[wildcard-comments] Sitefinder Problems

[Matthew Mercieca <mercieca@xxxxxxx>]

To whom it may concern,

When developing internet applications I rely on error codes to provide
useful information.  Since I can't go to the user's home and offer
personal support I must design my applications to handle error cases in
a way that can offer the end user some assistance.   Verisign's
Sitefinder interferes directly with that kind of programming.

By wildcarding mistyped domain names a "host not found" error becomes
one of many "service not available" errors.  If Verisign decides to run
services on the destination of wildcard addresses then an inappropriate
connection could be established.  Even if I could sort out the previous
error cases there is no way I can pragmatically account for that.

Verisign could cost companies millions of dollars should it restart its
Sitefinder hijacking.  

Thank you for hearing my comments.