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

[Jeff McAdams <jeffm@iglou.com>]

Andrew Newton 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. 

And with these two sentences, you demonstrate, clearly, that you (Andy), 
and you (Verisign) "don't get it."

Wildcards in .com/.net are a "Bad Idea."  Absolutely.  Period.  Full 
stop.  When technically knowledgeable people were surveyed about this, 
basically *EVERYONE* thought it was a bad idea.  Not only that, but most 
everyone not only thought it was a bad idea, but were absolutely 
*pissed* at Verisign about it.

Among non-technically knowledgeable people, once it was explained to 
them what wildcards in DNS did, virtually everyone, again, thought it 
was a bad idea.

Wilcards in .com/.net are such a collosally bad idea, that, we shouldn't 
even be needing to have this discussion.  Wildcards in .com/.net are 
such a collosally bad idea, that, were I in your position, I would have 
tendered my resignation before I took on your role as being Verisigns 
voice on this list.  Wildcards in .com/.net are such a collosally bad 
idea that you should be embarrased to even be suggesting that there can 
be a way to do it "correctly."

Just don't do it, Andy.  Tell your higher-ups the truth...that 
re-instituting wildcards in .com/.net is likely to bring some 
significant legal liability, and is *CERTAIN* to bring about *massive* 
techie hostility.  Understand that such an outcome is a *really* bad idea.

>>The real issue and reason that .com and .net are different from .museum

> 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.

While its true that the wildcards have the same *type* of effect, Owen 
is absolutely correct in saying that wildcards in .com/.net have much 
*worse* effect, due to their ubiquity, history, and user expectation.

I would also point out that you have, once again, as Verisign seems to 
wantonly do recently, reduced "the Internet" to the World Wide Web and 
E-mail.

--
Jeff McAdams
"He who laughs last, thinks slowest." -- anonymous

Attachment: pgpi2uSMP6i8q.pgp
Description: PGP signature