Re: [sitefinder-tech-discuss] Technical issues encountered by a k 12

[Kee Hinckley <nazgul@somewhere.com>]

At 2:25 PM -0700 10/16/03, bmanning@karoshi.com wrote:
>  > >  > > http://sitefinder.verisign.com/pdf/sitefinderdevguide.pdf
> >  Is that document available somewhere else?  Either someone upstream
> >  of me has null-routed packets from that machine, or it's not
> >  responding to HTTP requests.  I send, but nothing comes back.
> >  --
> >  Kee Hinckley
>
>
> 	dual-standards :(   its ok for some ISPs to mess w/ your mind,
> 	null-route your packets, lie to you about what is really in the
> 	DNS - but not ok for others?

Absolutely.  My ISP owns their network.  If they don't do the right 
thing with it, I can leave.  Verisign is a temporary contractor and a 
sole source  provider.  For both reasons they have a much higher 
standard to meet.

Anyway, I downloaded the document from elsewhere.  It can be summed 
up in the final sentence, which basically says--"If we add a 
wildcard, and it breaks your code, you have to fix it."  Despite the 
name, it provides no actual information on how to do that.

I should mention here, my beef with wildcards is not specific to 
Verisign.  They just made the unfortunate move of making the problem 
obvious to everyone.

Consider the logic that we discussed earlier.

I get mail from a domain.  I do an NS lookup, it returns empty, I 
assume that the domain is invalid.  That doesn't work for .name does 
it?

TLD wildcards are a *very* bad idea.  The reason is simple.  This 
isn't a piece of code I can write once and forget about.  This is a 
piece of code that has to change every time a registry changes it's 
policies, every time a TLD changes contractors, every time a new TLD 
is added! If any of you remember the joys of time zones under Unix 
before NTP and table-driven logic, you'll know what I'm talking about.
--
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/         Next Generation Spam Defense
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/  Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

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