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The Internet

Verisign Typosquatter Explorer 367

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-think-about dept.
jelyon quotes Seth Finkelstein's website "I have written a program " Verisign Typosquatter Explorer" in order to examine [the Verisign] suggestions [for mistyped domains]. Future data may be analyzed as interest permits. Note tests with some domains seem to return results which are not constant, i.e. differences when the program is run repeatedly. This is not a program bug. Reloading the Verisign page also changes which squat-suggested domains are displayed. I don't believe it's an advertising rotation, but the behavior is similar to that practice."
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Verisign Typosquatter Explorer More

Verisign Typosquatter Explorer

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  • With all the stuff flying in IT today (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:44PM (#6988893) Homepage
    it's amazing anybody is able to accomplish anything.

    Anybody else feel like you just want to start over, with only good people involved, and remake the internet? None of this patent crap, none of this copyright bullshit, just pure standards that are actual standards. Uncompromised and pure. No restrictions on data, short of the physical line speeds.

    Yeah yeah, I know..."when you wish, upon a star"

    • Re:With all the stuff flying in IT today (Score:4, Funny)

      by keester ( 646050 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:47PM (#6988923)
      Yeah, let's do it. We'll start with a biological attack on the whole planet ... wait ... who's that ... is that you, NSA? Oh shit!

    • Anybody else feel like you just want to start over, with only good people involved, and remake the internet? None of this patent crap, none of this copyright bullshit, just pure standards that are actual standards. Uncompromised and pure. No restrictions on data, short of the physical line speeds.

      And you'd just have to do it all over again in 15-20 years, since that's exactly how the current net started.


      • And you'd just have to do it all over again in 15-20 years, since that's exactly how the current net started.

        Nah, it wouldn't be nearly as hard the second time around. It's like the project I worked on for a year... the day of the demo, I tripped and broke my computer, and by coincidence, all of my backups burned up in a fire because the network weenie was freebasing again. Anyway, I rewrote the whole thing in 7 minutes using nothing but Perl scripts and a bobby pin and it was ever better than before.
    • None of this patent crap, none of this copyright bullshit

      Well, neither patents or copyright are properties of the Internet. How are you going to acomplish this? By using a disclaimer/eula? "By connecting to this network you agree to give up the rights of copyright/patents of anything that you post here". Or maybe disallowing patented or copyrighted works on the new net?
    • Anybody else feel like you just want to start over, with only good people involved, and remake the internet? None of this patent crap, none of this copyright bullshit, just pure standards that are actual standards. Uncompromised and pure. No restrictions on data, short of the physical line speeds.

      Do away with the physical line speeds too and you've got Internet2 [internet2.edu]...at least until it goes public one day.
      • Do away with the physical line speeds too and you've got Internet2...at least until it goes public one day.

        Yeah.. 983 Megabits per second. You could have your computer online for approximately 7 minutes before your harddrive is completely packed with all the spam that would come in.

    • Re:With all the stuff flying in IT today (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:41PM (#6989355)
      I'd like to start over and remake the internet. With people who RESPECT copyrights, for an atmosphere where intellectual work is treated equitably, so that we can build real empires of information, education, and entertainment, rather than play lowest common denominator games of today. I'd like an internet where a small software development shop can compete against large shops and make a fair profit without today's reality that any software that becomes popular gets pirated en masse, ultimately benefitting only the established names. I'd like a world where a musician can sell their songs for a fair price on the internet without middlemen knowing that their monetay success will be a linear product of the number of fans the quality of their music attracts. I'd like an internet without the "geektelligencia" going 180 degrees the wrong way and bitching and whining about copyrights, when they should be the first one to see their value and fight vigorously to protect them.
    • Sounds like you've been reading your Ayn Rand.

      Unfortunately, I doubt that Atlas is going to shrug any time soon, and the "good people" are going to be stuck with the "horribly stupid people" until we all blow ourselves up and the cats take over the planet.

      I'm doing all I can to make sure our cats appreciate me so that I can (continue to) be a favored slave when it all goes down.

      • Unfortunately, I doubt that Atlas is going to shrug any time soon, and the "good people" are going to be stuck with the "horribly stupid people" until we all blow ourselves up and the cats take over the planet.

        For Atlas to shrug the creative people have to be people as greedy and self centered as Ayn Rand was.

        There are a few libertarians who are involved in the forefront of Internet and Web research but not very many and I doubt that their contribution is irreplaceable.

        The Web is really a piece of pe

  • Out-of-sync DBs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:44PM (#6988895)
    The phenomena could be easily explained as out-of-sync databases. Assuming that Verisign is using multiple database systems, that is.

    But does it matter? What Verisign is doing is wrong. Exactly how they're wrong is irrelevant.

  • It's not a bug... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ArmedLemming ( 18042 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:45PM (#6988901)
    "I don't believe it's an advertising rotation..."

    It's a feature!

  • They need this suggestion (Score:4, Funny)

    by doggkruse ( 621549 ) <shlashdot AT bli ... icks-ass DOT org> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:45PM (#6988907)
    Everyone goto http://verisignneedstogetaclue.com [verisignne...taclue.com]

  • petition (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:45PM (#6988909)
    Don't forget to sign the petition [petitiononline.com] on Verisign's abuse of the DNS system.

    • Re:petition (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:59PM (#6989020) Homepage Journal

      I would like to see just one online petition that has carried any weight. It's the height of "slacktivism".

      • On-line petitions don't work (Score:4, Informative)

        by Eric Ass Raymond ( 662593 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:04PM (#6989063) Journal
        Indeed.

        Petitions are pathetic per se, but e-mail/web petitions carry absolutely no weight at all.

        I've worked for professional politicians. The web/e-mail opinion is irrelevant. If you want to be counted (not heard, mind you) send a letter or a fax.

        • The web/e-mail opinion is irrelevant. If you want to be counted (not heard, mind you) send a letter or a fax.

          I've actually heard that this has changed. Apparently in the post-Anthrax congress, they would prefer you didn't send a letter. Email and fax are now listened to much more closely.

        • The message matters as much as the medium (Score:4, Interesting)

          by gidds ( 56397 ) <slashdot.gidds@me@uk> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @08:01PM (#6990321) Homepage
          Of course, it depends on where you are. I'm in the UK, and when I faxed my MP last year (from the FaxYourMP [faxyourmp.com] web site), about the proposed amendment to the RIP bill, he responded with a letter (on 'House of Commons' headed paper) almost immediately, and another a month later when the amendment was withdrawn. (I don't like the man personally, and I don't agree with some of his politics, but as a constituency MP he does a good job.)

          And it depends on the content as well as the medium. My fax was original, business-like, and carefully-argued, though partly based on stuff available online. I suspect that originality, literacy, clarity, conciseness, and focus all count well, just as obvious copying, rambling, pointless emotion, length, and lack of focus will make a communication less likely to be read or acted upon. You need to state carefully but briefly the problem, the cause, what you're asking your representative to do, and why; if you do that politely, it'd be an inconsiderate person who didn't at least reply, whatever the medium.

          I suspect that the reason online petitions often don't seem to count is less that they're online, and more that they're petitions; without a direct, personal request for action, any communication will have less weight.

      • It just did in the block of FCC's changes [wisinfo.com]. I can't find it right now, but there's an image of Trent Lott and Tom Daschle from a couple of days ago speaking on the senate floor, with a huge stack of paper. It turns out that's a printout of the web petition signed by thousands of angry people.

      • Re:petition (Score:5, Informative)

        by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:54PM (#6989458) Homepage Journal
        I would like to see just
        one online petition that has carried any weight. It's the height of "slacktivism".
        Here you go [slashdot.org]. Apparently MoveOn.org [moveon.org]'s online petition was considered significant enough to warrant a press conference with two senators featuring boxes of printed out petitions [moveon.org].

        HTH. HAND.

        (All that said, I do agree that most online petitions are nearly worthless and don't carry anywhere near the weight of individually addressed messages. If you really care, take the time to express your position in your own words and send it as a letter (send an email in addition, if you like)).

      • MoveOn FCC ruling? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Heisenbug ( 122836 )
        OK, how about this one:

        http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/192 3 25 0

        It was only yesterday -- the Senate voted to roll back the FCC media consolidation ruling, based to some extent on the MoveOn petition. Check out the picture of Trent Lott standing next to 360,000 pieces of paper. One of those is mine, and it looks like it carried some weight to me.

        I went to school with Eli Pariser, btw -- he's one of the guys who runs MoveOn. Check out what else they've done to see how online activism can be eff
      • >I would like to see just one online petition that has carried any weight.

        There was a success with webtv, its probably still linked at the petition site, but unless someone prints these damn things out and hands them to the politicos (like in this photo from moveon.org [moveon.org]) its a waste of bits.

      • Re:petition (Score:3, Interesting)

        by shokk ( 187512 )
        That's right, it won't work. You have to vote with your feet, or in this case, your electronic feet. If you are in charge of a DNS server, push to have it updated to block their slimy wildcarding. So what if Verisign changes something to get around the latest patch? BIND and friends will update again. Who is more likely to get tired of this game faster, the suits who have to go out to a three hour lunch and don't want to hear about how crappy their latest decision was, or the out of work hacker with a

      • Re:petition (Score:3, Funny)

        by MegaFur ( 79453 )
        I would like to see just one online petition that has carried any weight. It's the height of "slacktivism".(emphasis mine)

        Sweet. That's an excelent term. It's tempting to write a great, big essay bemoaning slacktivism, but I can't because I am a slacktivist.

    • Re:petition (Score:5, Informative)

      by delta407 ( 518868 ) <slashdot@nosPAm.lerfjhax.com> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @07:04PM (#6989951) Homepage
      If you really want to make sure Verisign hears you, try some of my suggestions from other [slashdot.org] posts [slashdot.org], duplicated below.

      A list of contact information is here [verisign.com]. The Verisign main number is 1-877-438-8776, which gives you a long list of options. Depending on what you pick, you'll probably end up talking to a Network Solutions guy. Tell him you're distressed about the SiteFinder service, ask about what your options are, and ask if there's anyone else to talk to. They probably won't be much help, but write down everything they tell you, get their employee ID, and keep track of date/time for calls as well as time on hold (might be helpful).

      After some lengthy conversation, I found out that I should be talking to the Verisign Global Registry [verisign-grs.com], but that they can't give me a phone number, because (supposedly) NSI doesn't even have a phone number. However, I did get an e-mail address -- sitefinder@verisign-grs.com [mailto], which is routed to someone's inbox (as in, a person, not a support center), which currently yields an "Out-of-office reply" that gives out a cell phone number (!). I don't think I'm going to call it, but at least I have more contact information on file now and an e-mail that will get read.

      Additionally, you might want to try calling the office of Russel Lewis [verisign.com], who's the VP of the Verisign directory services. He's at the Virginia office (1-703-742-0400), but I got disconnected instead of transferred and haven't called a second time (yet). If you try this number, you'll probably get a secretary, to whom you should explain that the standard procedures for communicating with Verisign have failed, that you are "very disappointed" and that you "want to make things right". (It works better if you're actually a Verisign customer.) If you're nice about it -- knowing that the secretary probably doesn't know anything about it and can't do anything anyway -- you can probably get routed to someone in the directory services division, where you can register further complaints.

      [...]

      I have been unable to raise the Chicago local office by phone, and when I went to visit, the visitor center couldn't even get a hold of them. Weird.

      I called their headquarters in CA a few times now. I was hung up on, randomly transferred to someone's voice mail (I'm not sure who), and finally talked to a particularly helpful representative who passed my queries to his manager. They said that SiteFinder was run by NSI, to which I responded that NSI said that SiteFinder was run by Verisign, to which I added that Verisign (as a global registry) is the only organization with the power to do something like that. He went to talk to his manager, told me that they were promised more information on SiteFinder by the end of today (9/17), and promised me a call-back in 24 hours.

      Updates to follow.

      • Re:petition (Score:3, Informative)

        by the_mad_poster ( 640772 )

        I e-mailed sitefinder@verisign-grs.com [mailto].

        It looks like they've caught on and the e-mails are being routed to Customer Service. I got this auto-response:

        Thank you for contacting VeriSign Customer Service. We have received your email and a member of our Customer Service team will be responding to you shortly.

        Best Regards,

        Customer Service
        VeriSign, Inc.
        www.verisign.com

      • From the verisign-grs.com WHOIS:

        Administrative Contract:
        VERISIGN GLOBAL REGISTRY SERVICES rcc@verisign.com
        21345 Ridgetop Circle
        Dulles, VA 20166
        US
        703-742-0400 fax: 703-421-6703

        Dunno how correct it is...god forbid that Verisign should put incorrect info in the whois database.

  • In case it gets slashdotted... (Score:5, Informative)

    by skank ( 106609 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:45PM (#6988914) Homepage
    Verisign Typosquatter Explorer
    by Seth Finkelstein
    Introduction

    On Monday September 15 2003, a change to .com/.net behavior was announced. In sum, every mistyped domain name, one that had not been registered, would be redirected to a new site controlled by the company which runs a major part of the domain name system, Verisign.

    When a URL has a misspelled domain name, Verisign's changes have the effect of redirecting every single HTTP page request (technically, HTTP response code 302). There is a redirection header and page which displays:

    The document has moved here [slashdot.org].



    So, for example, the URL

    http://verisign-is-to.net/more/evil/than/satan/h im self.html

    Gets redirected to:

    http://sitefinder.verisign.com/lpc?url=verisign- is -to.net/more/evil/than/satan/himself.html&host=ver isign-is-to.net

    This site suggests corrections to the typo. I have written a program " Verisign Typosquatter Explorer" in order to examine these suggestions. Future data may be analyzed as interest permits.

    Note tests with some domains seem to return results which are not constant, i.e. differences when the program is run repeatedly. This is not a program bug. Reloading the Verisign page also changes which squat-suggested domains are displayed. I don't believe it's an advertising rotation, but the behavior is similar to that practice.
    Support

    This project was not supported by anyone. If anyone is providing financial support for such projects, the author would dearly like to know.

    Version 1.2 September 17 2003

    See also: Domain Investigations
    Mail comments to: Seth Finkelstein

    For future information: subscribe to Seth Finkelstein's Infothought list or read the Infothought blog

    See more of Seth Finkelstein 's Anticensorware Investigations

  • Mail addresses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ratface ( 21117 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:46PM (#6988916) Homepage Journal
    I mailed this little lot earlier today:

    authenticode-support@verisign.com, billing@verisign.com, channel-partners@verisign.com, clientpki@verisign.com, consultingsolutions@verisign.com, dbms-support@verisign.com, dcpolicy@verisign.com, digitalbranding@verisign.com, dnssales@verisign.com, enterprise-pkisupport@verisign.com, enterprise-sslsupport@verisign.com, info@verisign-grs.com, internetsales@verisign.com, IR@verisign.com, jobs@verisign.com, mss@verisign.com, objectsigning-support@verisign.com, paymentsales@verisign.com, practices@verisign.com, premiersupport@networksolutions.com, press@verisign.com, privacy@networksolutions.com, renewal@verisign.com, support@verisign.com, verisales@verisign.com, vps-support@verisign.com, vts-csrgroup@verisign.com, vts-mktginfo@verisign.com, webhelp@verisign.com, websitesales@verisign.com, websitesupport@verisign.com

    And I got a bunch of replies back, including *gasp* two written by actual human beings!

    Remember folks, if you're going to write and complain, try and keep it civil. The porr bugger who hsa to read your complaint isn't the same person who actually took the decision to introduce sitefinder!

    • Re:Mail addresses (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AyeRoxor! ( 471669 )
      Thank you for that list. I just sent the following message:

      Subject:
      New policy of typosquatting

      Body:
      To whom it concerns:

      I am DEEPLY disturbed with your latest decision/practice to typosquat, and I hope you will reconsider. It is extremely arrogant to think that you, as a corporation, have a right to do this. Any page sent on request for a non-existing domain should represent ALL of that TLD's registrars or NONE. As it stands, this is equivalent to all wrong numbers dialed *anywhere in the world* ge
    • Paul Twomey [mailto]

      -Lucas

    • Here's the email address of the bastard himself, Stratton Sclavos [mailto]

      -Lucas

  • You don't think they have esoteric "we should HELP the Internet" type idea in mind, do you?

    Advertising rotation... absolutely! They're after the ad revinue. These types of things should come as no shock.

    Stewey
  • So what do you do when you WANT to get a "domain cannot be found" error for troubleshooting purposes... I know it sounds weird, but this whole thing is very annoying.

    R-

  • Weird.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:48PM (#6988936) Homepage Journal

    If I make a type for "slashdot" such as salhsdtot.com [salhsdtot.com] it suggests goatse.cx [goatse.cx] as a top candidate. That's some pretty smart AI VeriSign has.

  • no response (Score:2, Funny)

    by bendawg ( 72695 )
    I cannot get to 64.94.110.11.
    Either it is not responding, or our network is blocking it.
    • I know at least of yesterday, UCLA was blocking that IP. Ruined a perfectly good demo to the guys at work about how evil Verisign is. :) However, (again, as of yesterday) UCLA was still passing wildcard DNS records in response to queries - we're just blocking access to the verisign site to generate a timeout, the bad DNS records ( with 64.94.110.11) are still coming through.

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by imadcow1 ( 559289 ) * <imadcow1NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:49PM (#6988944) Homepage
    Here is a mirror of the site in case it goes down: http://www.madcowworld.com/sethf.com/domains/veris quat/ [madcowworld.com]

  • where's the problem? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by erikdotla ( 609033 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @04:52PM (#6988975)
    Hey, I'm outraged and mad too, like all of you.. but, I'm not seeing this. Maybe my ISPs have taken a stand with their DNS, but both my work and home ISPs? Unlikely. Why aren't I seeing this?
    • Yeah. according to the link in the submission (at NANOG), "Today VeriSign is adding a wildcard A record to the .com and .net zones. The wildcard record in the .net zone was activated from 10:45AM EDT to 13:30PM EDT. The wildcard record in the .com zone is being added now." as of 9/15. So this should mean this is going on at the moment. However, on Comcast, I've got normal behavior.
    • My ISP has; they've sent out an email stating their position.
    • Same here at home, I get the normal timeouts, although DNS resolution for failed domains seems to take a bit longer, so I suspect my ISP has done something about it.

      OTOH, at work Verisign's crap works, and we use our ISP's DNS servers, not our own, so not much I can do about it.

  • Squating? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:00PM (#6989027) Homepage
    How is this any different from me buying mispelled domains to profit off other company's trademarks? I know the Federal Government just tossed a guy in jail for doing the same thing. There is something that stinks to high heaven about this. It looks like they are abusing their right to manage the USA TLDs along with violating RFCs.

    • Re:Squating? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by slithytove ( 73811 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @06:28PM (#6989721) Homepage
      The only difference I can think of is that Verisign didn't even have to buy the mispelled domains, which just makes it even more infuriating.
      This is unquestionably an abuse of their "right" to manage the US TLDs and they should be stripped of it.
      Personally I don't see why we couldnt have a distributed DNS system which would work something like freenet. The trademark office could push entries into the system, signed with their private key, and various other governmental, commercial and non-profit/private entities could push whatever entries they wanted onto the stack too.
      It would be up to ISPs and individuals to pick which groups' entries to use and in what order.
      Most people (and presumably all isps) would probably place the trademark offices' lists at the top so they could find the products and companies they seek (incidentally eliminating the problems associated with others registering your trademark as a domain).
      A second tier of trustworthy companies would sell domain names (with market forces setting the cost based on how many isp's subscribe to their entries and how high up the search list most isp's place them)
      Finally, I could make my own top-level domains by placing my own list near the top of every computers resolve.conf equivalent which I use.
      No government-granted monopolies involved except the already existing trademark system and no need for an ultra-high-availability network at the top level.
      If any of this strikes you as unfeasible you probably need to read more about freenet (or conceivably I do- let me know).

  • Verisign's BS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BigDumbAnimal ( 532071 )
    From the devguide [verisign.com]:
    A wildcard entry in a zone affects DNS responses for that zone. For existing applications that do not contemplate the effects of wildcard entries, application developers should consider
    taking appropriate corrective actions.
    Thanks Verisign!
  • If a large number of /.ers were to run a short script that tried to resolve random nonexistent domains, how long would it be before the root servers crashed?

    Don't forget, YOU would not have done anything but asked your ISP's DNS for info. IT will be the one /.ing the root servers.

    Not that I suggest you do this.
    • I was doing this for a while. Then I realized I was using the public OpenNIC servers (which I didn't want to tax too much), so I quit. It works nicely, though:

      while : ; do lynx --dump www.`ps -ef | md5sum | cut -c -32`.com > /dev/null; done

      This should be pretty damned unique amongst everyone who uses it. Imagine when the logs fill up with sites like www.4799c5892e25189b9d8a83ee3752a303.com over and over again. Each request returns about 16KB of source HTML. Millions of these running might chew up

  • 20 lines of perl code makes a Slashdot story? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Xerithane ( 13482 ) <xerithane.nerdfarm@org> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:04PM (#6989061) Homepage Journal
    What is news worthy about this? This doesn't provide any statistics by itself. There is no wrapper scripts to actually match anything. All this does is parse the response page to display suggested hits. It's not even written that well.

    It prints the suggested URLs out and then what? This isn't an explorer, it's a shitty data dump.

    Besides, I thought Michael hated Seth. How did this story get posted?

  • Monetary damages (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:04PM (#6989064) Journal

    What sort of monetary damages is this action by Verisign incurring for people and businesses everywhere?

    Verisign's action was most probably intended for web traffic, where it's at least an annoyance. But since the DNS is an independent system from the web that's used by all sorts of services, it's undoubtedly breaking all sorts of non-web things out there that rely on knowing accurately if a domain name exists... not to mention all of the additional maintenance time. Email and spam filters are the two that seem to've been brought up a lot.

    So far I've seen a lot of people getting mad and I am too, but I haven't seen anyone actually state how much they're losing due to the sudden change and breaking of standards by Verisign. Is anyone confident to put an amount on this?

  • Everybody go here [helloworkd.com]. Go again.

    Hear that? That's the sound of their redirection server being slashdotted. I wonder how much traffic they've calculated this would bring, and if they've thought it through.

    (At least, I'm getting 'Cannot be displayed' errors. Whether that's because their getting flooded, or because they've already given up, or for some reason this and the example [verisign-is-to.net] in the article aren't going through them.)

    • Re:Think about it. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tom7 ( 102298 )
      If you think their servers are going to suffer under a slashdotting if they are now accepting ALL mistyped/obsolete domain names, think again. The slashdot traffic will be totally insignificant.

  • How did this make it as a headline? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dentar ( 6540 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:09PM (#6989106) Homepage Journal
    This is news? Good god. I wish we could mod whole stories down... ;-(

  • Can we sue? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:09PM (#6989107)
    Seriously, would it be possible for ISP's to file a class action suit? I have spent ALL day (so far) dealing with the repurcussions of this blatant misuse of authority. I know others out there are dealing with the same. I also had two customers get .ws websites rather than AVAILABLE .com sites because they use the method of putting the name in the browser and seeing if a site comes up. They figured verisign was squatting on the domain, and thought they would have to pay verisign for the use of the domain.

    On a side note...

    Our mail servers are filling up with spam, and with the recent loss of SPEWS, our spam filtering system is basically useless.. save for the few other blacklist sites still out there. Spammers must be rejoicing today.

    Fuck you VeriSign, Fuck you very much.
    • If you use Postfix, a patch was just released to help out with this problem:

      This is to announce an unofficial patch for Postfix 2.0 to black-list
      domain names by their mail server (such as Verisign's mail server
      for non-existent .com or .net domain names) or by their DNS servers.

      The patch for Postfix 2.0 is based on code that was developed for
      Postfix snapshot 20030917.

      ftp://ftp.porcupine.org/mirrors/postfix-release/o f ficial/postfix-2.0-ns-mx-acl-patch.gz

      Below the signature is a description from the

  • Terms of Service (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:10PM (#6989116) Homepage Journal
    Well, this is finally working for me now!

    Man, did you check out their "terms of service"? That shit is hilarious!

    " 14. By using the service(s) provided by VeriSign under these Terms of Use, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to be bound by all terms and conditions here in and documents incorporated by reference."

    HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO READ AND AGREE TO BE BOUND TO TERMS, when I arrived at the site by mis-typing a domain name????

    From the privacy policy:

    "Under no circumstances do we collect any personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, or sex life."

    No? What about when I go to any political site, sex site, health site, religious site, etc, and don't type the domain name correctly?

    http://www.sitefinderreallyreallysucks.com/ [sitefinder...ysucks.com]

  • 99.99999999% of all domains now run Linux (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:11PM (#6989126)
    Because sitefinder-idn.verisign.com runs Linux, and now 99.99999999% of all domains now point to it, almost 100% of the Internet is now running Linux!

  • To repeat the obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:12PM (#6989138)
    ...and preach to the choir.

    Verisign was contracted to run DNS servers for the .com and .net top-level domains; both of which are in practice "flat" address spaces, with no formalised lower-level hierarchy. If an organisation registers the domain "foo.com", implements nameservers for this domain, and then these nameservers ignore accepted practice and the way the majority of Internet applications expect the nameservice to work - then the organisation shoots only itself in the foot.

    Verisign is in effect treating the entire top-level .com and .net domains as its corporate property.

    If Verisign were genuinely ignorant of the effects of their move, then the company is not competent to operate TLD DNS services. If Verisgn were aware of the potential problems their decision could cause and went ahead regardless for commercial reasons then the company is not fit to operate TLD DNS services.

    If ICANN cannot react to this nonsense in less than a working week, ICANN itself is not fit to direct the Internet naming service.

    Apart from massed armies of geeks with pitchforks and flaming torches converging on Verisign and ICANN locations, does anyone have any constructive suggestions on how to get the parasites out of the loop?

  • I think most people know how jealous Verizon is of it's name even in url's. I'm curious how they'll view someone who misstypes a verizon adress and is presented with ad's from their competitors.
  • So I've had a couple of ideas of how we could express our displeasure in this:

    * a cron entry that runs every minute or two, and hits port 80 on verisign's webserver farm.

    * infrequent ping- like 1 every 30 seconds

    With enough people, this would becomre more than an annoyance. But I'm looking for better ideas. Anyone? Bueller?

  • Fix how? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:17PM (#6989167) Homepage Journal

    Does anyone have any idea how an application (or even resolver) writer could workaround this?
    All the solutions I've come up with can be defeated by having verisign rotate their IP addresses or domain (sitefinder.verisign.com) ...

    What is BIND doing?

  • For UK visitors (Score:3, Interesting)

    by slayer99 ( 15543 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:17PM (#6989168) Homepage
    Please help with keeping pressure on Verisign - instructions here [hinterlands.org].

  • Wrote email to VeriSign (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperDry ( 636335 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:23PM (#6989215)
    I wrote an email today to NetSol/VeriSign to voice my displeasure. As I have 5 or so domains up for renewal in October, along with various web and email hosting features that go along with them that are currently with NetSol. I told them that I would be moving everything to another registrar should they not have rescinded their change by my renewal date.

    I know that my $300 a year may not be the end of the world to them, but I thought it important that they know that some people will make buying decisions based on this. And the types of people that handle DNS registration issues are just the types of people to be ticked off by this.

    They sent me a form letter response, that addressed both this new unregistered DNS feature as well as the "register in advance for about-to-expire domains" feature that I didn't mention at all in my email. Their response to that issue was also defensive, so I take it that they're getting an earful on that one as well.
  • If it were a Linux program it would be called kvtse or gvtse depending on whether it's for Gnome or KDE.
  • verisignsucks.com [verisignsucks.com]

    Is this the only .com left?
  • I'm wondering if I should send a cease & desist order for verisign infringing on my web page (for instance) moobokmeow.com [moobokmeow.com]. If you go to either mobokmeow.com [mobokmeow.com] or moobockmeow.com [moobockmeow.com], it delivers you to a verisign page. Surely this is infringing on the good name of moobokmeow.com!

    Any lawyers out there want to send the C&D for me?

  • ICANN, IAB, IETF official response (Score:5, Informative)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:51PM (#6989437) Homepage
    Official response is here [iab.org]

    Essentially, they state that this change violates the RFC for DNS for several reasons. They are creating an IETF working group to recommended practices for implementing DNS, above and beyond what the RFC requires. Unfortunately, there is no mention of any action, or even censure.
  • Besides the obvious fact that VeriSign is making massive changes on a whim, why is this bad? There are a slew of reasons why I, too, object -- but they're all on principle (it violates the RFC, it's scary as hell that they can do this unchecked, etc.) -- I'm still yet to find something that is actually broken by this.

    Can someone provide some concrete examples of problems this causes?

    • Re:Why is this bad? (Score:2, Informative)

      by wasabii ( 693236 )
      Spam filters could filter out "forged" email by verifying if the from address' domain actually resolved. Every address now resolves. Programs which check weither or not a web address is "up and working" can now be fooled into thinking it is up when it is not. There are hundreds of similar programs or software running in organizations that expect clear and consistant error information.

      This bypasses my choice of search engine withing my browser for non existant domains (currently google).
    • Here's a short list:

      1. Breaks alternate MX handling if the top priority mailserver's domain is/becomes unregistered. Instead of using a secondary MX record, the mail will bounce or get queued (see #2).

      2. Verisign has put a faulty SMTP listener on port 25 that attempts to send a 550 back to the mailer. But it relies on a certain sequence of commands entered and can cause mail to sit queued for days if that sequence isn't just what it expects.

      3. Various DNS-based spam checks now ineffective.

      4. Peop

  • fleem@linux [~/dl] $ host fleemgoats.com
    fleemgoats.com has address 64.94.110.11
    fleem@linux [~/dl] $ host 64.94.110.11
    11.110.94.64.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer sitefinder-idn.verisign.com.
    ...
    root@smoothwall~# iptables -t filter -I OUTPUT -d 64.94.110.11 -j DROP
    root@smoothwall~# iptables -t filter -I FORWARD -d 64.94.110.11 -j DROP
    • That is not a solution; at best it's a workaround. There's a fundamental difference between a DNS query returning NXDOMAIN (as it should), and blocking traffic to site returned in the fraudulent A record returned by Verisign.

      wopr:~$ sudo ipfw add 1 deny ip from any to 64.94.110.11
      Password:
      00001 deny ip from any to 64.94.110.11

      wopr:~$ ping fleemgoats.org
      ping: cannot resolve fleemgoats.org: Unknown host

      wopr:~$ ping fleemgoats.com
      PING fleemgoats.com (64.94.110.11): 56 data bytes
      ping: sendto: Permission den

  • Patched Nameserver Database Available (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fo0bar ( 261207 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @05:55PM (#6989465)
    Somewhat off-topic, but relevant to the whole Verisign DNS idiocy... I have thrown up a database of patched nameservers here [arouse.net] (don't worry about arouse.net, it's not a porn site), which currently allows you to check to see if a nameserver has been patched to block return of 'A' results for non-existent domains, and allows you to add to the database if it is a patched server.
  • Looks like Verisign is being stalked by Seth [216.239.33.104]

    Could this be a sign that Verisign is about to become a slashdot editor?

    PS: for some reason censorware.org and stalkedbyseth.com are not responding... the link is to google cash.

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