That's OK, since unless you know what a whois listing is - like George was writing about - then none of it is applicable to you. And you won't know what a whois listing is unless you have registered a domain name - which most people never do. It's all just part of the arcania of the DNS system on the Internet.
Ted -----Original Message----- From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tomas Kuchta Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 5:33 PM To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PLUG] supplemental domain name I am reading your advise Ted - I must amit that I have no f.... idea what you are talking about. Perhaps I am not from the same gang to get your references and abbreviations. Just saying -T On Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 11:32 Ted Mittelstaedt <[email protected]> wrote: > At risk of SOUNDING insulting - which I am not - I'm being truthful - > and the truth is hard for some people - and I don't apologize for that > - this is only a problem for people who are amateurish enough to put a > cell phone or other personal telephone number on a domain name listing. > > I've had my real contact info - including telephone number - on > Portlandia-it.com ever since it was registered. The phone goes to my > Asterisk server which has the usual voice response unit (press 1 for > X press 2 for Y, etc.) > > No problems whatsoever with spam calls. > > If you are a personal individual setting up a domain name then that is > why the privacy stuff was created and your contact info is going to be " > [email protected]" with a phone number of 8675309 and > anyone seeing that is going to know what you are. Nothing wrong with that. > > The people with the complaints are the people who are individuals, and > small, who are trying to pass themselves off as being something they > are not. > > The problem isn't putting your real contact info on your whois record. > That is something you MUST do to pass yourself off as "looking like a > bigger company" if that is what your game is. The problem is if you are a > minnow pretending to be a whale - you need to go whole-hog and get the > PBX with the VRU and all the rest of it. > > That's what I did. And what I ended up getting sometimes was contacts > from would-be clients who were the ones looking for the larger whales > with the bureaucracy's that entire purpose of existence is to bow to > them and jack up their self esteem. They didn't want to hear the > truth about how technically impossible their idiotic demands were, > either, when I told it to them. That was fun, for a while. Then it sort of > got boring. > > It never ceases to amaze me how some people will pay 3x the money for > the same service they can get from a sole proprietorship as from a > larger regional organization just so they won't be "fired as a > customer" from the larger organization when they start acting like jerks. > > PLUG is a minnow. That's not bad. Minnows can do what the F they > want, and say what the F they want to anyone they want (even when the > truth is > inconvenient) and minnows don't have to pet and stroke people and be > politically correct so someone's nose does not go out of joint. > Therefore things will be easier for everyone to do what minnows do and > use the proxies and their 1-800-NOT-HEAR phone numbers on registrations. > > It's not like they can't go to the website and send an email! > > Ted > > -----Original Message----- > From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of George > Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 12:21 AM > To: Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PLUG] supplemental domain name > > Oh good. Pass that info around. It happened immediately. Scammers > scrape the db for names with address and phone numbers. -gbk > > On Wed, Jun 10, 2026, 12:18 AM Russell Senior <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > "whois linux.portland.or.us" has no data. > > > > "whois portland.or.us" leads to the org that delegated linux to us. > > > > On 6/10/26 00:12, George wrote: > > > Uh oh. .us does not allow for an anonymous whois identity listing. > > > You'll find a sharp increase in scammer telephone calls to the > > > number on the listing. I had to abandon my domain .us registration > > > and assign the name, address and phone number to one in Reykjavík. > > > The scammer calls stopped after about a week. > > > -gbk > > > > > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2026, 10:21 PM Russell Senior > > > <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > >> I mentioned this at the PLUG meeting last week, but I will > > >> mention it here as well. > > >> > > >> Through a series of shenanigans, we have recently come into the > > >> "possession" (or delegation, if you prefer) of the domain name: > > >> linux.portland.or.us. > > >> > > >> DNS is configured, the letsencrypt certificate is configured, and > > >> the website is configured to use either: > > >> > > >> pdxlinux.org > > >> www.pdxlinux.org > > >> linux.portland.or.us > > >> www.linux.portland.or.us > > >> > > >> And, at least for me, it seems to work. This is intended for now, > > >> to be a fun experiment. Email is not configured for the new > > >> domain > yet. > > >> > > >> Let me know if you notice anything wonky. > > >> > > >> -- > > >> Russell Senior > > >> PLUG Volunteer > > >> [email protected] > > >> > > > > > >
