Verisign takes wildcard on .com and .net domains

[blakerwry]

I noticed this about a week ago... if you type in an invlalid domain you get to verisign's "site finder" page. Anyone else notice this?

http://www.this-is-not-a-site.com

http://www.this-also-aint-no-freakin-site.com


This is aparently related to verisign taking up the wildcard on the .com and .net domains. This has side affects of possily rendering SPAM blocking using reverse DNS useless, as well as rendering simple tools like ping and whois innefective in some situations. Not to mention that they have an SMTP server setup that can grab your username and password along with whole emails if it wanted to if someone accidentally mistypes their mail server address.

Link for more info

What do you all think about this?

 

[Handruin]

It depends on your ISP and something to do with BIND I believe. Those pages report the normal "The page cannot be displayed" error. However a week ago they would have taken me to verisign. (those bastards)

 

[Tea]

Any chance we can throw a huge party?

Let's invite all the execs from Verisign, Iomega, Rambus, Microsoft, Hewlett-Crapard, Telstra, AOL, and, of course, SCO.

Let's also invite the good Mr Osama and provide him with the biggest and loudest bomb he can squeeze into a semi-trailer. Or two, if it won't fit into one.

Meanwhile, we all nip round to Pradeep's place for a quiet drink.

 

[blakerwry]

It depends on your ISP and something to do with BIND I believe. Those pages report the normal "The page cannot be displayed" error. However a week ago they would have taken me to verisign. (those bastards)

The Internet Software Consortium updated BIND to block this crap from verisign (and to prevent wildcard use on top level domains)


For those of you who don't know what BIND is, it's the defacto standard software that runs DNS servers across the world. DNS servers make web domains possible, they go hand in hand. Without one the other would not be possible.

I would take a gander that 95% of the DNS servers on the web or more use BIND's syntax and atleast 3/4ths use BIND itself.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I actually thought it was useful.
You mistype a url and boom you get a list of the most likely candidates. This would drive more visits to a page I would think.
Whether verisign should be doing this or the web browser itself is another matter.

 

[blakerwry]

i've found it quite annoying, it doesn't give good suggestions and it doens't ever learn. I would rather have google search or the IE search come up if I type in an incorrect domain.

 

[Buck]

Any chance we can throw a huge party?

Let's invite all the execs from Verisign, Iomega, Rambus, Microsoft, Hewlett-Crapard, Telstra, AOL, and, of course, SCO.

Let's also invite the good Mr Osama and provide him with the biggest and loudest bomb he can squeeze into a semi-trailer. Or two, if it won't fit into one.

Meanwhile, we all nip round to Pradeep's place for a quiet drink.

Always thinking ahead and planning for the future.

 

[Handruin]

One major flaw I find with verisign becoming the de facto standard for mistyped pages is viruses and exploits.

Let’s say some crafty person was able to slip a new type of virus onto their page. When you mistype your favorite URL, verisign deletes C:\ . (Hypothetical of course) Or worse, it installs a DDoS client to your machine unannounced to you?

How many hits per day do you think this page gets?

I'd say let them do it, let people get burnt, and then have verisign fork over millions in law suites.

 

[blakerwry]

they are already being sued by some real heavy hitters. They are also jeopardizing their spot as the holder of the .com and .net domains.

I think they are doing it for advertizing. I believe they sued to have ads on that page, but think they took them down due to critizism.