[wildcard-comments] Comments regarding VeriSign's wildcard deployments
To whom it may concern: Due to VeriSign's recent "Site Finder" program along with adding a wildcard record to the .com and .net zones to catch any unregistered domain, the DNS, one of the most important subsystems that we take for granted which makes the Internet remotely usable, has been defiled by VeriSign in the name of profit during the period of September 15 to October 4. As a postmaster, VeriSign's action took away my ability to block spams which bear bogus domain names, notably unregistered .com and .net domain names. In recent years, doing DNS queries on domains in e-mail addresses to make sure they work has helped block many unwanted messages from ever entering many mailservers around the world. By essentially making EVERY domain resolve, MX record or not, VeriSign had committed an offense I consider tantamount to aiding and abetting would-be spammers. Many in the technical community raised not just technical concerns about the server which service errant mail and web requests such as RFC compliance. More importantly, they raise serious privacy concerns. These users could be inadvertently advertising sensitive information to VeriSign, such as passwords, company documents, or worse, financial information. On the business level, this can damage business in ways never conceived due to a fat-finger. That fat-finger can also cause issues for people at a personal level, like personal correspondence or personal browsing habits. Can we truly trust these people with our misdirected correspondence? We can at least see how VeriSign defines "The Value of Trust". Further, I believe this development demonstrates their willingness to do absolutely anything to make money, e.g. through paid links on their Site Finder service. The site supposedly contributes to the Internet user's experience. Quite the contrary; it exacerbates it. VeriSign's other past actions to make money include sending advertisements in the form of deceptive "domain expiry" notices to get people to migrate their domains to them. I have personally received one of these notices after switching registrars, prompting me to call them at one point, requesting that they stop engaging me in any kind of correspondence. VeriSign has also committed the standard offenses which define some of the worst Internet citizens out there. For example, I have received unwanted e-mail correspondence courting my business after having transferred all my remaining domains over to a different registrar. I would consider this the core definition of "spamming". Furthermore, if anyone should be accused as being the most egregious cybersquatter, Verisign should, given the very all-encompassing nature of top-level wildcard entries. They commit these acts at the possible cost of the very trust they are supposed to be brokering as their primary product, as well as the very trust that had been placed in them as the stewards of the top-level registry responsible for the two biggest generic top-level domains. Nothing galls me more than this. VeriSign has habitually tried to maintain their monopoly at some level using many reprehensible tactics like the ones I have described above. That said, I personally can only recommend revocation of VeriSign's registrar and registry status for the .com and .net top-level domains. I will not stand by while much of the Internet I have come to make my living with at work as well as love, enjoy, and find enabling me to express myself in ways never conceived, as well as enabling me to conduct personal business as never before while at home, gets desecrated by a company driven purely by profit and monopoly rather than in the best interests of the Internet at large and its users. I consider this a total pity since VeriSign is squandering their status as one of the pioneers of the modern Internet as well as eroding their standing as a pillar of trust we have come to know them for being. I end this letter with a noteworthy item as well as some rather pointed if not terse commentary concerning VeriSign's response to the demand to shut down the Site Finder service and pull the wildcard records for .com and .net. VeriSign, in a press release yesterday, had this to say about the ultimatem given them by ICANN: "Without so much as a hearing, ICANN today formally asked us to shut down the Site Finder service." (NB: It was not a request; it was a "demand" (direct ICANN quote). VeriSign also requested three additional days to complete the shutdown, a request ICANN denied.) An article in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33212.html) notes in response to VeriSign's comments: "Somewhat rich considering VeriSign introduced SiteFinder without consulting a soul." I have three words for my part: "Pot. Kettle. Black." Best regards, --Ian R. Justman, network and system administrator by trade, computing and Internet enthusiast by hobby. ----- Ian R. Justman ianj@xxxxxxxxx (Official EsperNet business) Co-Founder and Postmaster, The EsperNet IRC Network Server Administrator, chocobo.esper.net "IJ" on IRC PGP/GPG keys available upon request, or from any PGP keyserver. |