But all of the lookup requests for those spam domains must go through the root servers. As all lookups start at the TLD, more useless spam domains there are (pushed by spam emails for example) more spam lookups occur to the TLDs, right? (I am exluding caching here). But all these lookups would be going to root servers anyway. If I type boogyboogyboogy.com into a browser I'm going to hit the root servers with a lookup query regardless of if the domain actually exists. The "cost" to the root server is basically the same as it's just going to refer me to the VeriSign DNS. Theoretically you could actually make the argument that squatted domains actually easy the burden on the root servers to a small degree because if you're in a large ISP environment and someone else successfully did a previous query for that same squatted domain, then the response would be cached at the ISP DNS level, whereas if the domain wasn't registered it would do a full recursive query to the root servers each time.
Furthermore the other "public" resource at stake here is the pool of unused domain names in the sense that if all the possible words in all possible useful combinations are squatted at, the whole DNS system comes to a grinding halt as the only possible new domains one can register without being subject to gangland extortion are of the type of "1255ajjsay.com". I agree with this statement, but this applies to "squatting" more than "tasting", which is the what the article is whining about. In a "tasting" scenario your domain will be freed up within 5 days.. unless of course it has good type in traffic, in which case the taster will keep it and it become a squatting issue. Overall, I agree that tasting is not a "good thing", but I think the "strained DNS" argument is bunk.
Which is under assault by mass domain registrations and re-registrations. The very topic of the Slashdot article. Or do you imagine that those DNS zone databases, which are now heading towards 90% spam contents, reside on a magical cloud and update by magic? Not to mention that cost-free, completely magical little winged fairies are involved in retrieving useful data out of heaps of spam every milisecond of every day, no? Obviously you're still not getting how this works. No.. it's not little fairies that are involved in updating and maintaining the zone files.. Nor is it a magical community of poor, overworked volunteers. For ".com" DNS it's Verisign. The DNS system is only communal at the root level. You run a query for any.com domain and the root servers are going to refer to you VeriSign's DNS servers. The root servers do not have to handle all the updates for these domains being tasted, they only have to know where to refer any ".com" query too. VeriSign, as part of being the contracted registrar for ".com" is responsible for the cost of maintaining the QoS for the ".com" DNS systems and all these associated updates.. and it's VeriSign that profits from these "tasters". The reality is that VeriSign makes enough of the tasters/squatters that it's worth it to them to deal with the associated DNS load. In fact, they've even managed to play both sides of the fence on this issue by using the increased domain load to justify a price increase. If VeriSign was ever in danger of losing money because of domain loads I'm certain they'd be whining very loudly to ICANN.
Also I would like you to explain to me the benefit to the society the squatters represent. Focus your effort particularly on the wonderfully stimulating and helpful extortion applied by the squatters to any legitimate startup company wishing to register their new domain. I never tried to claim that tasters/squatter represent any social value.. I just hate seeing people take moral high ground on incorrect assumptions of "how things work".
And systemic destruction of some communal resource is always a result of their smug abuse of one "loophole" or another. Bzzt.. wrong. DNS is a communal system but the Name Registry systems used for registration of domain names are not. These registries are usually run by for-profit corporations (e.g. VeriSign for.com) and these companies are anything BUT community resources. It doesn't matter to VeriSign if their $6.00 cut for each registration comes from squatters or legitimate sites.. In fact, they favor the squatters that bring them thousands in annual revenues.
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.
Not me. *I* find my Windows XP SP2 vulnerabilities using a Commodore 64 and a Commodore 1541 disk drive with a VM in its controller.
Ah jeez.. Sorry I wasn't clear enough for Captain Sarcasm... Let me revise: Seriously, how many "security experts" do you know that store sensitive personal/business data on a Windows account under the same permissions as the process running the web browser?
No shit they still use Windows for testing.. Sorry I didn't dumb that down enough for you first time. My bad.
Our "IT manager" has no IT experience at all, beyond knowing who has what contracts. Thats the guy in charge of security.
..and as such, would definitely not be considered a "security expert". Anyone that doesn't understand the concept of privilege separation probably should be afraid to click on urls.
Not sure if you consider he as a security expert but Joanna Rutkowska uses Windows Vista. She was running Windows XP 64 bit before Vista was released IIRC.
And if you check out her "about" page on her personal site you'll see she runs Linux as her OS of choice. The Windows system she uses for testing.
"Soon after she switched to Linux world, got involved with some system and kernel programming, focusing on exploit development for both Linux and Windows x86 systems."
Since most of the money (and challenges) for security is on Windows, I supose they could hardly be using anything else.
Certainly.. they run it just like it's supposed to be, as a VMWare image sandboxed inside their *nix/BSD workstation. Again, anyone that's using a web browser running under the same account permissions as any sensitive data on that machine is _not_ a security "expert".
In other news, Net2phone sues Aunt Sue for the exchange of a phone number in order to establish a direct communications link between voice devices via the telecom network!
Come on.. how much more broken can our patent system get?
Slashdot Mirror
200+ comments and not even one mention of someone running their own postfix servers.. What has become of Slashdot?
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Keep your domain ides safe from squatters.
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.
No shit they still use Windows for testing.. Sorry I didn't dumb that down enough for you first time. My bad.
"Soon after she switched to Linux world, got involved with some system and kernel programming, focusing on exploit development for both Linux and Windows x86 systems."
Certainly.. they run it just like it's supposed to be, as a VMWare image sandboxed inside their *nix/BSD workstation. Again, anyone that's using a web browser running under the same account permissions as any sensitive data on that machine is _not_ a security "expert".
"Even the experts are afraid to click on each other's links anymore."
Umm.. Google desktop runs on Windows.. Seriously, how many "security experts" do you know running Windows?
In other news, Net2phone sues Aunt Sue for the exchange of a phone number in order to establish a direct communications link between voice devices via the telecom network!
Come on.. how much more broken can our patent system get?
SAP
* Gives you all the functionality you asked for (and more).
* Server app runs on linux.
* Client UI runs is cross-platform (Java).
It's definitely not free but you said you're willing to pay for the platform..