Re: Verisign's public opinion play (fwd)
Forwarding by request. Please direct replies to John Fraizer. Forwarded Message Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2003 11:41 AM -0400 From: John Fraizer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Owen DeLong [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Brian Bruns [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Verisign's public opinion play Owen, et all: I wrote a piece as soon as I read McLaughlin's PR spewage. I sent it to the addresses I could find at cnet but, I have not geard from them. PS: Owen, I don't have NANOG-post access. Can you echo this to the list for me? Dear Editor, In response to the article presented by Mark McLaughlin on October 6, 2003 at CNET.News.Com, Innovation and the Internet, I would like to present the following rebuttal. McLaughlin states when a user mistypes a URL and are presented with an error, That error page can lead to a dead end, with no options on how to get to where you tried to go. I guess we should thank our lucky stars that VeriSign is there to save us from ourselves. After all, none of us are resourceful enough to actually look at the URL we typed and notice that we have made a typo. In the event that we are unsure of the exact domain name, none of us are resourceful enough to consult Google, Yahoo or any one of the numerous other search engines. We will simply sit and stare at the error page and our personal productivity will suddenly screech to a halt. VeriSign to the rescue, right? Not quite. McLaughlin states that someone typos a domain name 20 million times per day and that people have used [Site Finder] more than 40 million times. VeriSign deployed Site Finder on September 15th 2003, and subsequently bowed to overwhelming public pressure to remove the wildcard entries in the .COM and .NET DNS Zones that facilitated their directing lost users to their Site Finder service on October 4th, 2003. So, according to McLaughlin's own numbers, over the 20-days that Site Finder was in service, of the 400 million typos that VeriSign redirected to its Site Finder service, only 10% of those who were redirected made use of the service. It would seem to me that this would indicate that 90% of the users do not find the Site Finder service as useful. McLaughlin goes on to say, ICANN cast a vote last week for the status quo by forcing VeriSign to shut down the service. This is an inaccurate claim and is obviously worded to incite the public perception that ICANN has forced VeriSign to shut their Site Finder service down. Nothing could be further from the truth. ICANN demanded that VeriSign remove the wildcard records from the .COM and .NET DNS Zone files. The Site Finder service is still operational at http://sitefinder.verisign.com/ and any person who desires to use that service can do so by simply typing that URL into their browser. The difference is that users are not being FORCED to use the Site Finder service. This brings us to a very important point - one that VeriSign, with much help from the press, has gone to great lengths to obfuscate. Wildcard records in the .COM and .NET DNS Zones are NOT the Site Finder service. The wildcard records in question were implemented in the following form: *INA [IP address of Site Finder service] ICANN did not demand that VeriSign shut down it's Site Finder service. They simply demanded that VeriSign remove the wildcard records from the .COM and .NET TLD DNS Zones. In operation, the existence of this record in the .COM and .NET DNS Zones would cause any typo in the domain portion of a fully qualified domain name to be redirected to an IP address operated by VeriSign on which they had implemented their Site Finder service. This hijacking of typos has many security, privacy and interoperability implications, all of which VeriSign have failed to address in a satisfactory manner. (1) The Site Finder service is subject to man-in-the-middle type attacks in which traffic to/from Site Finder can be intercepted. For a person using a web browser, this will expose information about the site(s) they are attempting to access. In the case of email, the entire contents of an email message may be captured by a third party. This email may very well contain sensitive information that has now been compromised. Prior to the implementation of wildcard records in the .COM and .NET DNS Zones by VeriSign, a simple typo in an email or URL did not expose users to this very probable and easy to implement attack. (2) Anthony F. Lo Cicero, Esq., on behalf of Register.com, outlined several interoperability implications in his letter to Brian Davis, Esq., Chief Litigation Counsel, VeriSign, Inc., dated September 19, 2003. Lo Cicero states, As VeriSign is well aware, many registrars, including Register.com have long-established business practices of disabling the DNS of recently-expired domain names, as a means of notifying the customers of their need to renew their registrations
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
Well, I donno about anyone else, but I absolutely suck on the PR end of things. Now, I *am* good at writing documentation for end users (I used to work helldesk). So, my question is, is there any place on the web where we can go, see whats been written up so far, find out what still needs to be written, and get people to fill in the blanks? I know personally I would love to put out a paper, but I have no idea where to begin. -- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511 - Original Message - From: Owen DeLong [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brian Bruns [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 2:00 AM Subject: Re: Verisign's public opinion play I wish it were lack of clue. This is something far more evil than lack of clue, and, the bottom line is that these guys are much better at PR than most of us. Since they can't win on engineering, because they are wrong, they are trying to make it a PR battle instead. They are having some success. We _MUST_ fight this as a PR battle. We _MUST_ write courteous, prompt, and, factual replies to these publications. The more people who do that, the better our side will look. We must point out where Verisign is lying, and, we must concede where they are not. We must clarify where their technically accurate statements lead to wildly inaccurate perceptions. Owen --On Monday, October 6, 2003 23:15 -0400 Brian Bruns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wish someone who was good with the clue-axe would take a swing at these dolts. We all know they are crying babies because their new method of profit was shut down. Now, the interesting question will be, how can we prevent them from adding sitefinder again? -- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511 - Original Message - From: Kee Hinckley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 11:12 PM Subject: Verisign's public opinion play Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:24:08PM -0700, Steve Feldman wrote: On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:41:14PM -0400, Mike Tancsa wrote: The one that pisses me off more is http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top From the bottom of those CNET articles: Contact us: http://news.com.com/2040-1096_3-0.html Couldn't hurt to try... Also, Declan's articles on Sept. 16 was most definitely not a Verisign press release, see: http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5077530.html?tag=st_rn Maybe he would be willing to help draft (or at least edit) a response from the community at large. I do agree with other posters that a response is in order, and I think it's important that it's concise, reasonable, well written, and focuses on the main issues at hand. While this list is not the place to create such a response, I imagine someone could throw together an open list to create one. It's true that the majority of the people on this list are not PR or marketing people, and that's why it's important that we respond, and respond in a way that's easy for the general public to understand. It might also be a good idea to try to get some opinions from non-technical people; most of the non-technical people I've spoken to also find SiteFinder annoying and / or confusing. -- Since when is skepticism un-American? Dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same... (Sleater-Kinney - Combat Rock)
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. This is certainly an issue requiring coordination, and, the results of this PR battle definitely have strong operational ramifications. As such, I believe it EXACTLY fits the charter of this list, while, being a bit outside it's traditional subject matter. Owen --On Monday, October 6, 2003 23:46 -0700 Will Yardley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:24:08PM -0700, Steve Feldman wrote: On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:41:14PM -0400, Mike Tancsa wrote: The one that pisses me off more is http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top From the bottom of those CNET articles: Contact us: http://news.com.com/2040-1096_3-0.html Couldn't hurt to try... Also, Declan's articles on Sept. 16 was most definitely not a Verisign press release, see: http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5077530.html?tag=st_rn Maybe he would be willing to help draft (or at least edit) a response from the community at large. I do agree with other posters that a response is in order, and I think it's important that it's concise, reasonable, well written, and focuses on the main issues at hand. While this list is not the place to create such a response, I imagine someone could throw together an open list to create one. It's true that the majority of the people on this list are not PR or marketing people, and that's why it's important that we respond, and respond in a way that's easy for the general public to understand. It might also be a good idea to try to get some opinions from non-technical people; most of the non-technical people I've spoken to also find SiteFinder annoying and / or confusing. -- Since when is skepticism un-American? Dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same... (Sleater-Kinney - Combat Rock)
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
I know personally I would love to put out a paper, but I have no idea where to begin. If you don't have the time to write a paper then sit down and write a case study about your own experiences that could be published in a trade magazine or your local newspaper. Submit it to your favorite publications, then if none of them print it, resubmit it as a letter to the editor. In general, a case study is easier to write up that a paper and it can be used later as raw material by people who are doing research for a more detailed paper. --Michael Dillon
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. Are you being paid by Verisign? A constructed response is the worst thing we could do. Everyone should write their own responses in their own words based on their own experiences or their own skills and knowledge. That's the only way to demonstrate that Verisign was wrong, wrong, wrong. A constructed response is pure politics and only demonstrates that a certain opinion is shared by a bunch of people with no basis in fact. We don't need to trumpet our opinions; we need to document and publish the facts of the matter. And this list is definitely not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. If political activity is your bag, then try http://www.meetup.com --Michael Dillon
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
Innovation and the Internet http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html is about 12 hours old on google news -HenryBrian Bruns [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, I donno about anyone else, but I absolutely suck on the PR end ofthings.Now, I *am* good at writing documentation for end users (I used to workhelldesk).So, my question is, is there any place on the web where we can go, see whatsbeen written up so far, find out what still needs to be written, and getpeople to fill in the blanks?I know personally I would love to put out a paper, but I have no idea whereto begin.--Brian BrunsThe Summit Open Source Development GroupOpen Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resourceshttp://www.2mbit.comICQ: 8077511- Original Message - From: "Owen DeLong" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "Brian Bruns" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 2:00 AMSubject: Re: Verisign's public opinion play I wish it were lack of clue. This is something far more evil than lack of clue, and, the bottom line is that these guys are much better at PR than most of us. Since they can't win on engineering, because they are wrong, they are trying to make it a PR battle instead. They are having some success. We _MUST_ fight this as a PR battle. We _MUST_ write courteous, prompt, and, factual replies to these publications. The more people who do that, the better our side will look. We must point out where Verisign is lying, and, we must concede where they are not. We must clarify where their technically accurate statements lead to wildly inaccurate perceptions. Owen --On Monday, October 6, 2003 23:15 -0400 Brian Bruns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Wish someone who was good with the clue-axe would take a swing at these dolts. We all know they are crying babies because their new method of profitwas shut down. Now, the interesting question will be, how can we prevent them fromadding sitefinder again?-- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511 - Original Message - From: "Kee Hinckley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 11:12 PM Subject: Verisign's public opinion play Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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 toaccept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 10:27 AM +0100 10/7/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. Are you being paid by Verisign? A disclaimer seems appropriate -- right now, I'm being only occasionally paid for consulting by clients not having anything to do with Verisign. A constructed response is the worst thing we could do. Everyone should write their own responses in their own words based on their own experiences or their own skills and knowledge. That's the only way to demonstrate that Verisign was wrong, wrong, wrong. A constructed response is pure politics and only demonstrates that a certain opinion is shared by a bunch of people with no basis in fact. We don't need to trumpet our opinions; we need to document and publish the facts of the matter. And this list is definitely not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. If political activity is your bag, then try http://www.meetup.com Writing a constructed response, I would agree, should either come through an already existing group (e.g., IETF/IAB), or from an ad hoc organization, which, in this context, MUST have a truly open process. That being said, writing something, even as an individual, which strikes the interest of news media is not necessarily a skill everyone here has. I do have some background in this, and would be happy to work with a team, and with individuals to the extent my time permits. It's important to get this out of a perspective of regulator versus poor persecuted Verisign. versus technically perfect analyses, a product of an open process, that are incomprehensible or at least uninteresting to a nonspecialist reporter, Congressional staffer, etc. When you start to write anything, may I suggest one of the things you have to keep at the front of your mind is that many of your audience, outside the engineering community, equate the Web and the Internet. This isn't stupidity, it's lack of knowledge. They have to realize that an ISP can be the point of access to non-public yet critical services, such as being the entry point for VPNs for anything from credit authorization to secure medical reporting. I hope to get to at least part of the ICANN meeting -- unfortunately, I had an uncomfortable night -- both a cat circus on the bed and using some unfamiliar muscles yesterday and resulting in a painful back -- so I'm now running on 3-4 hours of sleep. Ah, for the days when the Internet was young and I could get by with that much sleep...;-)
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 8:13 AM -0400 10/7/03, Kee Hinckley wrote: At 10:27 AM +0100 10/7/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. Are you being paid by Verisign? A constructed response is the worst thing we could do. Everyone should write their own responses in their own words based on their own experiences or their own skills and knowledge. That's the only way to demonstrate that Verisign was wrong, wrong, wrong. I have to disagree. Verisign is playing this game with considerable political savvy. Disparate responses of varying quality do not get the media's attention, and they play right into Verisign's hands, because they have characterized this as a dispute between a respectable, secure and reliable company against a bunch of scattered techies. I don't think that sending those letters and writing those articles does any harm per se, however I think the focus should be in providing technical *and marketing* ammunition to ICANN and focusing our defense there. A single organization pushing a message over and over is more likely to get press attention. Note also that we are at a considerable disadvantage in that our discussions of what approach to take our taking place in public forums (Hi, Verisign). Nothing like advance warning. True. But even if it gives some warning to Verisign, the very openness of the process contrasts with the way they did things -- and, if made clear, could be newsworthy. Individuals speaking to the press, Congress, Homeland Security, etc., need not give early warning. The other thing I think would help is to paint the picture in terms that the general public can understand. Verisign can do this because the benefit is something that web users understand. Type something wrong--get a search page. Most of the drawbacks are much more technical. I have an idea in this space, I'll post it later today. The other thing we should focus on is process. Verisign is claiming that we fight innovation and commercialization of the internet (pretty wacko, given the business we are in). The fact of the matter is that there are established procedures for innovating the core technology of the internet, and they didn't follow them. We need to push the fact that they didn't just break the internet, they broke the rules, and this innocent company being held back by techies ploy is a bunch of garbage. Exactly. The most fundamental problem of education here is that the Internet is more than the Web, even for nontechnical users. I'm certainly not privy to Verisign's business plans, but Sitefinder seems to have an inherent assumption that Web browsing is all anyone wants to do. Even staying with the Web, there may well be ways the Verisign-style TLD wildcard could carry supplemental information that doesn't break existing software but could carry optional redirection information that could work with such things as content distribution or failover, yet not break anything. I freely admit that I am not a DNS designer but have an operational-level understanding; if I do make design claims, it's in routing and closely related management. I do have a few thoughts. Perhaps a lifetime supply of Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept T-shirts might be commissioned by Verisign. I'm not sure if it helps in this argument to rehash all the other problems with Verisign (like, how they managed to take the guaranteed cash cow of domain registration and manage it so insecurely and with such poor customer service that we all ran quickly to other registrars). Certainly it would be good to counter their public image, but it probably should be done separately from this issue. -- :-) there WAS a cash cow in an old Nortel commercial; maybe we should see if, like myself, she's an ex-Nortel employee that could join the effort. Ah, corporate speak...I wasn't laid off, or even downsized or rightsized. My boss (a great person) sadly call me to tell me, in Approved Nortelspeak, that I had been optimized. Great flashback to George Orwell.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: At 10:27 AM +0100 10/7/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And this list is definitely not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. If political activity is your bag, then try http://www.meetup.com Mr. Dillon forgets that all inter-human activity, including operational coordination, is a political activity. Individual responses are less likely to garner attention than organized responses. It's a fact of life. And the central theme of many pamphlets on organizing. Writing a constructed response, I would agree, should either come through an already existing group (e.g., IETF/IAB), or from an ad hoc organization, which, in this context, MUST have a truly open process. The IETF and NANOG were both originally designed as ad hoc, come and participate, organizations. The Internet itself could be considered an ad hoc organization. I don't see the need for another such organization at this time and place. That being said, writing something, even as an individual, which strikes the interest of news media is not necessarily a skill everyone here has. I do have some background in this, and would be happy to work with a team, and with individuals to the extent my time permits. I have some background in this as well, going back to organizing for the original NSFnet funding, and would be willing to assist Mr. Berkowitz in this endeavor. I hope to get to at least part of the ICANN meeting ... We need a raporteur to inform us how the ICANN meeting goes. Please? -- William Allen Simpson Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 10:59 AM -0400 10/7/03, William Allen Simpson wrote: Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: I hope to get to at least part of the ICANN meeting I think I'll have myself organized enough to get there for the afternoon part of the meeting. Wish they had said if there was a working lunch. In the interest of good sleep for the members of NANOG, if you buy Sears' otherwise very nice 6-gallon 2 hose shop-vac, be aware that a cat jumping on top of it will turn it on. Said cat and his/her associates immediately conclude it is a dangerous carnivore, and rush at high speed across my occupied bed. Thinking about Verisign, while dealing, in the middle of the night, with both a tongue bath from a cat seeking reassurance, as well as a backache from an overly aggressive attack on my lawn, does not make for being well rested. Has anyone been able to get the RealVideo stream from the meeting? I can't seem to connect.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
--On Tuesday, October 7, 2003 10:27 AM +0100 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. Are you being paid by Verisign? Absolutely not. In fact, I would be almost as glad to see Verisign disappear as Micr0$0ft. Lately, I'm beginning to wonder which of the two is worse. A constructed response is the worst thing we could do. Everyone should write their own responses in their own words based on their own experiences or their own skills and knowledge. That's the only way to demonstrate that Verisign was wrong, wrong, wrong. We have different meanings of that term. I think that there is value in everyone writing their own response, too. However, I do think that if we could generate a joint statement of position and get that into the right channels, it would carry some additional weight. In order to do that, it would need to explain the issues and the facts in a way that Joe and Mary household user could understand. Right now, there is a fair amount of perception that we are reactionary whiners and that we're only upset because Verisign makes money off of this. A constructed response is pure politics and only demonstrates that a certain opinion is shared by a bunch of people with no basis in fact. We don't need to trumpet our opinions; we need to document and publish the facts of the matter. A joint position statement is partially politics. However, right now, this is a political game with operational ramifications. Serious operational ramifications far beyond the effects of the wildcards. We need to document and publish the facts and show that those facts justify our opinions. We need to do it in such a way that others come to share those opinions. And this list is definitely not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. If political activity is your bag, then try http://www.meetup.com On this we must agree to disagree. It's not the first time, Michael. I agree that this list is generally not the place to discuss writing a letter of protest. However, I'm not talking about writing a letter of protest. While this activity is partly political, it is politics with operational impact. I'm not opposed to taking it to another list for development, but, I think whatever comes out should be brought back here for review before being launched at the press as a statement of community position. I think it should also be taken to other similar lists and probably reviewed by the relevant working group within IETF. Owen
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
we're only upset because Verisign makes money off of this. I'm sure that is a factor too. Verisign have a contract to operate a shared registry, as a monopoly is unreasonable, but hijack it to make a different service that nobody else gets to bid for running. If such a service were a feasible use of this public resource there'd be an open process to bid for running it and some of the rewards would go to public services in return for that lease brandon
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
On Tue, 7 Oct 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: At 10:27 AM +0100 10/7/03, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think this list may be a very good choice of where to construct such a response. Are you being paid by Verisign? A disclaimer seems appropriate -- right now, I'm being only occasionally paid for consulting by clients not having anything to do with Verisign. I worked for Network Solutions in the era that Mr. Berkowitz is talking about. My tenure 1984 - 1988 (or so, the memory grows dim). In this era NSI was just beyond a four man startup. It was a beltway bandit, or for the non Washington DC folk, a government contracting company. Its speciality was IBM mainframe data center management. The road from there to scourge of the internet is not worth traveling. Non of the principals, and few of the workers made that journey. _ Douglas Denault [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: 301-469-8766 Fax: 301-469-0601
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 10:00 AM -0700 10/7/03, Owen DeLong wrote: development, but, I think whatever comes out should be brought back here for review before being launched at the press as a statement of community position. I think it should also be taken to other similar lists and The recently posted LINX Letter to ICANN regarding Verisign was an excellent example of the kind of thing that might be done. -- 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.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:41:14PM -0400, Mike Tancsa wrote: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top The article makes me wonder if CNET is the press, or an outlet for press releases. The Internet community is almost uniform in expressing outrage for numerous REAL reasons, yet CNET says its from the Internet's technical old guard Sorry, so where is the new guard calling for Verisign to come back with sitefinder ? Also CNET leaves un challenged the 'excuse of the day' that Verisign without site finder will not be able to protect the Net's critical infrastructure... We've been covering the impact of SiteFinder since September 16. I didn't write that article (I was in transit from a conference in Canada) but I've written about five articles on SiteFinder so far, and I'll probably write another today based on the ICANN committee meeting. Taken as a whole, I hardly think our coverage of SiteFinder is an outlet for press releases from VeriSign or anyone else. Take a look at our first article from September 16: http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5077530.html Criticism is quickly growing over VeriSign's surprise decision to take control of all unassigned .com and .net domain names, a move that has wreaked havoc on many e-mail utilities and antispam filters. On Monday, VeriSign began to redirect domain lookups for misspelled or nonexistent names to its own site, a process that has confused Internet e-mail utilities and drawn angry denunciations of the company's business practices from frustrated network administrators. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company enjoys a government-granted monopoly as the master database administrator for .com and .net. That said, being a news organization (instead of an advocacy organization) means that we're going to try to represent all sides of the story. Just as we've given space to Jack Valenti, I suspect we'll give it to VeriSign when they have something sufficiently newsworthy to say. As always, feel free to email us at: send-letters-to-news at cnet.com I hope you continue to read News.com. Best, Declan CNET News.com Washington, DC (but speaking only for myself)
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 05:55 PM 07/10/2003, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 11:41:14PM -0400, Mike Tancsa wrote: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top The article makes me wonder if CNET is the press, or an outlet for press releases. The Internet community is almost uniform in expressing outrage for numerous REAL reasons, yet CNET says its from the Internet's technical old guard Sorry, so where is the new guard calling for Verisign to come back with sitefinder ? Also CNET leaves un challenged the 'excuse of the day' that Verisign without site finder will not be able to protect the Net's critical infrastructure... We've been covering the impact of SiteFinder since September 16. I didn't write that article (I was in transit from a conference in Canada) but I've written about five articles on SiteFinder so far, and I'll probably write another today based on the ICANN committee meeting. Hi, I think *your* articles are well done and are researched. However, I stand by my original criticism that this particular article was merely reporting one perspective on the issue in such as way as to make it appear as if it were a conduit for Verisign PR IMHO. The old guard label is a loaded term and smacks of judgement by your writer. Not quite calling it a fringe group or special interest group yet old guard vs the network operators who run the Internet certainly have different connotations. Similarly, this repeating of Verisign claim as fact that its a minority of people who disagree with sitefinder and how it was launched is particularly maddening. Sorry, is there some alt NANOG group out there secretly saying that gee, this site finder is great! Why didnt they do it before? Or perhaps on a-slashdot, or a-IAB ? I hope you continue to read News.com. I will continue to read your articles but in general my estimate of news.com has dropped significantly. ---Mike
Verisign's public opinion play
Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
Wish someone who was good with the clue-axe would take a swing at these dolts. We all know they are crying babies because their new method of profit was shut down. Now, the interesting question will be, how can we prevent them from adding sitefinder again? -- Brian Bruns The Summit Open Source Development Group Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources http://www.2mbit.com ICQ: 8077511 - Original Message - From: Kee Hinckley [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 11:12 PM Subject: Verisign's public opinion play Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
The one that pisses me off more is http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top The article makes me wonder if CNET is the press, or an outlet for press releases. The Internet community is almost uniform in expressing outrage for numerous REAL reasons, yet CNET says its from the Internet's technical old guard Sorry, so where is the new guard calling for Verisign to come back with sitefinder ? Also CNET leaves un challenged the 'excuse of the day' that Verisign without site finder will not be able to protect the Net's critical infrastructure... ---Mike At 11:12 PM 06/10/2003, Kee Hinckley wrote: Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
An entity claiming to be Mike Tancsa ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: : : : The one that pisses me off more is : : http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top : Here's an interesting slip: At the press conference Monday, VeriSign said it is convening a panel of Internet experts to evaluate the technical fallout from its change. Are they saying that they had neglected to evaluate the impact before they inserted the wildcard? Mark -- [] Mark 'Doc' Rogaski | Consistency requires you to be as [] [EMAIL PROTECTED]| ignorant today as you were a year ago. [] 1994 Suzuki GS500ER |-- Bernard Berenson [] 1975 Yamaha RD250B | pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
At 11:15 PM -0400 10/6/03, Brian Bruns wrote: Wish someone who was good with the clue-axe would take a swing at these dolts. We all know they are crying babies because their new method of profit was shut down. Now, the interesting question will be, how can we prevent them from adding sitefinder again? /* begin Karnak the Magnificent soothsaying Next, they will put an improvement into reverse DNS. Whenever there's no corresponding domain, it will take you to rednifetis.com. Baghdad Bob, fresh from there is no tank behind me, will be the new spokesman. /* end sooth You know, I almost looked to see if rednifetis.com is assigned, and decided I don't want to know.
Re: Verisign's public opinion play
On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Mike Tancsa wrote: The one that pisses me off more is http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html?tag=nefd_top Lewis said the company needs to make money from new services such as SiteFinder, or it will not be able to protect the Net's critical infrastructure. He cited a hacker's attack on the domain name system last year, in which VeriSign servers remained relatively unscathed--largely because of the 'substantial amount of capital we've had to invest,' he said. I propose we make it easier for everyone and first of all Verisign and relocate Net's critical infrastrastructure away from Verisign and let others who have shown to be just as good at handling these complex issues without compromising Net's critical infrastructure in order to promote its own commercial goals. P.S. Blood pressure medicine is not enough, after reading these two articles from CNET, I'm now sick to my stomach... Are we really going to let Verisign play this corporate interest misinformation compaign in the media like that? I don't want the rest of the net ending up like netscape (corporation, not the browser software), especially considering such a clear parallels between Verisign and Microsoft. At 11:12 PM 06/10/2003, Kee Hinckley wrote: Take your blood pressure medicine before reading this one. http://news.com.com/2010-1071-5086769.html Apparently our objections stem from our lingering resentment over the commercial use of the internet. In case you're wondering who the author is, since neither the bio on the page or Verisign's site is helpful. Mark McLaughlin is a former lawyer who moved into Marketing and Biz Development (Caere, Gemplus, Signio and then Verisign payments). -- 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.
