[wildcard-comments] Terminate Verisign's contract

["Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Trying to put "value-added" end-user services at the heart of a
fundamental low-level Internet protocol is a gross abuse of Internet
design principals.  The Internet provides end-to-end connectivity, and
core service providers should not be adding processing of their own.

If end-users want to be redirected to a search facility when they address
a nonexistent page, that should be accomplished by their browser
application, not by perverting the implementation of DNS.

Verisign has found a small loophole in a technical specification through
which they are now attempting to drive their truck, benefitting their own
commercial purposes at the expense of the Internet community which
they have contracted to serve.

Now they have conducted their own one-sided review of their own operations
and, surprise, surprise, they do not agree with the rest of the Internet
engineering community.

While Sitefinder was in operation it _did_ destablize the Internet.  Now
Verisign proposes to put it back in operation and slap bandaid kludges
over those specific problems with specific protocols (e.g. email) for
which there are wheels that squeak loudly enough to get grease.

This is bad engineering, and allowing Verisign to get away with this is
bad policy.

If ICANN does not discipline Verisign firmly and immediately the future of
the Internet is in jeopardy.

Daniel P. B. Smith
dpbsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx