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

[Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>]

--On Thursday, October 23, 2003 06:40:16 PM -0400 Andrew Newton <anewton@verisignlabs.com> wrote:

> Owen DeLong wrote:
> > Sure... The nature is that my customer complaints from wildcards in other
> > domains is 0.  The number from the .com/.net wildcards exceeded 50 per day
> > for most of the duration.  If I get more than one customer complaint per
> > month from a CHANGE in the behavior of a TLD, then I'm going to be upset
> > with the operator of said TLD. As such, I am more than VERY upset with
> > Verisign.
> >
> > However, that's not a real valid way to approach this, it's just more
> > annecdotal evidence of the need.
>
> Actually, it is very helpful to us.  We would very much like to know what type of customers you are dealing with and the specific nature of their complaints.
Mostly: IRRATE

And mostly it's been along the lines of "How come you fucking idiots broke
the internet and <insert previously documented consequence here>?!?!?"


> > The real issue and reason that .com and .net are different from .museum
> > is that .museum is a "sponsored" domain with a clear owner and a clear
> > constituency that agreed that wildcards were an acceptable and good idea
> > for that TLD.  It serves a very different purpose than .com and .net.
> > I suspect that if you were to approach the community about wildcarding
> > .org or .edu, you'd get similar responses.  Frankly, the only reason I
> > can think of that noone has objected to this in .us is that we just
> > didn't notice the change because not very many people actually use
> > the .us domain in URLs that they type.
>
> I believe this to be a political opinion.  Unless your network cannot receive mail from machines with these TLD's and unless your machines are incapable of making HTTP requests to domains in the these TLD's, their wildcards have the same effects as the one in com/net.  The DNS protocol doesn't behave differently for "sponsored" domains.
>
> -andy

No.  The USER expected behavior of those domains is different from the USER
expected behavior of .com and .net.  I would object just as vigorously to
such records in .org and .edu.  Had I known about it when it was introduced,
I would have objected to them in .US.  The IMPACT of breaking USER EXPECTATIONS
_IS_ an operational concern, whether you consider it technical or political.
When a wildcard screws up mail delivery from me to .MUSEUM, for example, it
annoys perhaps 1 to 5 of my users per year and does not create a significant
burden on my mail spool.  When it screws up mail delivery to all of .com and
.net, the problem has much bigger scale and a much more serious operational
impact.

Mail is just one example.  USERS expect "Could not resolve host name" or
"No such host" or some other message which most of my software returns in
response to RCODE 3.  Their expectation is broken by wildcards regardless
of where they are, and, I am technically opposed to them everywhere.  However,
there is no serious impact from them in .MUSEUM and similar domains.  There
is HUGE impact from them in .com and .net.  If that makes it political instead
of technical, fine... I will stop trying to accept the wildcards in the other
domains and say this:

       ALL TLD WILDCARDS ARE BAD.  Having them in certain domains does not
       justify expanding this error to other domains.  I have not previously
       objected to them in other domains because I did not experience personal
       or business pain from them and, frankly, hadn't noticed them.  Using
       their painless existance in one place to justify expanding them to
       somewhere else is of similar intelligence to saying "I'm not personally
       feeling pain from the DC sniper, so, perhaps other cities should have
       snipers too."  Fortunately, law enforcement was smarter than that
       in this case.

If you require a consistent position to consider this a technical discussion,
then I consistently feel that wildcards are bad.  Since wildcards in these
smaller less relevant (to my operational experience) domains haven't caused
operational problems, it is not worth my effort to combat them.  Their result
in .com and .net is worth my effort.

Owen

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