NSI Loses Records 54
ttyler sent us a link to a little techweb bit talking about
NSI Losing Records
from the DNS. Supposedly as many as 18,000. Mentions
a nice conspiracy theory that this is a plot to promote
their new registration service before they lose their
monopoly in the not so distant future.
Can you say "incompetent?" There, I knew you could (Score:1)
Alternate name service (Score:1)
Does NSI's current contract stipulate who will be authorized to take over the root master database and start distributing root zone caches in case NSI would fail to handle its most critical tasks, either due to its own fault or because of another body (say, a terrorist group or a government) beginning to interfere with NSI operations? Are there procedures in place for this?
I'm not an AlterNIC fan, largely because of their attempt to impersonate the InterNIC a few years ago, but also because I don't think they provide a solution to the actual problems that exist with the DNS today. Creating a new set of TLDs besides the existing ones, without telling where each kind of company belongs, will probably result in more domain squatting, not less. If companies cannot stand seeing their beloved trademarks being used in .ORG and .NET, imagine what life will be like when they have ten additional TLDs to worry about.
The article being the focus of this thread briefly mentioned the IANA taking over domain registration after NSI's contract has expired. While I haven't educated myself about IANA's plans, it does have a promising ring to it.
I'd be interested in working out alternative name service arrangements, perhaps with actual implementations, to see what may work in the future. That includes registration procedures and legal arrangements, as well as TLD allocation and use. Would anybody else?
According to Eric Allman recently, all the root name servers require open source implementations, i.e. BIND. He wasn't sure though whether they required on-site source also for their operating systems. How many of them run Linux..?
"Lost" or "dropped"? (Score:1)
There was an alternate DNS scheme happening some time ago. Does anybody have info on this? It occurs to me that any centralized naming system (no matter who runs it) is a potential weakness for a supposedly decentralized, indestructable network. It also occurs to me that Mozilla is in a position to force broad acceptance of an alternate DNS just by including support by default. Something to think about.
Alternic and Netscape's "Smart Browsing" (Score:1)
Netscape's "Smart Browsing" feature is a quasi-name server. If you type "foobar" in the location bar it will try http://www.foobar.com/. It you type "Whitehouse", it now takes you to http://www.whitehouse.gov/ much to the chagrin of whitehouse.com (a porno site), who used to get directed to. If netscape were to set up a true DNS registry of its own, supporting many new TLDs, and made it the default name server on its browser (falling back to conventional DNS if a lookup fails) it could effectively take over a large percentage of Internic's business.
Not at all what happened (Score:1)
Something's fishy about this news story... (Score:1)
Just because the NSI said they were "targeting" squatters doesn't mean that's what really happened. From what I've been able to gather, most (if not all) of the domains were being held by paying customers, and most (if not all) of the domains were due for (re?)payment in March. They may have been targeting squatters, but they hit quite a lot more. And you're right, the InterNIC shouldn't be able to just drop paid domains. That doesn't mean it can't happen by accident, or on purpose (but illegally).
Your "conclusion" is based upon the tiniest bit of information given to you in the article. I assure you there's quite a lot more to it than that.
The Rest of the Story (Score:2)
To make matters worse, InterNIC seems to be telling people that they need to re-register their lost domains with WorldNIC [worldnic.net] instead of InterNIC (at $119 instead of $70). Can we say "motive"? I know of several people that have had their lost domains re-registered by someone *else*. Talk about a bad day...
Another interesting article [internetnews.com].
Appropriate... maybe. (Score:1)
Appropriate...Yes; 30-day billing (Score:1)
4) Payment: Payment is due to Network Solutions within thirty (30) days from the date of the invoice.
So, it seems entirely possible to 'squat' on a pile of names for 30 days, then pay for the ones you've re-sold and let the rest expire.
The article is very unclear about which domains were deleted, but if it was just ones that were more than 30 days overdue on payment, that's fine with me. I also wouldn't mind Internic moving to a prepayment-required system, or like most businesses where a corporate customer (like an ISP) could get a credit account if they submitted appropriate financial records and signed a "no squatting" agreement.
Unlike some people, I've never had a real problem with Internic (I've registered 4 domains in the last few years).
Better watch what you say... (Score:1)
To err is human... (Score:1)
Please grow up.
Slightly Intentional? (Score:1)
According to the report, the names were dumped as a move against cyber-squatters. As much as I agree that something needs to be done about cyber-squatters - I don't think it's NSI's responsibility to dump a paid domain name without any compensation or consideration to the owners.
I would like to see more gTLDs added, AlterNIC was headed in the right direction. I can also see where too many would make things difficult.
Watch the replies... (Score:1)
My reply was to the Anonymous Coward that posted - "Would YOU trust a *distribution* from a company that can't even follow a few simple directions on how to add PHP support to Apache 1.3.3? Ha."
I'm sorry if you misunderstood who I was calling immature.
I disagree... (Score:1)
I find it very hard to downgrade an entire project based on one (probably small) mistake created by one or two individuals. There is no way of knowing what caused the problem - granted that human error is more than likely.
The project is in it's development stages and anyone who expects perfection is insane.
...is back online (Score:1)
Roughly 1.5 months free... (Score:1)
I'm told that in the past, they didn't send out bills for months, but I'm less certain of this.
So it is possible to register a bunch of domain names for "free" for a while. My understanding is that this is how squatters work.
Grrr.... (Score:1)
"Lost" or "dropped"? (Score:1)
My current home-lan's DNS points to alternic servers.
NWS.ORG (Score:1)
I thought that NSI was having database problems again, as that's happened in the past.
Appropriate...Not hardly! (Score:1)
stampede.org... (Score:1)
telnet stamped.org 80
Trying 209.81.8.249...
Connected to stampede.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /
Stampede Linux is an innovative, new approach to Linux [linux.org] distributions. We wanted a distribution
that was fast, easy for the new user, and awesome for the power user. So, we decided to create
Stampede [slashdot.org].
[snip]
//_Stryker
stampede.org... (Score:1)
alternic anyone? (Score:1)
There have been attempts to institute alternate systems in the past, and still are. One of which I am aware is alternic. They can be found at:
http://www.alternic.net/ [alternic.net]
Good Point about the inherent weakness of centralisation in the naming system.
A workable naming system is needed, but the prime directive behind the internet was supposed to be rerouting around damaged (incinerated) nodes. It is a convenience to have a domain naming system that is consistent across all parts of the net, but only a convenience.
But, if that is the way it is, then the "master" host file for registration definitely should be stored in more than one place.
My point is that a single domain naming system is not inherently evil, just a matter of programming convenience. And if we use it the host list must be in more than one place, and arranged so that an orderly failover can occur should the primary location go down.
Netscape might not jump on the idea of supporting an alternate dns scheme enthusiastically, given their current situation, but mozilla.org might be interested.
But is the demand there? Is it politically feasable without effort-damaging fallout? Those are the larger questions.
--vead
The solution is infinite ownerless TLDs. (Score:1)
The problem is DNS itself. Just like the IP structure.. the IANA says who gets what, but the don't enforce it.. that's up to the networks themselves. The IANA is just making it work.. and this doesn't represent a real problem, because numbers are numbers.. there is little prestige in numbers... especially because nobody sees them. The IANA handles logistics. How many are left. Where did they go. How do we effectively manage them?
The DNS system, on the other hand, has too much commercial weight attached to it.
To me, as an administrator, when the net was young, DNS meant a way to not have to type in bloody addresses all the time. It WASN'T the prime way to locate things. That was through other databases.....
We refer to things by name, by URL... companies percieve that URL's = money. You can't OWN a domain! You can't OWN an IP address! The solution is one of databases. one to locate companies. One to locate services. One to relate them together. Another, to locate the physical servers or logical services that run them.
Get hte picture? The guts get dirty, and the outsides are clean.
Appropriate...Yes; 30-day billing (Score:1)
The registration fee wasn't for purchase, it was to pay the cost of running the registration service, which used to be funded by the US Govt.
I liked the proposal in the past for people who wanted to run registrations for different TLD's. There were technical requirements.... like you had to have the $$$ to support the registry... the infrastructure....
basically you had to be serious.
InterNIC screwed up (Score:1)
Everyone is bitching about how they are running the InterNIC....
Okay.
Someone please tell me what they SHOULD be doing.
Class action law suits? Jeesus christ.. nobody has these fights about IP addresses.... and they are run the same way.
DOWN WITH THE IANA! THEY ARE A MONOPOLY! BOO! HISS! BAH!
The root nameservers do NOT have to run the way they do now.. and if the ocmpany trusted with managing the registrations can't do it, the net will pick another. I think people underestimate the scale of this project...
I lost one too! (Score:1)
Argument against monopoly?
Geesus FRIG!
People....
InterNIC is not a monoploy.. no more than IANA is a monopoly, no more than the Internet itself is a monopoly. We choose to use them by convention. It's unfortunate the way things are turning out... but the only thing that gives them *ANY* power is the fact that every nameserver out there has *by admin-configured choice* a list of root nameservers that get their info from InterNIC.
Just as the IP structure of the internet only works because everyone cooperates... so works DNS.
The 'Internet' is really a bucketload of different, private and public networks that just happen to be using the same protocols and just happen to have all agreed on an addressing scheme that lets them co-exist when they all hook up to each other.
You know.. the
We have allowed the domain name to become the single identifier of a net presence.. that is not how it should be at all.
Is there a better solution? I think this is the best approach we have *SO FAR*.
Is there another way? Probably.. but this is all we have. We used to use shared