Re: [sitefinder-tech-discuss] Pseudo code please

[Brian Bruns <bruns@2mbit.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Newton" <anewton@verisignlabs.com>
To: "Kee Hinckley" <nazgul@somewhere.com>
Cc: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>;
<sitefinder-tech-discuss@lists.elistx.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: [sitefinder-tech-discuss] Pseudo code please


> Kee Hinckley wrote:
> >>
> >> So your applications have hardcoded behaviour specific to .com and
.net?
> >
> >
> > Of course.  Why do you think everyone's screaming about the cost of your
> > change?  And if we don't clean up this situation, they'll have to have
> > hardcoded behavior specific to other TLDs as well.  That's what
> > wildcards do--they introduce registry-specific policy that has to be
> > dealt with on an application-by-application basis.
>
> To be clear:  you have internal applications that have one code path for
> .com and .net and a separate code path for .biz, .edu, etc...?  This
> raises a bunch of questions:  Not that it happens all that often, but
> what do you do when new TLD's come on-line?  And where are you getting
> your spec on the TLD structure?  What are you doing for the ccTLD's?
>
> > One of the problems is that a wildcard introduces new policy into
> > something that was previously assumed to be purely technical. VeriSign's
> > A record wildcard policy is that it provides a web site and a fake mail
> > server.  Another registry might have a completely different service they
> > make available.  How is a web browser supposed to know which is the
> > case?  Another problem is that wildcards have side effects.  VeriSign
> > incorrectly assumed that A records were used solely in order to connect
> > to the machine in question.  Therefore they assumed that if they
> > disallowed connections on other services, everything would be fine.
> > That's not true.  A records are also used to determine existence.  Sure,
> > the spec doesn't require that it work. But how many of the tens of
> > thousands of people who have written code that calls gethostbyname do
> > you think knew that?
>
> You'll get no argument here.  There do no appear to be guidelines for
> this.  However, VeriSign would be willing to participate in their
creation.
>
> -andy
>
>
>
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