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Topic: Verisign disrupts Internet

Harry
Stormwind City Guard
Member # 265

posted

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/09/16/0034210.shtml?tid=126&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99

How One Big Company can basically destroy the entire Internet. From today (or actually yesterday), ALL unregistered .com and .net domains will resolve to Verisign.

This means that a lot of search engines and spamfilters will be disrupted, since they both use the non-existance of domains.

Even worse, every single typo in a .com/.net address will result in Verisign making money from it's advertisements on their "Site Finder". And even worser than that, by mistyping a domain, you WILL enter into a legal deal with Verisign, as per their Terms of Use.

Now, both Slashdotters and Metafilterers have already sent umpteen mails to [email protected]. I hope that the ICANN is smart enough to ban such monopolistic, evil abuse of domain names.

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Titan Fleet Yards | Memory Alpha

Registered: Dec 1999 | IP: Logged

Nim
The Aardvark asked for a dagger
Member # 205

posted

That is so disgusting. Getting money for people's misspelling.

We're lucky the internet doesn't have that many bad spellers around.
No, wait...

Well, I'm never typing any url from memory again. Hello shortcuts!

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"I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!"
Mel Gibson, X-Men

Registered: Aug 1999 | IP: Logged

Lee
I'm a spy now. Spies are cool.
Member # 393

posted

So, should internet advertising be banned? I'm sick of pop-ups and audiovisual banners, whenever I visited the IMDb I'd be inundated with loud quacking noises from some banner or other. It'd mean the end of Tripod, Angelfire and Geocities-type websites, but then how many of those have you ever seen that were worth a damn? Problem is, sites like IMDb would suffer as well. . .

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Never mind the Phlox - Here's the Phase Pistols

Registered: Jul 2000 | IP: Logged

MinutiaeMan
Living the Geeky Dream
Member # 444

posted

Not to mention some of the more non-commercial sites that are trying to cover some of their operating fees -- sites like TrekToday.

But yeah, I think that anyone who sells internet advertising should die. That includes the "ownership" of unpurchased domain names. How can that be legal, anyway? They're not the sole owner of the Internet...

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“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha

Registered: Nov 2000 | IP: Logged

Nim
The Aardvark asked for a dagger
Member # 205

posted

Send Max Payne into the VeriSign skyscraper, he'll sort'em out. Ha ha ha, ka-BOOM!!

Registered: Aug 1999 | IP: Logged

Harry
Stormwind City Guard
Member # 265

posted

I'm not that opposed to normal banners. Most people have developed 'banner blindness' anyway.

But what Verisign is doing...it's taken over ALL unregistered .com/.net domains, and making money of it!

I'm sure there must be a rule somewhere that you can't make money with stuff that isn't yours. They've simply stolen every domain-name.

And another REALLY REALLY REALLY EVIL side-effect of this...
If you mistype an email address, your mail WILL end up with Verisign. I think this is nothing more than grave violation of privacy laws.

Oh, and a nice tidbit from their Terms of Use, which you automatically agree on when you MAKE A FUCKING TYPO.

quote:
"We use third-party companies to serve paid and unpaid search results and other content to our Site Finder. In the course of serving these results, these companies may place or recognize a cookie on your browser, and may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to serve content to our site..."

(and BTW, under the Patriot's Act, the US Government has access to all those nice little details)

So either this is a very aggresive way of promoting good spelling, or a highly suspect way of making money and disrupting the net.

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Titan Fleet Yards | Memory Alpha

Registered: Dec 1999 | IP: Logged

Jason Abbadon
Rolls with the punches.
Member # 882

posted

SpyBot Search and Destroy.

It's free and kills all that shit.

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Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
-Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Registered: Aug 2002 | IP: Logged

Mountain Man
Ex-Member

posted

Spybots good but you should also get "SpyBlaster" It is also freeware and does alot better job at immunizing your PC. Also you do not have to make a typo to be affected by the problem. The local infrastructure has been compromised by massive storm damage. My conections have gone down a hundred times a day. Thats one reason I can't edit my post properly. Even using search engines and linking though favorites and history I'm often redirected to the pages mentioned. Less often since I installed backup programs to all my protections.

IP: Logged

MinutiaeMan
Living the Geeky Dream
Member # 444

posted

You could also possibly program your browser to block information from certain IP addresses... assuming that you can isolate the location(s) of Verisign's servers handling the "unregistered domain" pages. Not sure how possible that is without some relatively difficult coding...

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“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha

Registered: Nov 2000 | IP: Logged

Sol System
two dollar pistol
Member # 30

posted

I didn't like the phrasing of my post the first time, so take number two:

My undergraduate thesis is likely going to have something to do with the phenomenology(1) of the OS environment, and the issues that come up when it is modified by, for instance, pop-up ads.

1.) Meaningless jargon.(2)
2.) Well, OK: http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/phenom.htm

I was kind of hoping to find a more impartial description. Oh well.

[ September 16, 2003, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: Sol System ]

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

Harry
Stormwind City Guard
Member # 265

posted

Hehe. I sent a mail to Verisign asking how to disable their service:

quote:
Dear Mr. Doddema,

Thank you for contacting Network Solutions.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Site Finder is a new service offered by the VeriSign Global Registry. For more information or further assistance please contact VeriSign at [email protected].

Please know that your inquiry is important to us, and
we value your business.

Best regards,

Luis002
Web Site Support
mailto:[email protected]
Network Solutions
http://www.networksolutions.com

--- Original Message ---
From: Harry Doddema
Received: 09/16/2003 07:33am Central Standard Time (GMT - 5:00 )
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mis-spelled domain names

Dear Sir/Madam

I recently found out that if I mis-type a domain name, I get redirected
to the "Verisign Site Finder" service. Is there any way to disable this?

It disturbs my browsing, since it changes the URL in the address-bar.
Why did you give me this 'service'? I didn't ask for it, and I do not
wish to use it. How do I disable it and get the normal "page not found"
errors back?

--
Harry Doddema

I'll forward it to that other address, and see what comes from this. I mean.. just out of common sense, if I don't want a service, I should be able to not use it, right?

Registered: Dec 1999 | IP: Logged

MinutiaeMan
Living the Geeky Dream
Member # 444

posted

Well, it seems that the Internet Software Corporation, the nonprofit group that makes some of the foundational Web software like BIND, has already come out with a patch. Unfortunately, this is something that our ISPs need to install, and probably not something we can do ourselves. No hint yet (that I've found) of something we can do to our individual browsers...

I'm sending an e-mail right away to my University, asking them to disable this "feature."

Just because I was curious, though, I did try the feature out by mistyping a couple of URLs. The first one I got, by simply leaving a letter out (with "startrkrenaissance.com") did point me to the proper location. However, if you seriously misspell a word, it seems much less likely to come up with the intended result. (I guess that's what I deserve for putting a less-well-known word like "minutiae" in my URL!) Just like any spell checker, this "service" appears generally useless for most situations unless someone already knows what they're trying to spell. If they totally foul up the wording, then it ain't gonna work.

Therefore, this new VeriSign program provides no real benefit to Web surfers; it's simply a way to put their advertisements in front of you and get themselves some extra cash. Just like everyone said from the outset, I know, but I don't see any real use of this thing at all!

EDIT: I also found the actual page where you can download the patch from the ICS.

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“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov
Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha

Registered: Nov 2000 | IP: Logged

PsyLiam
Hungry for you
Member # 73

posted

I tried getting an address wrong, and I got the MSN Search page. In fact, I've had that for a while. When did that start appearing, eh?

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Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

The359
The bitch is back
Member # 37

posted

I believe that's an internet explorer thing. I'm not sure how to turn it off though.

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"Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."

-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

TSN
I'm... from Earth.
Member # 31

posted

If you're using Windows, go to the system directory and then \drivers\etc under that. There should be a file called "hosts" (no extension). First make a copy and call it "hosts.bak" or something, so you can recover if something goes wrong. Now, in the "hosts" file, add one of the following two lines:

0.0.0.0 sitefinder.verisign.com

or

127.0.0.1 sitefinder.verisign.com

My understanding is that some computers do better with 0.0.0.0 and some do better with 127.0.0.1. Basically, what this does is tell your browser that, when it tries to go to "sitefinder.verisign.com", it should skip looking up the DNS entry and just go to the IP address provided. Of course, this also means that, if you ever wanted to go to sitefinder.verisign.com, you wouldn't be able to. But what are the chances of that?

By the way, I'm not absolutely certain that hosts file will be located in the same directory on every version of Windows. You might be best off just doing a search for any file called "hosts". It should be under the Windows system directory somewhere.

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

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