG too). Here's some examples of +suck.* domains in action:
First off as a former software hacker (only cracked software protection schemes, never other people's computers), it's clear that the decryption routine is the weakest link and there's absolutly no way around it as long as it's being decrypted on hardware they don't control. Even if their encryption was totally uncrackable, which it's certainly not, DVD protection is futile since any half-decent hacker can just intercept the data going to their monitor/sound card...and any idiot can just aim a camcorder at their computer screen and make a medicre but quite viewable analog copy.
Secondly, consumers should have the *same rights* with DVDs as they do with other media such as *copying for personal use*, *playability anywhere* (no regional restrictions), and *no tracking*; DIVX was an obvious example, but there's a push for more subtle schemes of tracking individual DVD consumers.
I bet within a few years, the movie industry in particular will give up their futile fight and realize that copying is a good thing just like has been for movies on video; and anyways there's no way to stop copying so why bother...just undercut the pirates and use more creative marketing...I mean Disney's marketing of the same movies in different packaging, etc is brilliant and shows that it's even possible to sell people the same movies they already OWN!!
Netnames is good for determining availability across the various ccTLDs.
In regards to gTLDs (COM, NET, ORG), Geektools and Domainia.org do the job - they'll first query NSIRegistry and then automatically query the appropriate Whois database. Note that there's aprox a 4 day lag time between the NSIRegistry's real-time and public databases so new registrations won't showup even though they'll registered. To see CORE registrations in near real-time, query the CORE Whois server direct at whois.corenic.net port 43 and enter domain name and press Enter.
An example of an automated lookup for TITS.COM via Domainia.org:
Domain registry query for:tits.com:
Whois Server Version 1.0
Domain Name: TITS.COM Registrar: CORE INTERNETCOUNCIL OF REGISTRARS Whois Server: whois.corenic.net Referral URL: www.corenic.net Name Server: No nameserver Updated Date: 08-jul-1999
The Registry database contains ONLY.COM,.NET,.ORG,.EDU domains and Registrars.
WHOIS whois.corenic.net tits.com
Ron Bennett (COCO-388) rb1000@ix.netcom.com PO BOX 6532 Wyomissing, PA 19610-0532 US
CORE Registrar: CORE-78
Domain: tits.com Status: production
Admin Contact: Ron Bennett (COCO-388) rb1000@ix.netcom.com +12345678 This domain has no NameServers!
Created: 1999-07-08 Created By: CORE-78
This whois service currently only reflects registrations made through CORE as a registrar in the.com,.net and.org top-level domains.
Only Domainbank now blocks such registrations though they allowed them up until late yesterday. But many good 'dirty' domains remain. Just Use a different CORE Registrar. Other active CORE registrars open to the public still accept such registrations and in fact I just registered some more a few hours ago including 'fuckcensorship.com'. I'd recommend Nominalia since their system works pretty well and $68 is the best price around. Just be sure to use your OWN dns servers or since they charge about a $33 surcharge per dns! http://www.nominalia.com/ Netwizards appears to do such registrations, but you'll need to create an acct there first and then wait until it's verified before you can register domains there - or faster, call them first. http://www.netwizards.net Any questions or problems, don't hesitate to contact me and/or post to the following groups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains alt.domain-names.registries There's still some good ones left:-) Good Luck!! Ron Bennett
Did a little research and it appears something is certainly amiss with AOLSEARCH.COM
Here's the details that we know:
1. AOLSEARCH.COM appears to have been transferred to AOL
2. NSI was able to send the original Registrant a bill their address must be valid...unless they later moved?
3. AOLSEARCH (AOL SEARCH) is *NOT* registered as a service mark anywhere I'm aware of. NSI's dispute policy only kicks in for domains that match EXACTLY to a registered mark. This is not the case here. Furthermore NSI's policy clearly states that while NSI may cancel a domain registration in the case of a dispute (in this case by court order only), NSI will *NOT* transfer the domain to the other party. The other party, namely AOL, *must* do a NEW registration to obtain the disputed domain.
With the above information I draw the possible conclusions:
1. AOL submitted a bogus RCNA to NSI (or AOL just called and convinced someone) to do the transfer - most likely conclusion
2. AOL initiated NSI's dispute policy - but not sure how AOL could have since the domain does NOT match any mark exactly that I'm aware of
3. AOLSEARCH.COM was voluntarily transferred to AOL for whatever reason
Bottom line is something is certainly amiss and without more details it's difficult to know for sure what happened. However, in my view from the information I've seen so far it appears that AOL *and* NSI are both at fault and the AOLSEARCH.COM registration should be restored to the original Registrant immediately.
Without a RCNA, NSI is wrong to transfer the domain to AOL unless there's other details I'm not aware of such as a court order.
Some have mentioned that the supposedly faulty mailing address of the Registrant was grounds for the transfer to AOL. This is pure nonsense!! Mail, etc is irrelevant. Ignore that because the real issue is did NSI receive a valid RCNA from the original registrant?? If not, the domain must be restored since NSI's policy is clear in this regard.
If NSI doesn't correct the registration, then the next logical legal step for the original Registrant would be to get a *subpoena* for the RCNA agreement...if NSI can't produce one, then it's clear that the original Registrant still owns the domain, NOT AOL. Simple!
[originally posted on Usenet and CCed to NSI and the original Registrant - to date neither have responded]
There are NO restrictions on.COM,.NET, &.NET TLDs. So the bottomline is anyone may register a.ORG and use it for anything.
With that said, Andover.Net would be wise to somehow obtain slashdot.com and slashdot.net so as to protect themselves in the future. Slashdot could be considered a common-law service mark and thus would be enforcable. All Andover.Net would need to do in my view is assert their IP rights for Slashdot backed by several decent lawyers and slashdot.com and slashdot.net will be toast. But Andover.Net must act soon while they have momentum and more importantly before time runs out (not practicing due diligence). Otherwise Andover.Net may find itself contending with two similar and confusing websites.
First off congratulations to Rob, Hemos, and others for making Slashdot cool. I still think an IPO would've been cooler and would've generated more cash and fame. Oh well.
Anyways, I'm mystified as to how Slashdot is going to be of benefit to Andover.Net. Banner advertising in itself won't generate that much cash. So Andover.Net will have to probably add more banners/buttons, etc. I wouldn't be surprise if Andover.Net started collecting user information and selling it to marketers and spam mills...if this happens many visitors here will not return.
An even scarier thought, is Slashdot might be made into a portal with free email, chat, and other crap that doesn't matter - remember the Slashdot slogan is 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters'. I can see it all now - slashdot.go.com - now part of the GO Network:-;
Anyways, I can only hope things will work out for Slashdot and Andover.net. Good luck!!
Register.com has been conducting unethical activity for quite some time as well as cheating.
1. Register.com has blacklisting some people who register domains through them, but don't buy their extra services - I'm among one of these people blacklisted so this is certainly real.
2. Register.com sold whois lookup logs to domain speculators according to some sources. So people who did whois lookups through Register.com's interface may've had their queries logged and sold to others - this is unethical at best and possibly illegal.
3. Register.com gave some registrants (possibly themselves) preference over the public in registering domain names such as TITS.COM - deleted by NSI after my complaints.
Bottom line is where is ICANN in all of this and while many here don't care for NSI, it could be much worse as I illustrate with Register.com.
Backgrounder regarding Register.com cheating with TITS.COM:
On or about Jun-8-1999 TITS.COM shows up in the root servers and is shown registered to someone at Register.com. While registrars may have different rules in regards to domain names they accept, this is NOT the issue in this case.
The issue was how could someone register TITS.COM through Register.com when the average person can't. Try to register TITS.anything at Register.com and your *request* is *immediately* rejected. So if the average person can't even get beyond the opening screen at Register.com, then how could TITS.COM been registered there??
It turns out that Register.com was cheating and giving some registrants (possibly themselves) preference in registering domain names that the average person couldn't through their system. Their cheating is well documented. TITS.COM was removed from the root servers a few days after my complaints to NSI and is now officially removed from the domain name system.
One would at least think Register.com would delete or somehow secure their scripts from the world. Kinda cool seeing how part of their system works. And it confirms they're censoring registration requests even though they deny such action. The script doesn't lie:-;
Register.com's censoring code snipit:
if ($domain=~/^(shit|tits|piss)/i ) { $ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available."; return $ERROR_MESSAGE; } elsif ($domain=~/(shit|tits|piss)$/i ) { $ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available."; return $ERROR_MESSAGE; } elsif ($domain=~/fuck|cunt|cocksucker|motherfucker/i) { $ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available."; return $ERROR_MESSAGE; }
First off Register.com continues to censors registration requests even for domain names that NSI itself will register!!
Try registering SHITSDAASDASD.COM or some similar variation at Register.com and it will say the name isn't available even though it really is. Then goto NSI and try registering the same domain and select 'Reserve' and you'll find it works as it should since NSI removed the SHIT filter awhile back.
Appearantly Register.com isn't up to speed and when I emailed Register.com yesterday, they denied they are rejecting registration *requests* based on profane keywords even though they really are.
A more disturbing problem is that Register.com has *appearantly* blacklisted some people preventing them from registering domains through them (not sure the exact machanism, but assume it's either done via email address and/or phone#). Perhaps, this is just bad luck, but my personal experience suggests otherwise. Anyone else experience similar problems, please post and/or email me.
Bottom line is until Register.com gets their customer service and their policies straight, I'd strongly recommend people to avoid them.
At least NSI is a known quantity and while their service isn't great, they for the most part have done a decent job. So for now I'm sticking with NSI until there's a compelling reason to switch to another registrar - ie. better price and/or extra services.
Seems to me that all one must do is get a high resolution photograph of someone elses irises and print these out to the aprox real size onto contact lenses. There's many methods by which this could be done.
I've even seen some movies in which spies were protrayed using such a method to defeat iris security. So it's certainly not a new idea, but one most people wouldn't think of.
Wonder how they will prevent people from bypassing IRIS security via this method?? I bet they really can't unless they also still require a PIN...but then what's the point of the whole IRIS scanning thing if one still needs a PIN anyways?? DUMB!!
I don't find the article surprising at all considering the founders of Apple and Bill Gates (not sure about Paul) have used illicit drugs including cannabis (marijuana) and LSD.
I personally have used cannabis and experimented with LSD. I found for me that low doses of LSD was useful for some tasks (at high doses is totally useless since one can't concentrate nor even grasp reality). Cannabis is primarily good for relaxation; certainly far better and safer than alcohol.
Anyways, I beleive that as society becomes more advanced drug use will become more prevalent (and legally tolerated - ie. Ritalin). Drug use dates back to the beginning of civilization (over 10,000 years) and is just a reality of life.
Lastly, I generally feel drug testing is a bad idea and it's no one's damn business what people do with their bodies as long as they don't hurt others directly. And note that if Microsoft or Apple had drug testing policies in place back when they started, the founders would've FAILED and there would be no MAC and no Windows:-;
First off.TM already exists - I know since I own SEX.TM and CANNABIS.TM domains. However the registry while still active isn't accepting any new applications at the moment due to internal squabbles on what domain names should be considered obscene.
Secondly, trademarks and service marks are very similar and to say one has precidence over another is extremely erronous. There's other marks also protected that are neither trademarks nor service marks such as trade names. See the U.S. PTO http://www.uspto.gov/ website for details and links to trademark resources.
Thirdly, marks (trademarks, service marks, etc) are territorial and there's no true agreement on international marks though a few like Coca Cola are recognized by most countries of the world, but I must emphasize there's no such thing as an international trademark - at least not that I'm aware of. Copyrights tend to be globally recognized, but not marks.
Fourth, it's quite common for the exact same mark to be registered to different companies in the same country since trademarks are registered in classes (catagories). So a game company like EPIX could have a valid registered mark and so could an internet company called EPIX but in a different class. And this is just a simple example - since marks can be registered at the state level or not even at all and yet be legally protected to some degree.
While people may disgree about DNS's role, the reality is that DNS has become like real estate and so now the trick is to find a compremise that protects business while also protecting individuals.
Personally, I feel that current patent law for the most part is adequate and the domain registries should generally stay out of these disputes and only terminate/transfer domain names when ordered by the courts, etc. In any event the WIPO should *NOT* be involved due to their bias towards big business over small business and individuals.
Ron Bennett
Earth Chem registered EARTH in 1977 before them!
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Battle over earth.com
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· Score: 1
I did a quick check of the US PTO database and found several registrations for EARTH including one that *preceeds* Mondial Trading Companie's trademark registration by quite a bit.
Earth Chemical also has an active trademark registration that preceeds Mondial's by 8 years and date of first use preceeds Mondial's by 39 years! Thus this company below could sue Mondial:-)
Word Mark EARTH Owner Name (REGISTRANT) EARTH CHEMICAL COMPANY, LTD. Owner Address 3218-12 SAKOSHI AKO, HYOGO-KEN JAPAN CORPORATION JAPAN Attorney of Record SIMOR L MOSKOWITZ Serial Number 73-083859 Registration Number 1069253 Filing Date 04/14/1976 Registration Date 07/12/1977 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Register PRINCIPAL Affidavits SECT 8.; SECT 15.; COMBINED SECT 8 AND SECT 15. Type of Mark TRADEMARK Renewals 1ST RENEWAL 1997.06.17
International Class 005 Goods and Services INSECTICIDES AND OTHER VERMIN DESTROYERS; DATE OF FIRST USE: 1931.05.01; DATE OF FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 1931.05.01
Technically adding TLDs (at least up to a point) is little problem, but will it really help matters...consider what's happening now with the global-like ccTLDs...people already are confused and most just stick with the familiar.COM when unsure.
Fact is that no matter how many new gTLDs they add, some gTLDs will continued to be more favored and thus valuable than the others.
So basically I feel the current approach of carefully adding gTLDs is the way to go to prevent total chaos and confusion.
It's backlogged...I've done many updates over the last two years and lately they've taken days...in fact the last update I did took over a week to be completed. I've never seen Internic this slow.
Slashdot Mirror
Good ideas, but the best way to beat these guys is to publically protest and get the word out to the masses about such abuses.
Also, most encryption used in comsumer products are based on trap-door functions...easy to multiply a bunch of factors together, but very difficult to get them back out...or is it??
If anyone finds an easy way to crack such encryption and 99%+ of the protection schemes used in comsumer products are toast and will make DeCSS look like a walk in the park for the RIAA, MPA, etc.
FUCK the RIAA and MPA!
LIVE FREE OR DIE!!!
Even though the article appears to be bogus, it's plausable and that's what makes it so damn scary.
In any event, it's hopefully encouraged more people to get involved and donate to the EFF, write their representatives, etc to help make a meaningful difference.
After reading the RIAA suing MP3.COM article the other day here, I immediately donated $100 to the EFF and bought a DeCSS T-Shirt.
RIAA and MPAA and whoever else can go to hell!!
I never bought many CDs anyways and now I don't plan to ever buy anymore, except from independent artists. Anyways, since most of the major record labels songs also are played on the radio...why buy anyways?? Many of my friends just rip songs from their friends' CDs, or grab them off the net, or if desparate copy the song right off the radio.
The music industry has forgotten that they're not selling music, they're selling an experience. The Greatful Dead understood this and encouraged copying and distributing of their music - and they prospered for over 30 years!
My answer is that is up to a court of law, not ICANN nor NSI.
If ICANN is going to revoke trailing dash domains based just on the reason that they may cause confusion, then please revoke all domains that have dashes between each alphanumeric character or worse multiple dashes in a row.
That would really help us trademark owners out - thanks!!
See the problem of using the rationale of revoking domains just because they may cause confusion. There's many examples and if ICANN revokes trailing dash domains based on this reason alone, that may be a slippery slope to mass domain revocations in the future based on dubious reasons.
It's not looking too good for people with trailing dash domains, but I feel if ICANN follows through on requiring the mass revocation of those domains, they should fix the "races.com" domain registration while they're at it.
..."
Quote from ICANN webpage regarding the trailing hyphans:
http://www.icann.org/nsi/trailing-hyp hens.htm
"... They also provide that those registering domain names must agree to cancellation of the registration in the event of a registry or registrar mistake, and in the case of every one of the trailing-hyphen names the registering party did in fact have such an agreement."
So why hasn't "races.com" been revoked yet and the registration corrected either back to the original owner or the the correct owner John McLanahan???
In the case of "races.com", there was certainly a registrar mistake and the various parties (NSI Registry, NSI Registrar, Register.com) agree this to be true so when will it be corrected???
Or am I misreading the sentence from ICANN's website that states:
"They [the agreements] also provide that those registering domain names [Registrars] must agree to cancellation of the registration in the event of a registry or registrar mistake,
Note the important word REGISTRAR!!!! So while some like NSI have claimed John McLanahan is SOL, it appears that ICANN is either not aware of the "races.com" situation or doesn't follow it's own rules of correcting such mistakes.
For a backgrounder on how "races.com" was lost, see this link:
http://www.wired.com/news/prin t/0,1294,32974,00.html
I can only hope ICANN, NSI, and/or Register.com do the right thing and restore the "races.com" domain back to the proper owner; and restore people's confidence in the domain name system. Imagine if "business.com" had been lost during a domain transfer...that's exactly what happened with "races.com"!!
Seems to me that if one wants to experience some zero G sex, just rent the Vomit Comet for an hour. The flight has periods of Zero Gs lasting upwards of 40 seconds at a time which is enough to give one a good feel as to what sex would feel like in zero Gs.
:-)
On an aside, a porno scene I'd PAY to see:
A nude male and nude female jump out of a plane and get it on while falling towards the ground - that would be cool to watch. I'm not sure how they'd slow themselves down...but hey, who cares if the sex is good
Many companies, especially startups, are turning to using catchy domain names as the way to promote their site and products. Even many non-profits and research groups now register domain names that reflect what they do since many people just type in domain names into their browser - and ironically having a domain name actually helps in being indexed by some search engines; one may debate if this is good or bad, but it's a reality.
Until there's a standard, the search engines will continue to miss more and more of the sites out there. XML may be the answer to indexing and exchanging data. However, on the bright side, the difficulty of finding data makes censorship much more difficult for the censors - and that's a good thing.
This story, if true, is VERY SCARY!! Most people including myself were under the assumption that a domain couldn't be lost during a transfer assuming it was fully paid for and not involved in any disputes. According to NSI, this is not the case. This comes down to the credibility of the domain name system. People will not trust domain registrations if they can lose them for no just cause.
.COM, .ORG, .NET, and .EDU and John McLanahan in my layman's opinion has a case against NSI since they control the central registry and are negligent for the mistake - KEEP IN MIND THAT NSI HAD PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROBLEM AND YET IT HAPPENED AGAIN AND NOW NSI REFUSES TO CORRECT THE REGISTRATION - in my laymans opinion, this is the legal strategy that John McLanahan should persue in regards to getting relief. If anything NSI may at some point just settle out of court and at least John would get something for all his trouble and teach NSI to take their business more seriously since domain names are critical infrastructure.
*** YES, NSI IS RESPONSIBLE AND MUST FIX THEIR MISTAKE AND HERE'S WHY ***
NSI is claiming that while they made a mistake, there's nothing they can do since the domain was registered by someone at Register.com. Nice try, but here's the problem:
Keep in mind that NSI also controls the *central registry* for
According to some reports I've seen, the random number generator in the Pentium III may be flawed generating numbers that appear random, but aren't. I personally don't know how true that is, but considering the news a few months ago about the secret NSA key in Microsoft Windows, there may a grain of truth to the random number generator in the Pentium III being suspect.
IF there's a faulty random number generator in the Pentium III, anything encrypted based on numbers from the generator are vulnerable and could be cracked by anyone knowing the patterns in the pseudo-random sequence.
Bottom line is that one should be very wary of the Pentium III; what you don't know could hurt you!
First off as a former software hacker (only cracked software protection schemes, never other people's computers), it's clear that the decryption routine is the weakest link and there's absolutly no way around it as long as it's being decrypted on hardware they don't control. Even if their encryption was totally uncrackable, which it's certainly not, DVD protection is futile since any half-decent hacker can just intercept the data going to their monitor/sound card...and any idiot can just aim a camcorder at their computer screen and make a medicre but quite viewable analog copy.
Secondly, consumers should have the *same rights* with DVDs as they do with other media such as *copying for personal use*, *playability anywhere* (no regional restrictions), and *no tracking*; DIVX was an obvious example, but there's a push for more subtle schemes of tracking individual DVD consumers.
I bet within a few years, the movie industry in particular will give up their futile fight and realize that copying is a good thing just like has been for movies on video; and anyways there's no way to stop copying so why bother...just undercut the pirates and use more creative marketing...I mean Disney's marketing of the same movies in different packaging, etc is brilliant and shows that it's even possible to sell people the same movies they already OWN!!
Netnames is good for determining availability across the various ccTLDs.
.COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars.
.com, .net and .org top-level domains.
In regards to gTLDs (COM, NET, ORG), Geektools and Domainia.org do the job - they'll first query NSIRegistry and then automatically query the appropriate Whois database. Note that there's aprox a 4 day lag time between the NSIRegistry's real-time and public databases so new registrations won't showup even though they'll registered. To see CORE registrations in near real-time, query the CORE Whois server direct at whois.corenic.net port 43 and enter domain name and press Enter.
An example of an automated lookup for TITS.COM via Domainia.org:
Domain registry query for:tits.com:
Whois Server Version 1.0
Domain Name: TITS.COM
Registrar: CORE INTERNETCOUNCIL OF REGISTRARS
Whois Server: whois.corenic.net
Referral URL: www.corenic.net
Name Server: No nameserver
Updated Date: 08-jul-1999
The Registry database contains ONLY
WHOIS whois.corenic.net tits.com
Ron Bennett (COCO-388) rb1000@ix.netcom.com
PO BOX 6532
Wyomissing, PA
19610-0532 US
CORE Registrar: CORE-78
Domain: tits.com
Status: production
Admin Contact: Ron Bennett (COCO-388) rb1000@ix.netcom.com
+12345678
This domain has no NameServers!
Created: 1999-07-08
Created By: CORE-78
This whois service currently only reflects registrations made through CORE as a registrar in the
Only Domainbank now blocks such registrations though they allowed them up until late yesterday. But many good 'dirty' domains remain. Just Use a different CORE Registrar. Other active CORE registrars open to the public still accept such registrations and in fact I just registered some more a few hours ago including 'fuckcensorship.com'. I'd recommend Nominalia since their system works pretty well and $68 is the best price around. Just be sure to use your OWN dns servers or since they charge about a $33 surcharge per dns! http://www.nominalia.com/ Netwizards appears to do such registrations, but you'll need to create an acct there first and then wait until it's verified before you can register domains there - or faster, call them first. http://www.netwizards.net Any questions or problems, don't hesitate to contact me and/or post to the following groups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains alt.domain-names.registries There's still some good ones left :-) Good Luck!! Ron Bennett
Did a little research and it appears something is certainly amiss with AOLSEARCH.COM
Here's the details that we know:
1. AOLSEARCH.COM appears to have been transferred to AOL
2. NSI was able to send the original Registrant a bill their address must be valid...unless they later moved?
3. AOLSEARCH (AOL SEARCH) is *NOT* registered as a service mark anywhere I'm aware of. NSI's dispute policy only kicks in for domains that match EXACTLY to a registered mark. This is not the case here. Furthermore NSI's policy clearly states that while NSI may cancel a domain registration in the case of a dispute (in this case by court order only), NSI will *NOT* transfer the domain to the other party. The other party, namely AOL, *must* do a NEW registration to obtain the disputed domain.
With the above information I draw the possible conclusions:
1. AOL submitted a bogus RCNA to NSI (or AOL just called and convinced someone) to do the transfer - most likely conclusion
2. AOL initiated NSI's dispute policy - but not sure how AOL could have since the domain does NOT match any mark exactly that I'm aware of
3. AOLSEARCH.COM was voluntarily transferred to AOL for whatever reason
Bottom line is something is certainly amiss and without more details it's difficult to know for sure what happened. However, in my view from the
information I've seen so far it appears that AOL *and* NSI are both at fault and the AOLSEARCH.COM registration should be restored to the original Registrant immediately.
Without a RCNA, NSI is wrong to transfer the domain to AOL unless there's other
details I'm not aware of such as a court order.
Some have mentioned that the supposedly faulty mailing address of the Registrant was grounds for the transfer to AOL. This is pure nonsense!! Mail, etc is irrelevant. Ignore that because the real issue is did NSI receive a valid RCNA from the original registrant?? If not, the domain must be restored since NSI's policy is clear in this regard.
If NSI doesn't correct the registration, then the next logical legal step for the original Registrant would be to get a *subpoena* for the RCNA agreement...if NSI can't produce one, then it's clear that the original Registrant still owns the domain, NOT AOL. Simple!
[originally posted on Usenet and CCed to NSI and the original Registrant - to date neither have responded]
There are NO restrictions on .COM, .NET, & .NET TLDs. So the bottomline is anyone may register a .ORG and use it for anything.
With that said, Andover.Net would be wise to somehow obtain slashdot.com and slashdot.net so as to protect themselves in the future. Slashdot could be considered a common-law service mark and thus would be enforcable. All Andover.Net would need to do in my view is assert their IP rights for Slashdot backed by several decent lawyers and slashdot.com and slashdot.net will be toast. But Andover.Net must act soon while they have momentum and more importantly before time runs out (not practicing due diligence). Otherwise Andover.Net may find itself contending with two similar and confusing websites.
First off congratulations to Rob, Hemos, and others for making Slashdot cool. I still think an IPO would've been cooler and would've generated more cash and fame. Oh well.
:-;
Anyways, I'm mystified as to how Slashdot is going to be of benefit to Andover.Net. Banner advertising in itself won't generate that much cash. So Andover.Net will have to probably add more banners/buttons, etc. I wouldn't be surprise if Andover.Net started collecting user information and selling it to marketers and spam mills...if this happens many visitors here will not return.
An even scarier thought, is Slashdot might be made into a portal with free email, chat, and other crap that doesn't matter - remember the Slashdot slogan is 'News for Nerds. Stuff that matters'. I can see it all now - slashdot.go.com - now part of the GO Network
Anyways, I can only hope things will work out for Slashdot and Andover.net. Good luck!!
Ron Bennett
Register.com has been conducting unethical activity for quite some time as well as cheating.
1. Register.com has blacklisting some people who register domains through them, but don't buy their extra services - I'm among one of these people blacklisted so this is certainly real.
2. Register.com sold whois lookup logs to domain speculators according to some sources. So people who did whois lookups through Register.com's interface may've had their queries logged and sold to others - this is unethical at best and possibly illegal.
3. Register.com gave some registrants (possibly themselves) preference over the public in registering domain names such as TITS.COM - deleted by NSI after my complaints.
Bottom line is where is ICANN in all of this and while many here don't care for NSI, it could be much worse as I illustrate with Register.com.
Backgrounder regarding Register.com cheating with TITS.COM:
On or about Jun-8-1999 TITS.COM shows up in the root servers and is shown registered to someone at Register.com. While registrars may have different rules in regards to domain names they accept, this is NOT the issue in this case.
The issue was how could someone register TITS.COM through Register.com when the average person can't. Try to register TITS.anything at Register.com and your *request* is *immediately* rejected. So if the average person can't even get beyond the opening screen at Register.com, then how could TITS.COM been registered there??
It turns out that Register.com was cheating and giving some registrants (possibly themselves) preference in registering domain names that the average person couldn't through their system. Their cheating is well documented. TITS.COM was removed from the root servers a few days after my complaints to NSI and is now officially removed from the domain name system.
One would at least think Register.com would delete or somehow secure their scripts from the world. Kinda cool seeing how part of their system works. And it confirms they're censoring registration requests even though they deny such action. The script doesn't lie :-;
/^(shit|tits|piss)/i ) { /(shit|tits|piss)$/i ) { /fuck|cunt|cocksucker|motherfucker/i) {
Register.com's censoring code snipit:
if ($domain=~
$ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available.";
return $ERROR_MESSAGE;
}
elsif ($domain=~
$ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available.";
return $ERROR_MESSAGE;
}
elsif ($domain=~
$ERROR_MESSAGE = "The domain you have chosen is not available.";
return $ERROR_MESSAGE;
}
First off Register.com continues to censors registration requests even for domain names that NSI itself will register!!
Try registering SHITSDAASDASD.COM or some similar variation at Register.com and it will say the name isn't available even though it really is. Then goto NSI and try registering the same domain and select 'Reserve' and you'll find it works as it should since NSI removed the SHIT filter awhile back.
Appearantly Register.com isn't up to speed and when I emailed Register.com yesterday, they denied they are rejecting registration *requests* based on profane keywords even though they really are.
A more disturbing problem is that Register.com has *appearantly* blacklisted some people preventing them from registering domains through them (not sure the exact machanism, but assume it's either done via email address and/or phone#). Perhaps, this is just bad luck, but my personal experience suggests otherwise. Anyone else experience similar problems, please post and/or email me.
Bottom line is until Register.com gets their customer service and their policies straight, I'd strongly recommend people to avoid them.
At least NSI is a known quantity and while their service isn't great, they for the most part have done a decent job. So for now I'm sticking with NSI until there's a compelling reason to switch to another registrar - ie. better price and/or extra services.
Ron Bennett
Seems to me that all one must do is get a high resolution photograph of someone elses irises and print these out to the aprox real size onto contact lenses. There's many methods by which this could be done.
I've even seen some movies in which spies were protrayed using such a method to defeat iris security. So it's certainly not a new idea, but one most people wouldn't think of.
Wonder how they will prevent people from bypassing IRIS security via this method?? I bet they really can't unless they also still require a PIN...but then what's the point of the whole IRIS scanning thing if one still needs a PIN anyways?? DUMB!!
Ron Bennett
I don't find the article surprising at all considering the founders of Apple and Bill Gates (not sure about Paul) have used illicit drugs including cannabis (marijuana) and LSD.
:-;
I personally have used cannabis and experimented with LSD. I found for me that low doses of LSD was useful for some tasks (at high doses is totally useless since one can't concentrate nor even grasp reality). Cannabis is primarily good for relaxation; certainly far better and safer than alcohol.
Anyways, I beleive that as society becomes more advanced drug use will become more prevalent (and legally tolerated - ie. Ritalin). Drug use dates back to the beginning of civilization (over 10,000 years) and is just a reality of life.
Lastly, I generally feel drug testing is a bad idea and it's no one's damn business what people do with their bodies as long as they don't hurt others directly. And note that if Microsoft or Apple had drug testing policies in place back when they started, the founders would've FAILED and there would be no MAC and no Windows
Ron Bennett
First off .TM already exists - I know since I own SEX.TM and CANNABIS.TM domains. However the registry while still active isn't accepting any new applications at the moment due to internal squabbles on what domain names should be considered obscene.
Secondly, trademarks and service marks are very similar and to say one has precidence over another is extremely erronous. There's other marks also protected that are neither trademarks nor service marks such as trade names. See the U.S. PTO http://www.uspto.gov/ website for details and links to trademark resources.
Thirdly, marks (trademarks, service marks, etc) are territorial and there's no true agreement on international marks though a few like Coca Cola are recognized by most countries of the world, but I must emphasize there's no such thing as an international trademark - at least not that I'm aware of. Copyrights tend to be globally recognized, but not marks.
Fourth, it's quite common for the exact same mark to be registered to different companies in the same country since trademarks are registered in classes (catagories). So a game company like EPIX could have a valid registered mark and so could an internet company called EPIX but in a different class. And this is just a simple example - since marks can be registered at the state level or not even at all and yet be legally protected to some degree.
While people may disgree about DNS's role, the reality is that DNS has become like real estate and so now the trick is to find a compremise that protects business while also protecting individuals.
Personally, I feel that current patent law for the most part is adequate and the domain registries should generally stay out of these disputes and only terminate/transfer domain names when ordered by the courts, etc. In any event the WIPO should *NOT* be involved due to their bias towards big business over small business and individuals.
Ron Bennett
I did a quick check of the US PTO database and found several registrations for EARTH including one that *preceeds* Mondial Trading Companie's trademark registration by quite a bit.
:-)
Earth Chemical also has an active trademark registration that preceeds Mondial's by 8 years and date of first use preceeds Mondial's by 39 years! Thus this company below could sue Mondial
Word Mark
EARTH
Owner Name
(REGISTRANT) EARTH CHEMICAL COMPANY, LTD.
Owner Address
3218-12 SAKOSHI AKO, HYOGO-KEN JAPAN CORPORATION JAPAN
Attorney of Record
SIMOR L MOSKOWITZ
Serial Number
73-083859
Registration Number
1069253
Filing Date
04/14/1976
Registration Date
07/12/1977
Mark Drawing Code
(1) TYPED DRAWING
Register
PRINCIPAL
Affidavits
SECT 8.; SECT 15.; COMBINED SECT 8 AND SECT 15.
Type of Mark
TRADEMARK
Renewals
1ST RENEWAL 1997.06.17
International Class
005
Goods and Services
INSECTICIDES AND OTHER VERMIN DESTROYERS; DATE OF FIRST USE: 1931.05.01;
DATE OF FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 1931.05.01
Technically adding TLDs (at least up to a point) is little problem, but will it really help matters...consider what's happening now with the global-like ccTLDs...people already are confused and most just stick with the familiar .COM when unsure.
Fact is that no matter how many new gTLDs they add, some gTLDs will continued to be more favored and thus valuable than the others.
So basically I feel the current approach of carefully adding gTLDs is the way to go to prevent total chaos and confusion.
It's backlogged...I've done many updates over the last two years and lately they've taken days...in fact the last update I did took over a week to be completed. I've never seen Internic this slow.