Alright, I know most of you are clueless about how legal shit works (as demonstrated by your posts), I know some real lawyers do read agora, so let's go. Let's sue Verisign. Let's sue some big time. Not for the silly ass redirection. Sue them over the terms of service. Have the terms of service declared invalid due to lack of consideration. They will no longer do it if they cannot have a contract surrounding it. Discuss.16 responses total.
I don't use Verisign. What are the terms of service? And while we're at it, can we sue Sprint too?
Type this into your browser: http://www.<somerandomcrap>.com and you just became a Verisign user. Actually, here's a better idea. Take a case on trademark infringement to WTO arbitration for www.grexsucks.com. Actually, that's not a bad idea.
Hehe ... they beat M$'s autosearch feature and its horrible MSN Search!!! <smart> I have the google search bar </smart>
I don't use IE, therefore I do not have that problem.
For those who are unaware, Verisign inserted wildcard records into the .com and .net domains. (Besides being a domain registrar, Verisign also manages the root servers for those domains.) As a result, if you look up a domain that doesn't exist, you're given a record that points to sitefinder.verisign.com instead of the usual "nonexistant domain" error. This has annoyed network administrators by breaking a variety of things in subtle ways. It could also be viewed as a bit of a power grab by Verisign, that might provide them with a competative advantage over other domain registrars in the future.
Let's not forget the fact this breaks a lot spam-blocking algorithms. Or how about this insanity: howardjp@austin:~:16$ nslookup -sil $.%.*.^^.com Server: 209.196.32.34 Address: 209.196.32.34#53 Non-authoritative answer: Name: \$.%.*.^^.com Address: 64.94.110.11 howardjp@austin:~:17$ That's got to violate a specification somewhere.
The difference between this and the Microsft Internet Explorer feature is that Microsoft did it in the web browser, where it applies only to users of their browser, and is limited in scope to web queries. Verisign did it in the DNS, where it affects everybody, can't be turned off without breaking other things, and creates lots of side effects for applications other than web browsing.
Shouldn't stuff like DNS be run by non-profit organisations??
Considering .com is owned by the people of the United States, it reall ought to be run by our government.
Yeah, but NSF had to put its network out for competitive bids in the early 1990s, and part of that was bidding out the registry. It's been a pretty thorough disaster, in my opinion.
the public airwaves adn teh public internet ought to be similarly regulated so this doesnt' have the chance to occur.
I think an organization designed like ITU is in order.
A new version of BIND is due soon that can block Verisign's wildcards and supply the proper NXDOMAIN response. (Hopefully the solution will be general; other TLDs are doing this too, like .nu.)
The BIND solution is configurable. At issue here is that wildcard DNS records are a legitimate part of the DNS protocol, at least when used a level or two up. Some TLDs (.museum for example) really aren't run like traditional TLDs, and do make use of wildcard records. The complaint here, I think, at least from those who understand what they're complaining about and aren't just getting angry for the sake of getting angry, is that a wildcard response from a widely used TLD such as .com or .net is not expected behavior. It replaces some expected error messages with (depending on what protocol you're using) either advertising or the appearance of a very different sort of error), and sends Verisign money for something that may not be theirs. That said, the BIND patch probably isn't a good idea either (and Paul Vixie said as much while releasing it). The BIND patch changes the expected behavior of DNS by having servers low in the hierarchy selectively discard inforamtion they're getting from servers above them. It's at best breaking the new brokenness, with results that would make the DNS rather inconsistent and thus even harder to troubleshoot and perhaps more broken.
This response has been erased.
Disable cookies from verisign.com in your browser and the sitefinder thingy no longer works!! Yayy!!
You have several choices: