Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Joe Rhett wrote: On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 04:01:46PM -0700, Dan Hollis wrote: If the patent is strong enough, wouldnt some patent attorney be willing to defend it on a contingency basis? With the potential $$ in a patent violation judgement against verisign, I would think attorneys would be all over it. Patent violation can be easily gathered, but the penalty is always based on the lost revenue, which must be documented and validated. In short, if you want to make money selling your patent to someone then you must have a valid business that loses money so that your lawsuit against them will have teeth. So the attorney creates an IP holding company to which the patent is assigned, and the company offers to license the patent to Verisign. When Verisign refuses, they get sued for lost revenue. There are companies whos entire revenue stream revolves around licensing patents / litigating. This is quite normal. -Dan
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Joe Rhett wrote: In short, if you want to make money selling your patent to someone then you must have a valid business that loses money so that your lawsuit against them will have teeth. On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 12:46:07AM -0700, Dan Hollis wrote: So the attorney creates an IP holding company to which the patent is assigned, and the company offers to license the patent to Verisign. When Verisign refuses, they get sued for lost revenue. The holding company must be making money from the patent to demonstrate the value of the loss. It can't be a silent owner -- these have been fairly routinely tossed out of court as meritless. There are companies whos entire revenue stream revolves around licensing patents / litigating. This is quite normal. Yes, but they use complicated techniques of licensing and subcompanies with demonstratable revenue to achieve those goals. It's not as simple as was suggested here. -- Joe Rhett Senior Geek Meer.net
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Joe Rhett wrote: On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Joe Rhett wrote: In short, if you want to make money selling your patent to someone then you must have a valid business that loses money so that your lawsuit against them will have teeth. On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 12:46:07AM -0700, Dan Hollis wrote: So the attorney creates an IP holding company to which the patent is assigned, and the company offers to license the patent to Verisign. When Verisign refuses, they get sued for lost revenue. The holding company must be making money from the patent to demonstrate the value of the loss. It can't be a silent owner -- these have been fairly routinely tossed out of court as meritless. Do you have an example of such a case? -Dan
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Dan Hollis wrote: On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Andre Oppermann wrote: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. Wouldnt it be beautiful if a bunch of people patented the hell out of various ways to exploit dns wildcarding, thus preventing verisign from doing anything useful with it at all... It would only be useful if those people were also in a position to vigorously defend said patents when (and if) they were infringed. / Mat
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
It would only be useful if those people were also in a position to vigorously defend said patents when (and if) they were infringed. assign the patents to icann, to the eff, to the registrar constituency ...
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004, Matthew Sullivan wrote: Dan Hollis wrote: On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Andre Oppermann wrote: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. Wouldnt it be beautiful if a bunch of people patented the hell out of various ways to exploit dns wildcarding, thus preventing verisign from doing anything useful with it at all... It would only be useful if those people were also in a position to vigorously defend said patents when (and if) they were infringed. / Mat If the patent is strong enough, wouldnt some patent attorney be willing to defend it on a contingency basis? With the potential $$ in a patent violation judgement against verisign, I would think attorneys would be all over it. -Dan
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Paul Wouters wrote: Unfortunately, SiteFinder did not have such a destructive effect as we had all wanted it to have. Statistics in our network showed no significant increase in dns traffic. Especially if you compare it against things like SoBig: http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/spam/graphs/versign.png In terms of DNS traffic leaving your network, it was the same amount of traffic. Query packets got sent to the gtld servers, and Answer packets came back. Since the wildcard answer was an 'A' (this is it bub), and not 'NS' (go look over there willya?), the SiteFinder IP address was not sent any DNS traffic, thus there was no appreciable increase in DNS traffic. --==-- Bruce. NXDOMAIN != Connection Refused
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Paul Vixie wrote: (and if the idea that kc or woolf could be depended upon to parrot somebody else's point of view caused you to laugh so hard you spewed coffee all over your keyboard while reading the above tidbits, then send the repair bill to verisign, not me. i'm just the messenger.) Unfortunately, SiteFinder did not have such a destructive effect as we had all wanted it to have. Statistics in our network showed no significant increase in dns traffic. Especially if you compare it against things like SoBig: http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/spam/graphs/versign.png So even though my own hunch was wrong, I feel I should still publish the data. If you only publish data when it serves your goal, you lose your objectivity and your opinions become worthless as well. So I won't be blaming kc of woolf for not confirming what isn't there but what we really wanted to see. So while SideFinder was not as destructive as we might have thought or hoped, obviously it is still one of the most stupid ideas that the NetSol/Verisign monstrosity came up with. If they cannot seperate their Registrar from their Registry business, then ICANN should break their contract and find a proper party to host the Registry. Ofcourse, in my dreams I have the money and all the girls too... Paul
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
I'm not a lawyer but I still think businesses have a valid lawsuit against Verisign for whatever the legal term is for using their copyrighted names and likenesses. With SiteFinder it guarantees Verisign 'owns' any domain a particular company may no have yet purchased until such time that they do. And until they do their property gets branded as if it were Verisign's. That's my chief complaint against Verisign. There is also the problem that no one can easily verify non-existence of ANY domain when the SiteFinder is deployed with the Wildcard A record, this is almost certainly detrimental. The BIND source was modified in response to CUSTOMERS REQUESTS. It seems as though Verisign intends to implement it's will by legal maneuvering. It's akin to Microsoft being told by say RedHat that they can't have multiple user logins because Linux does that. Or that Windows can't have a good, useful CLI subsystem even though customers are clamoring for it. I'm not certain what other legal beef Verisign may have with ICANN (and any of the others mentioned in their legal proceedings) but it's certainly not any conspiracy, an option was simply provided at the outcry by a large, well respected, technical community to a change in infrastructure we all rely on that caused problematic effects. It's very regrettable that Verisign's lawyers decided it was necessary to go about this. As part of a a disclaimer: Any various mentioned parties were used above in a purely hypothetical manner and do not represent any companies actual intentions. Any mentioned copyrighted names are the property of their respective copyright or other property holders.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
... Unfortunately, SiteFinder did not have such a destructive effect as we had all wanted it to have. ... that apparently depends on what you wanted and what you consider destructive. to me, as a domain holder under .COM, the damage was latent, coming in the form of unacceptable business risk. as long as i know that my competitors would have to actually register nearby names in order to steal business from me, then i know (a) their costs are linear with my risk, and (b) i can find out what they're doing and perhaps even who they're paying to do it. in the presence of a wildcard and paid advertising, (a) no longer holds and there is no way to do (b). if sitefinder returns, i'd expect to have to find a new parent domain, who has no wildcard-like keyword system, just for risk management reasons. some domain holders might prefer to manage this risk by paying verisign extra money to get all the nearby keywords, but i'd consider this blackmail and i'd rebrand my offerings out of .COM and .NET, and i expect that many other domain holders would feel (and do) the same. ultimately i'd expect domain registration fees in wildcard-free TLDs to cost more than domain registration fees in wildcard-containing TLDs. also, to me, as a domain holder under .com who uses my domain for more than just a web site, i can't tolerate the lack of RCODE=3 when a nearby name is used by mistake. verisign promised not to use the connections for anything nefarious, but they are not a public-benefit corporation and if they thought that the best way to return value to their shareholders was to keyword-search e-mail that was sent to them by mistake, then they would be stupid NOT to do so. (this has been called a strong argument for all TLD registries to be required to be public-benefit corporations... foxes guarding chicken houses, and so on.) So while SideFinder was not as destructive as we might have thought or hoped, ... i wasn't hoping for anything in particular. but sitefinder was incredibly damaging, and its return would mark a sharp uptick in my risk management costs, and there's no way you could say it wasn't destructive based simply on your local network traffic analysis. simply put, i would have chosen a different TLD if i'd known that wildcard processing was going to occur, and i do not recognize verisign's right to unilaterally change the terms under which my domain's delegation data is served.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Paul Vixie wrote: also, to me, as a domain holder under .com who uses my domain for more than just a web site, i can't tolerate the lack of RCODE=3 when a nearby name is used by mistake. verisign promised not to use the connections for anything nefarious, but they are not a public-benefit corporation and if they thought that the best way to return value to their shareholders was to keyword-search e-mail that was sent to them by mistake, then they would be stupid NOT to do so. (this has been called a strong argument for all TLD registries to be required to be public-benefit corporations... foxes guarding chicken houses, and so on.) Just image if Versign one day would find out that they can implement some sort of ad-word or adsense program where it will redirect you directly, or with a ten second delay, to the site of the highest bidder for the closest matching keyword. Type example.com which does not exist and get redirected to evilempire.com who bought the keyword example. Great, isn't it? PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. -- Andre
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Aug 16, 2004, at 3:08 PM, Andre Oppermann wrote: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. And if they do, what's to stop the root operators from doing this. Remember, there are 13 IPs no one can get around - no other TLD to register your domain name. Flipped on its head, what's to stop the root operators from circumventing anything Verisign or any other TLD operator does? -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Mon, 16 Aug 2004, Andre Oppermann wrote: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. Wouldnt it be beautiful if a bunch of people patented the hell out of various ways to exploit dns wildcarding, thus preventing verisign from doing anything useful with it at all... -Dan
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Patrick W Gilmore) writes: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. And if they do, what's to stop the root operators from doing this. the root server operators don't act collectively. Remember, there are 13 IPs no one can get around - no other TLD to register your domain name. according to the whackos, we are the legacy root operators, and folks ought to feel free to point their resolvers at any of the alternative root operators instead. YMMV. Flipped on its head, what's to stop the root operators from circumventing anything Verisign or any other TLD operator does? root server operators don't control the root zone, they only publish it. some combination of itu (via the iso3166 process), icann/iana, ietf/iab, and us-DoC are the folks you'd go to if you wanted a toplevel wildcard. -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Aug 16, 2004, at 4:13 PM, Paul Vixie wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Patrick W Gilmore) writes: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. And if they do, what's to stop the root operators from doing this. the root server operators don't act collectively. While correct, your statement does not answer the original question. :) Remember, there are 13 IPs no one can get around - no other TLD to register your domain name. according to the whackos, we are the legacy root operators, and folks ought to feel free to point their resolvers at any of the alternative root operators instead. YMMV. Let's confine the discussion to the 99.99% of us who use the Internet .. uh .. normally. (Best description I could think up.) I mean, they are called whackos for a reason. Flipped on its head, what's to stop the root operators from circumventing anything Verisign or any other TLD operator does? root server operators don't control the root zone, they only publish it. some combination of itu (via the iso3166 process), icann/iana, ietf/iab, and us-DoC are the folks you'd go to if you wanted a toplevel wildcard. Actually, the root server operators absolutely do _control_ the root zone in very obvious operationally relevant ways. Whether that control could be used - improperly or not - to, say, insert a wildcard record strikes me as much the same question as the Verisign action which started this thread -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Mon, Aug 16, 2004 at 03:17:48PM -0400, Patrick W Gilmore wrote: On Aug 16, 2004, at 3:08 PM, Andre Oppermann wrote: PS: I will patent it myself to prevent Versign from doing this. And if they do, what's to stop the root operators from doing this. Remember, there are 13 IPs no one can get around - no other TLD to register your domain name. Flipped on its head, what's to stop the root operators from circumventing anything Verisign or any other TLD operator does? we'd have to agree on what to do... and thats been problematic for years. or one could view it as the core strength of the root server system (theres a misnomer:) of course, if a majority of the root server instances decided to make the change, then we have inconsistancy in the authoritatve data - which is -REALLY- bad. -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
And if they do, what's to stop the root operators from doing this. the root server operators don't act collectively. While correct, your statement does not answer the original question. :) i consider it directly responsive. one of the ways to keep a root server operator from doing something, statistically speaking at least, is to tell them that some other root server operator is doing it. Flipped on its head, what's to stop the root operators from circumventing anything Verisign or any other TLD operator does? root server operators don't control the root zone, they only publish it. some combination of itu (via the iso3166 process), icann/iana, ietf/iab, and us-DoC are the folks you'd go to if you wanted a toplevel wildcard. Actually, the root server operators absolutely do _control_ the root zone in very obvious operationally relevant ways. Whether that control could be used - improperly or not - to, say, insert a wildcard record strikes me as much the same question as the Verisign action which started this thread you will never find a more tightly woven hive of independence and diversity. the only things all 12 operators have ever been able to agree on are that (1) the root zone should be published with maximum reachability and uptime, (2) the root zone should not be edited by the root server operators, and that, finally, (3) there should never be a (3). -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
It is not about statistics, it is about DNS system behavior - if domain do not exists, I wish (and I must) to know it. By this, SiteFinder violates all Internet addressing system. On Tue, 10 Aug 2004, Paul Vixie wrote: (and if the idea that kc or woolf could be depended upon to parrot somebody else's point of view caused you to laugh so hard you spewed coffee all over your keyboard while reading the above tidbits, then send the repair bill to verisign, not me. i'm just the messenger.) Unfortunately, SiteFinder did not have such a destructive effect as we had all wanted it to have. Statistics in our network showed no significant increase in dns traffic. Especially if you compare it against things like SoBig: http://www.xtdnet.nl/paul/spam/graphs/versign.png So even though my own hunch was wrong, I feel I should still publish the data. If you only publish data when it serves your goal, you lose your objectivity and your opinions become worthless as well. So I won't be blaming kc of woolf for not confirming what isn't there but what we really wanted to see. So while SideFinder was not as destructive as we might have thought or hoped, obviously it is still one of the most stupid ideas that the NetSol/Verisign monstrosity came up with. If they cannot seperate their Registrar from their Registry business, then ICANN should break their contract and find a proper party to host the Registry. Ofcourse, in my dreams I have the money and all the girls too... Paul
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PS. I am excited - Vixie as a co-conspirator... Vixie, you can be proud -:). i'm not, though. not proud, and not a co-conspirator. this whole thing makes me want to puke. the worst thing is, the people i know inside verisign seem to wish i wouldn't take it so personally. but if their stock options go up in value as a result of this lawsuit, then it's blood money, and it's on their hands. anyway, today i was given a courtesy copy of verisign's final ssac response, which i've converted from pdf to a number of other more-greppable formats, and put online. url's are as follows: http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.doc http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.html http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.pdf http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.rtf http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.sxw http://sa.vix.com/~vixie/sitefinder/Final SSAC Response.txt here are some tidbits: Moreover, the Report appears primarily to have been composed and/or contributed to by persons who are opponents of Site Finder and/or competitors of VeriSign, a fact the Report fails to acknowledge. For example, Paul Vixie, a member of the committee who is cited three times as evidentiary support for the Committee¡Çs conclusions, fails to disclose that he is the president of Internet Systems Corporation (IS C), which released the BIND software patch discussed in the Report as one of the technical responses to VeriSign¡Çs wildcard implementation, and competes with VeriSign in other relevant respects, including the provision of DNS services and as a potential TLD registry operator. The Report also fails to identify that Suzanne Woolf, an employee of ISC, K.C. Claffy, an associate of Paul Vixie, and Mike StJohns as members of the committee who were added to the committee by SSAC¡Çs committee chair, specifically for the purpose of rendering conclusions about Site Finder. Ms. Woolf an employee of ISC, K.C. Claffy, an associate of Paul Vixie, and Mike StJohns as members of the committee who were added to the committee by SSAC's committee chair, specifically for the purpose of rendering conclusions about Site Finder. Ms. Woolf and Ms. Claffy's association with Mr. Vixie suggests they were added for the purpose of packing the committee with Site Finder opponents. [...] ... For example, the Report relies heavily on the opinion of Paul Vixie, an outspoken critic and competitor of VeriSign, on the issue of Internet stability following the implementation of VeriSign's wildcard. Yet the Report fails to include a conflict of interest statement for Mr. Vixie, even though he is the president of ISC, which released the BIND software patch discussed in the Report as one of the technical responses to VeriSign's wildcard implementation. Ironically, Mr. Vixie's BIND patch was a primary source of the incoherence described in the Report. ... On May 19, 2003, Paul Vixie wrote: speaking for dnssac, [I] don't think we have standing. [D]ns is a distributed, reliable, autonomous, hierarchical database system. The key word for this purpose is `autonomous'. Delegating something to somebody and then telling them what they can and cannot put into it is false (and I might add, offensively so.) ... As stated above, SSAC was unable to fault Site Finder on security or stability grounds. Indeed, SSAC member Paul Vixie has expressly admitted as much. In response to an email stating that I think recent events prove pretty well that VeriSign GRS no longer gives a crap about stability. Have we forgotten *.COM so quickly?, Mr. Vixie conceded: [I] was ... publicly critical of *.COM and *.NET, butthat¡Çs a policy problem, not an operational problem. [V]eriSign has a very good record for name server uptime both at the TLD and root level. [Email message posted by Paul Vixie to [EMAIL PROTECTED] dated June 17, 2004 (emphasis added). A copy of this email is attached as Exhibit H.] anyway, the whole thing is worth reading, and not just for history buffs. (and if the idea that kc or woolf could be depended upon to parrot somebody else's point of view caused you to laugh so hard you spewed coffee all over your keyboard while reading the above tidbits, then send the repair bill to verisign, not me. i'm just the messenger.)
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Title: Re: Verisign vs. ICANN Stephen J. Wilcox (SJW) wrote: SJW I do not believe there is any technical spec prohibiting this, SJW in fact that DNS can use a wildcard at any level is what enables SJW the facility. It is not always the case that everything a spec defines, is included or enumerated in the spec, particularly when specs refer to other specs and it is the combination(s) of specs which define proper behaviour. (If every protocol which was built on TCP, had to also include the contents of the TCP spec, the whole RFC system would quicly collapse under its own weight.) SJW I think this is a non-technical argument.. SJW altho it was demonstrated that owing to the age and status of the com/net SJW zones a number of systems are now in operation which make SJW assumptions about the response in the event of the domain not existing... If it were merely an *internal* issue *within* the DNS system, perhaps there would be areas of disagreement which could be settled via either extending, or clarifying, the relevant RFCs. However, the issue is, to some degree, actually outside of the proper scope of the DNS lookup/resolver system. (see below...) On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Alexei Roudnev (AR) wrote: AR The technical roots of the problem are: proposed services VIOLATES AR internet specification (which is 100% clean - if name do not exist, AR resolver must receive negative response). AR So, technically, there is not any ground for SiteFinder - vice versa To make Alexei's argument's syntax agree with the intended semantics: He means to say, Technically, there is no grounds for implementing SiteFinder by means of inserting wildcards to the .com and .net zones. Rather, there are specific grounds for *not* inserting wildcards, regardless of the purpose of those wildcards, in .net and .com zones. (E.g.: in contrast with .museum zone, which is generally special-purpose, and for which assumptions about which services are expected (www only) are reasonable and valid, the .com and .net zone are general-purpose, and pretty much any service, including all assigned values for TCP and UDP ports from the IANA, should and must be presumed to be used across the collection of IPv4 space.) The crux of the problem appears in a particular case, for which *no* workaround exists, and for which no workaround *can* exist, from a straight derivational logic of state-machine origins. The DNS *resolver* system, is only one of the places where the global namespaces is *implemented*. Any assigned DNS name *may* be placed into the DNS. And *only* the owner of that name has authority to register that name, or cause its value to return from any query. An assigned name, however, can *also*, or even *instead* of being placed into the DNS *resolver* system, be put into other systems for resolving and returning name-address mappings. These include: the predecessor to BIND, which is the archaic /etc/hosts file(s) on systems; Sun's NIS or NIS+ systems (local to any NIS/NIS+ domain space); LDAP and similar systems; X.500 (if this is by any chance distinct from LDAP - I'm no expert on either); and any other arbitrary system for implementing name-address lookups. And the primary reason for *REQUIRING* NXDOMAIN results in DNS, is that in any host system which queries multiple sources, only a negative response on a lookup will allow the search to continue to the next system in the search order. Implementing root-zone wildcards, places restrictions on both search-order, and content population, of respective name-resolution systems, which violates any combination of RFCs and best-common practices. And, most importantly, *cannot* be worked around, *period*. Until the RFCs are extended to permit population of zones with authoritative *negative* information, and all the servers and resolvers implement support for such, *and* operators of root zone databases automatically populate assigned zones with such negative values, wildcards *will* break, in unreconcileable fashion, existing, deployed systems which refer to multiple implementations of zone information services, and for which *no* workaround is possible. Apologies for a long, semi-on-topic post. Hopefully this will end this thread, and maybe even put a stake through the heart of the VeriSign filing (at least this version of it). While the law generally doesn't recognize mathematically excluded things as a matter of law, when it comes to affirmative testimony, counter-arguments can demonstrably be shown as de-facto purgury (sp?). Brian Dickson (who has had to deploy systems in heterogeneous environments, and is aware of deployed systems that broke because of *.com)
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Title: Re: Verisign vs. ICANN Thanks, Dickson - next time I'll try to write exact text from the very beginniong -:). This is _exactly_ what I want to say, with examples I was too lazy to write myself. To make Alexei's argument's syntax agree with the intended semantics: He means to say, "Technically, there is no grounds for implementing SiteFinder by means of inserting wildcards to the .com and .net zones. Rather, there are specific grounds for *not* inserting wildcards, regardless of the purpose of those wildcards, in .net and .com zones. (E.g.: in contrast with .museum zone, which is generally special-purpose, and for which assumptions about which services are expected (www only) are reasonable and valid, the .com and .net zone are general-purpose, and pretty much any service, including all assigned values for TCP and UDP ports from the IANA, should and must be presumed to be used across the collection of IPv4 space.) The crux of the problem appears in a particular case, for which *no* workaround exists, and for which no workaround *can* exist, from a straight derivational logic of state-machine origins. The DNS *resolver* system, is only one of the places where the global namespaces is *implemented*. Any assigned DNS name *may* be placed into the DNS. And *only* the owner of that name has authority to register that name, or cause its value to return from any query. An assigned name, however, can *also*, or even *instead* of being placed into the DNS *resolver* system, be put into other systems for resolving and returning name-address mappings. These include: the predecessor to BIND, which is the archaic "/etc/hosts" file(s) on systems; Sun's NIS or NIS+ systems (local to any NIS/NIS+ domain space); LDAP and similar systems; X.500 (if this is by any chance distinct from LDAP - I'm no expert on either); and any other arbitrary system for implementing name-address lookups. And the primary reason for *REQUIRING* NXDOMAIN results in DNS, is that in any host system which queries multiple sources, only a negative response on a lookup will allow the search to continue to the next system in the search order. Implementing root-zone wildcards, places restrictions on both search-order, and content population, of respective name-resolution systems, which violates any combination of RFCs and best-common practices. And, most importantly, *cannot* be worked around, *period*. Until the RFCs are extended to permit population of zones with authoritative *negative* information, and all the servers and resolvers implement support for such, *and* operators of root zone databases automatically populate assigned zones with such negative values, wildcards *will* break, in unreconcileable fashion, existing, deployed systems which refer to multiple implementations of zone information services, and for which *no* workaround is possible. Apologies for a long, semi-on-topic post. Hopefully this will end this thread, and maybe even put a stake through the heart of the VeriSign filing (at least this version of it). While the law generally doesn't recognize mathematically excluded things as a matter of law, when it comes to affirmative testimony, counter-arguments can demonstrably be shown as de-facto purgury (sp?). Brian Dickson (who has had to deploy systems in heterogeneous environments, and is aware of deployed systems that broke because of *.com)
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Hmm; this is technical argument. If you request bookk.com domain, and such domain do not exists, you must know it. if you wish to get 'best match', your can programm client to ask something like bookk.com-search or bookk.com-search.microsoft.com or bookk.com-search-in-russian.relcom.net (additional service). Notice, that unwanted service (search in Verisign) violates ALL this cases, making impossible flexible, competitive processing of such requests, Just again - DNS design, by RFC, do not include someone who thinks for you and guess, whcih exactly name are you requesting. I request 'A for bookk.com' , answer may be 'This is it' or 'NOT, DO NOT EXISTS' only. So, this is not political - this is technical ; Verisign wish to violate Internet, ICANN refuse to allow it, Verisign get angry and pay for shameless lawyers (no one lawyer can be shamefull). Other items from this lawsuite may have another classification (I did not investigate), but for 'name guess' service, it is 100% clean - this is violation. Internet is based on numerous compromises (such as TCP slow tart) and numerous rules (such as DNS resolver, MTU size, AS path propogation and so on) and it is very unwise to allow commercial company violate any rule without overall agreement. The best solution, btw, could be to dismiss Verisign as a .COM registry - they was granted a permission to register, violate rules, so what.. no permission anymore. Unfortuinately, this is too unrealistic by political reasons. ICANN is nort obligated to grant this permission to Verisign specifically. Hi Alexei, I do not believe there is any technical spec prohibiting this, in fact that DNS can use a wildcard at any level is what enables the facility. I think this is a non-technical argument.. altho it was demonstrated that owing to the age and status of the com/net zones a number of systems are now in operation which make assumptions about the response in the event of the domain not existing... Steve On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Alexei Roudnev wrote: (read it only today, so sorry if I repeat something). The technical roots of the problem are: proposed services VIOLATES internet specification (which is 100% clean - if name do not exist, resolver must receive negative response). So, technically, there is not any ground for SiteFinder - vice versa, now you can add client-level search SiteFinder (MS did it, and it took LOONG to turn off their dumb 'search' redirect) so allowing competition between ISP, browsers and so on. Anyway, please - those who knows history and can read this 'official' English (little bored) - I am sure, that we can find many inconsistencies in the filing; it may be reasonable to provide a set of independent _technical_ reviews, showing that ICANN plays a role of technical authority, just do not allowing to violate a protocols. For the second case (waiting lists), it is not technical issue, but it is anti-competitional attempt from Verisign as well. I can ask my Russian folks to review it as well (dr. Platonov, Dimitry Burkov) but I am not sure, if it is of any use... Anyway, good review, explaining history and revealing real ICANN role, should be done. If VeriSign wish to deploy services - they must put thru new RFC first. PS. I am excited - Vixie as a co-conspirator... Vixie, you can be proud -:). Alexei Roudnev PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 05:58:00 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for PV registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting PV services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for PV new registry operations. [...] I'm missing something. By what stretch of whose imagination does root nameserver operations compete with a registrar? Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Just curious. How much would it differ from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=icannwatch-20path=tg/detail/-/0262134128/qid%3D1041619276/sr%3D1-1 and http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.pdf ? On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Jonathan Slivko wrote: Maybe try these guys? http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is99/governance/love.html -- Jonathan On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:38:50 -0700, Peter H Salus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul (et al.), If you can find a willing publisher and an organization able to supply some funds, I would be delighted to work on a real history of Internet governance since RFCs 881-883. (Most of the funds would be for travel, Xeroxing, etc.) Peter - Peter H. Salus, Ph.D. 40 IH 35 N #4A3Austin, TX 78701 consultant author [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 512 478-7562 -- http://www.icannwatch.org Personal Blog: http://www.discourse.net A. Michael Froomkin |Professor of Law| [EMAIL PROTECTED] U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA +1 (305) 284-4285 | +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm --It's warm here.--
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
I will admit to only thinking about this for a few days. However, it seems to me that the Harvard material is rather narrowly focussed both on a temporal and on a topical level. I am an admirer of Froomkin's essays, and have published at least one of them (in the distant past when Matrix News was published). I haven't really looked at Ruling the Root, because I was turned off by Dave Crocker's review in IPJ. But, anyway, as it appeared in 2002, I imagine it contains little of the recent Verisign/Netsol business. However, I should most likely give Mueller more leeway, as I really liked his telephony book. Peter
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Just curious. How much would it differ from http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=icannwatch-20path=tg/detail/-/0262134128/qid%3D1041619276/sr%3D1-1 and http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann.pdf as i said, it can't be written by an ambulance-chaser or nobody will pay attention.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
(read it only today, so sorry if I repeat something). The technical roots of the problem are: proposed services VIOLATES internet specification (which is 100% clean - if name do not exist, resolver must receive negative response). So, technically, there is not any ground for SiteFinder - vice versa, now you can add client-level search SiteFinder (MS did it, and it took LOONG to turn off their dumb 'search' redirect) so allowing competition between ISP, browsers and so on. Anyway, please - those who knows history and can read this 'official' English (little bored) - I am sure, that we can find many inconsistencies in the filing; it may be reasonable to provide a set of independent _technical_ reviews, showing that ICANN plays a role of technical authority, just do not allowing to violate a protocols. For the second case (waiting lists), it is not technical issue, but it is anti-competitional attempt from Verisign as well. I can ask my Russian folks to review it as well (dr. Platonov, Dimitry Burkov) but I am not sure, if it is of any use... Anyway, good review, explaining history and revealing real ICANN role, should be done. If VeriSign wish to deploy services - they must put thru new RFC first. PS. I am excited - Vixie as a co-conspirator... Vixie, you can be proud -:). Alexei Roudnev PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 05:58:00 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for PV registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting PV services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for PV new registry operations. [...] I'm missing something. By what stretch of whose imagination does root nameserver operations compete with a registrar? Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Hi Alexei, I do not believe there is any technical spec prohibiting this, in fact that DNS can use a wildcard at any level is what enables the facility. I think this is a non-technical argument.. altho it was demonstrated that owing to the age and status of the com/net zones a number of systems are now in operation which make assumptions about the response in the event of the domain not existing... Steve On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Alexei Roudnev wrote: (read it only today, so sorry if I repeat something). The technical roots of the problem are: proposed services VIOLATES internet specification (which is 100% clean - if name do not exist, resolver must receive negative response). So, technically, there is not any ground for SiteFinder - vice versa, now you can add client-level search SiteFinder (MS did it, and it took LOONG to turn off their dumb 'search' redirect) so allowing competition between ISP, browsers and so on. Anyway, please - those who knows history and can read this 'official' English (little bored) - I am sure, that we can find many inconsistencies in the filing; it may be reasonable to provide a set of independent _technical_ reviews, showing that ICANN plays a role of technical authority, just do not allowing to violate a protocols. For the second case (waiting lists), it is not technical issue, but it is anti-competitional attempt from Verisign as well. I can ask my Russian folks to review it as well (dr. Platonov, Dimitry Burkov) but I am not sure, if it is of any use... Anyway, good review, explaining history and revealing real ICANN role, should be done. If VeriSign wish to deploy services - they must put thru new RFC first. PS. I am excited - Vixie as a co-conspirator... Vixie, you can be proud -:). Alexei Roudnev PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 05:58:00 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for PV registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting PV services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for PV new registry operations. [...] I'm missing something. By what stretch of whose imagination does root nameserver operations compete with a registrar? Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
... i'm not a defendant, just a named co-conspirator. Hah? Are they also naming individually all the dns operators that installed bind patch and specifically enabled it so that wildcards would not work? the lawsuit doesn't mention the bind patch. they seem to be upset about my work on the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee. what their First Amended Complaint says about me is that: Paul Vixie is a Site Finder co-conspirator [...]. Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for new registry operations. [...] (y'know, i'd pay Real Money for Adobe Acrobat Professional for SuSE 9.1/amd64, by which i could scan-convert PDF files instead of typing in stuff by hand -- my win32 laptop has more than 70 days of downtime and i'm going for 3 digits.) verisign's official position throughout the sitefinder launch was that users are free to disable it if they want to. they did NOT want this characterized as them shoving their sitefinder service down anybody's unwilling throat. so i don't expect any action to occur against folks who installed a BIND patch. while i'm not qualified to give myself legal advice, it looks like they're trying to get their complaint qualified, which requires the existence of a conspiracy to restrain, which requires the existence of co-conspirators. i guess verisign needs to qualify me as a conspirator, so i have to be called a competitor. ain't the u.s. legal system just grand, though? -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered: There are few entities for which i have more contempt than ICANN. But verisign heads the more contempt than ICANN list by several orders of magnitude. I'm reminded of the dot.sig: The IRS is auditing the NRA. I haven't had this much trouble picking sides since the Iran-Iraq war. -- Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect -- A host is a host from coast to [EMAIL PROTECTED] no one will talk to a host that's close[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead20915-1433
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Bob Martin wrote: Anything I/we can do to help the cause? Bob Martin Quoted from different thread: (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator. if you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing in court filings at some point.) -- Paul Vixie OK, I have obviously missed something here... I know that the courts dismissed the original complaint against ICANN, but what has happened since, and what is this about some conspiracy? Are they trying to say that users of the anti-SiteFinder BIND patch are conspirators? Thanks! Jon Kibler -- Jon R. Kibler Chief Technical Officer A.S.E.T., Inc. Charleston, SC USA (843) 849-8214 == Filtered by: TRUSTEM.COM's Email Filtering Service http://www.trustem.com/ No Spam. No Viruses. Just Good Clean Email.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 05:58:00 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for PV registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting PV services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for PV new registry operations. [...] I'm missing something. By what stretch of whose imagination does root nameserver operations compete with a registrar? Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Jon R. Kibler writes: OK, I have obviously missed something here... I know that the courts dismissed the original complaint against ICANN, but what has happened since, and what i s this about some conspiracy? Are they trying to say that users of the anti-Si teFinder BIND patch are conspirators? No -- but the easiest thing to do is to read the amended complaint, which is linked-to from ICANN's home page. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
OK, I have obviously missed something here... I know that the courts dismissed the original complaint against ICANN, but what has happened since, and what i s this about some conspiracy? Are they trying to say that users of the anti-Si teFinder BIND patch are conspirators? No -- but the easiest thing to do is to read the amended complaint, which is linked-to from ICANN's home page. It never ceases to amaze me that some companies will move forward with actions that they know will give them a horrible reputation. Does the potential for short-term financial gain outweigh the benefits of a good long-term reputation? Verisign, SCO, and Postini come to mind as examples. I can't stand the current spam filtering/AV email service that we use right now (Mailwatch...ugh.), but should we change to Postini--a supposedly superior service--knowing how slimy some of their actions have been? That's a rhetorical question, of course, but I think it makes the point. I prefer to do business with good companies with good products, not bad companies with good products. John --
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PV Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for
PV registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting
PV services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for
PV new registry operations. [...]
I'm missing something. By what stretch of whose imagination does
root nameserver operations compete with a registrar?
i think they mean ns-ext.isc.org (or its old name, ns-ext.vix.com), which
offers TLD hosting without fee to about 60 domains:
% awk '/^zone/ { print $2 }' slave_tld.zones | sed 's///g' | fmt
ac ae ao bg br com.br ca cd cl cz cv gov.fj fr hn hr io il ac.il co.il
gov.il k12.il muni.il net.il org.il in co.in ernet.in org.in ac.in
res.in gov.in mil.in net.in firm.in gen.in ind.in is museum md na com.na
nl np com.np edu.np org.np mil.np net.np gov.np nr biz.nr com.nr edu.nr
gov.nr info.nr net.nr org.nr pt ro sh tm za si sk co.zw aq pn ug
if it's not that, then perhaps they're just smoking crack.
(note for TLD folks... we're trying to collect the whole set, we're missing
the last 200 or so, give us a call, tsig preferred.)
--
Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 16:44:41 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV i think they mean ns-ext.isc.org (or its old name, ns-ext.vix.com), PV which offers TLD hosting without fee to about 60 domains: [ snip ] PV if it's not that, then perhaps they're just smoking crack. Still a bit of a stretch. They receive money for registered domains (and attempted to for unregistered domains) in the .COM and .NET namespaces. If you're offering the same, you've done a very poor job capturing market share. ;) Although IMHO not related due to differences in service offerings, this reminds me of Microsoft's argument that, although Sun and Corel had hardly any market share, they were competitors. Has there ever been any official ruling on size requirements for one to be considered competition? Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PV if it's not that, then perhaps they're just smoking crack. Still a bit of a stretch. They receive money for registered domains (and attempted to for unregistered domains) in the .COM and .NET namespaces. my employer was a bidder for .ORG, and gives away EPP software (ISC OpenReg), so there's some overlap with the registry/registrar community that verisign might be thinking of. -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
At 10:34 AM -0600 6/18/04, John Neiberger wrote: It never ceases to amaze me that some companies will move forward with actions that they know will give them a horrible reputation. Hmm... I'm not going to try to defend Verisign (or ICANN for that matter), but will note that the decision to engage in litigation is often not optional... In many areas of law, failure to act to diligently against infringement can effectively preclude you from pursuing legal recourse in the future. So, companies can find easily find themselves having to file legal actions simply to maintain their right to do so. Also, while drastic, filing suit doesn't preclude adults getting together and working out the the matter before anything makes it to court. It's legal action without any real meaningful attempt to meet and settle in advance which deserves a bad reputation. /John
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
PV Date: 18 Jun 2004 17:25:08 + PV From: Paul Vixie PV my employer was a bidder for .ORG, and gives away EPP PV software (ISC OpenReg), so there's some overlap with the PV registry/registrar community that verisign might be thinking PV of. I don't know about OpenReg, and can't comment on it. Bidding for .ORG still doesn't make sense -- if my employer makes a bid for Ford, which doesn't go through, are we suddenly competing with GM? (No, we don't make cars.) Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Also, while drastic, filing suit doesn't preclude adults getting together and working out the the matter before anything makes it to court. Having been a part of a few large lawsuits here, I can say that many judges will force at least a conversation between signatories of both parties (not just attorney's) before getting to trial. It even helps sometimes. -v
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, Jeff Shultz wrote: I'm having fun figuring out how altering BIND (since I assume that is the basis of their arguements) rises to the level of conspiracy... IANAL, obviously. I read you loud and clear. I believe most rational people among us do, see below. sarcasm Oh my, a vendor that actually listens to the cryout of its customers. That cannot be tolerated. /sarcasm This, in my own humble opinion, climbs slowly but surely to the levels of being ridiculous. Paul did exactly what any good vendor would do. If many customers or users asked for a feature, the vendor would issue the feature. It is the administrators choice to use the feature. As such, it is not the vendors fault in any way. After the courts drop this one as well, I am curious what will be the next Verisign idea. They (read: their lawyers) have proved themselves to be full of bright ideas (that lead to a dead end due to irrationality), and I am curious to see what's next. happy sailing, --Ariel ** Reply to message from Bob Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 17 Jun 2004 16:54:20 -0500 Anything I/we can do to help the cause? Bob Martin Quoted from different thread: (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator.if you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing in court filings at some point.) -- Paul Vixie -- Jeff Shultz A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that there will be a train. +++ This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System at the Tel-Aviv University CC. -- Ariel Biener e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP(6.5.8) public key http://www.tau.ac.il/~ariel/pgp.html +++ This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System at the Tel-Aviv University CC.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 05:58:00AM +, Paul Vixie wrote: ... i'm not a defendant, just a named co-conspirator. Hah? Are they also naming individually all the dns operators that installed bind patch and specifically enabled it so that wildcards would not work? the lawsuit doesn't mention the bind patch. they seem to be upset about my work on the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee. what their First Amended Complaint says about me is that: Paul Vixie is a Site Finder co-conspirator [...]. Paul Vixie is an existing provider of competitive services for registry operations, including providing TLD domain name hosting services for ccTLDs and gTLDs, and a competitor of VeriSign for new registry operations. [...] (y'know, i'd pay Real Money for Adobe Acrobat Professional for SuSE 9.1/amd64, by which i could scan-convert PDF files instead of typing in stuff by hand -- my win32 laptop has more than 70 days of downtime and i'm going for 3 digits.) verisign's official position throughout the sitefinder launch was that users are free to disable it if they want to. they did NOT want this characterized as them shoving their sitefinder service down anybody's unwilling throat. so i don't expect any action to occur against folks who installed a BIND patch. Um, unless I really missed something during this whole episode, that was the only way TO disable it. --- Wayne Bouchard [EMAIL PROTECTED] Network Dude http://www.typo.org/~web/
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Jun 18, 2004, at 2:25 PM, Wayne E. Bouchard wrote: verisign's official position throughout the sitefinder launch was that users are free to disable it if they want to. they did NOT want this characterized as them shoving their sitefinder service down anybody's unwilling throat. so i don't expect any action to occur against folks who installed a BIND patch. Um, unless I really missed something during this whole episode, that was the only way TO disable it. Have the roots recurse and put a wildcard in for anything that does not resolve. Makes Paul a ... well, not a competitor, 'cause that would imply they were in competition. If the roots put in the wild card, the GTLDs cannot compete. -- TTFN, patrick
Postini, Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
It never ceases to amaze me that some companies will move forward with actions that they know will give them a horrible reputation. Does the potential for short-term financial gain outweigh the benefits of a good long-term reputation? Verisign, SCO, and Postini come to mind as examples. I can't stand the current spam filtering/AV email service that we use right now (Mailwatch...ugh.), but should we change to Postini--a supposedly superior service--knowing how slimy some of their actions have been? That's a rhetorical question, of course, but I think it makes the point. I prefer to do business with good companies with good products, not bad companies with good products. Based on some offline comments I've decided to clarify my remarks. I don't think Postini is necessarily slimy and I shouldn't have mentioned them in the same sentence as Verisign and SCO, who are verifiably slimy. I should have phrased my remarks differently because I don't _know_ that Postini is slimy yet. Postini's patent issue (do a Google search to get more info) is suspicious, and _possibly_ indicative of a slimy tactic. However, there may be some completely valid reasons for their actions and I suppose we shouldn't judge them too harshly yet. Regardless of their reasons, it gives the appearance that they're not satisfied with simple competition and may try to negatively affect the competition through legal means. If they do that, then they're slimy. Until then, I suppose we (I) shouldn't make hasty judgments. John --
Re: Postini, Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
JN Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:56:11 -0600 JN From: John Neiberger JN Postini's patent issue (do a Google search to get more info) JN is suspicious, and _possibly_ indicative of a slimy tactic. It does look pretty ridiculous. ETRN, formail, procmail, Web- based UIs, etc. have been around far longer than Postini. Heck, I was doing selective partial delivery in 1997 -- if a message was addressed to an important email address, head -n and pipe the output to a printer for paper-using staff to have. Eddy -- EverQuick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -*- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Patrick W Gilmore wrote: On Jun 18, 2004, at 2:25 PM, Wayne E. Bouchard wrote: SNIP Um, unless I really missed something during this whole episode, that was the only way TO disable it. Have the roots recurse and put a wildcard in for anything that does not resolve. Makes Paul a ... well, not a competitor, 'cause that would imply they were in competition. If the roots put in the wild card, the GTLDs cannot compete. Geee, we block sitefinder's ip both inbound and outbound at our border router... I wonder what that makes us? A competitor? A conspirator? A saboteur? ??? Jon Kibler -- Jon R. Kibler Chief Technical Officer A.S.E.T., Inc. Charleston, SC USA (843) 849-8214 == Filtered by: TRUSTEM.COM's Email Filtering Service http://www.trustem.com/ No Spam. No Viruses. Just Good Clean Email.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
It is amazing that one psrson Paul Vixie could be so intimidating that he must be intimidated and maligned as a conspirator in order to eliminate him as a potential threat because of his knowledge. I find that pretty ironic that a billion dollar corporation is that weak. -Henry --- Patrick W Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jun 18, 2004, at 2:25 PM, Wayne E. Bouchard wrote: verisign's official position throughout the sitefinder launch was that users are free to disable it if they want to. they did NOT want this characterized as them shoving their sitefinder service down anybody's unwilling throat. so i don't expect any action to occur against folks who installed a BIND patch. Um, unless I really missed something during this whole episode, that was the only way TO disable it. Have the roots recurse and put a wildcard in for anything that does not resolve. Makes Paul a ... well, not a competitor, 'cause that would imply they were in competition. If the roots put in the wild card, the GTLDs cannot compete. -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
--On Friday, June 18, 2004 17:25 + Paul Vixie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: PV if it's not that, then perhaps they're just smoking crack. Still a bit of a stretch. They receive money for registered domains (and attempted to for unregistered domains) in the .COM and .NET namespaces. my employer was a bidder for .ORG, and gives away EPP software (ISC OpenReg), so there's some overlap with the registry/registrar community that verisign might be thinking of. Didn't Verisign sell off the Registrar stuff, thus making OpenReg not a competitor? Owen -- If this message was not signed with gpg key 0FE2AA3D, it's probably a forgery. pgp4iitsTNykZ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Postini, Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, Jun 18, 2004 at 08:02:34PM +, Edward B. Dreger wrote: JN Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:56:11 -0600 JN From: John Neiberger JN Postini's patent issue (do a Google search to get more info) JN is suspicious, and _possibly_ indicative of a slimy tactic. It does look pretty ridiculous. ETRN, formail, procmail, Web- based UIs, etc. have been around far longer than Postini. Yep, and NAT, PAT and stateful inspection exist outside of Cisco. This need by already dominant players to patent everything related to their business is unpleasant enough, but it's also common enough to make singling anyone out as slimy to be a bit disingenuous. I'd hazard to guess that a large number of folks on this list work for employers with similarly ridiculous patents. -- Ray Wong [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, John Neiberger wrote: It never ceases to amaze me that some companies will move forward with actions that they know will give them a horrible reputation. Does the potential for short-term financial gain outweigh the benefits of a good long-term reputation? Verisign, SCO, and Postini come to mind as examples. Hmm the volumes and costs involved are more than a short term financial gain imho, I'd say this represented long term large income and pretty easy money too. (imho) I'd also say that you overestimate the bad reputation.. the nanog community isnt that large when you consider the global market using verisign for various services, and often commercial decisions to use verisign are made by non-technical folks not on nanog if i was a commercial vp at verisign, i'd probably be thinking in a similar manner, they are in a unique position and unique sales points means big money in this marketplace Steve (anti-flame disclaimer - i'm not a commerical person, and my logic only outlines the reasoning behind having as neutral a body as possible operating these kind of services)
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Gordon Cook) writes: in my estimation [verisign] would like to control telecom by control of the numbers associated therewith. ... ... I am tying to stay away from this cesspool. It brings no income - only grief. But, knowing what i know, i am remiss if i don't stick my head up here. I go waaa back with network solutions to 1994 actually and i keep damned good archives. If I can assist Paul or the anti-verisign part of this case in building the details of the history of who did what to whom, I gladly will do so that's an interesting offer for several reasons. i meet many people in my travels who weren't domainholders when the system was first commercialized and so they do not remember any of the times network solutions overstepped internic's charter in order to, for example, unilaterally impose new terms in the domain change templates. in fact most people don't know what a domain change template was, or what internic was, or who GSI was or who SRI was. and without that knowledge, it's easy to mistake the icann/verisign legal battle as turf related. i know of any number of nose-holding fence-sitters who only tolerate icann (or consider icann relevant) because icann is somehow keeping verisign from abusing their monopoly -- and who feel betrayed every time icann fails. i know folks who are still angry with icann and with us-DoC for ever signing the current .COM registry agreement -- the one verisign says is too restrictive and claims icann is violating. there's a huge amount of history that's required before anybody should draw conclusions or form opinions about icann or verisign. however, it would have to be written up by someone who is not an ambulance chaser before it could have any effect on unbiased objective observers. -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Paul (et al.), If you can find a willing publisher and an organization able to supply some funds, I would be delighted to work on a real history of Internet governance since RFCs 881-883. (Most of the funds would be for travel, Xeroxing, etc.) Peter - Peter H. Salus, Ph.D. 40 IH 35 N #4A3Austin, TX 78701 consultant author [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 512 478-7562
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Maybe try these guys? http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is99/governance/love.html -- Jonathan On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:38:50 -0700, Peter H Salus [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Paul (et al.), If you can find a willing publisher and an organization able to supply some funds, I would be delighted to work on a real history of Internet governance since RFCs 881-883. (Most of the funds would be for travel, Xeroxing, etc.) Peter - Peter H. Salus, Ph.D. 40 IH 35 N #4A3Austin, TX 78701 consultant author [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 512 478-7562 -- Jonathan M. Slivko - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux: The Choice for the GNU Generation - http://www.linux.org/ - Don't fear the penguin. .^. /V\ /( )\ ^^-^^ He's here to help.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
i've watched (or maybe helped) a thread susan didn't like morph into a different thread that susan's probably not liking much either. hit D now. oh well, i warned you. [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ariel Biener) writes: ... This, in my own humble opinion, climbs slowly but surely to the levels of being ridiculous. Paul did exactly what any good vendor would do. If many customers or users asked for a feature, the vendor would issue the feature. It is the administrators choice to use the feature. As such, it is not the vendors fault in any way. verisign's first amended complaint (now reachable at www.icann.org, i'm told) does not mention BIND or patches to BIND at all. but For The Record, it was not simply end-user demand that drove the wildcard patch. end-users have often asked for things that were protocol violations and been told no -- for example, the alternate root whackos with their multiple root patches. of course BIND is very free as software goes -- it's not GPL'd or anything -- so it's perfectly forkable as codebases go. ISC cherishes its relevance, and the thing that caused the wildcard patch to be published was the very real threat by several very credible people to fork BIND unless there was an official patch Real Soon Now. THAT is why there was a wildcard patch. [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Patrick W Gilmore) writes: ... Have the roots recurse and put a wildcard in for anything that does not resolve. Makes Paul a ... well, not a competitor, 'cause that would imply they were in competition. If the roots put in the wild card, the GTLDs cannot compete. i have absolutely no influence over the content of the root zone. i can't even get an RR added for the glue NS used by 50 or 60 TLD's. but if i had any influence over the root zone, i would use it to prevent a wildcard from ever being added. (i like my nxdomains straight up, no ice, no soda.) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Henry Linneweh) writes: ... It is amazing that one psrson Paul Vixie could be so intimidating that he must be intimidated and maligned as a conspirator in order to eliminate him as a potential threat because of his knowledge. i'm not sure verisign cares whether they intimidate me or not. they just need to prove that a conspiracy is restraining competition, in order to prevent their complaint against icann from being dismissed. which means they had to declare that somebody was a co-conspirator, and i was available. this is not about me at all, other than by proximity -- it's about icann. -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
see http://www.icannwatch.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/18/0334236mode=nested On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Jon R. Kibler wrote: OK, I have obviously missed something here... I know that the courts dismissed the original complaint against ICANN, but what has happened since, and what is this about some conspiracy? Are they trying to say that users of the anti-SiteFinder BIND patch are conspirators? -- http://www.icannwatch.org Personal Blog: http://www.discourse.net A. Michael Froomkin |Professor of Law| [EMAIL PROTECTED] U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA +1 (305) 284-4285 | +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm --It's warm here.--
Verisign vs. ICANN
Anything I/we can do to help the cause? Bob Martin Quoted from different thread: (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator. if you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing in court filings at some point.) -- Paul Vixie
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
I'm having fun figuring out how altering BIND (since I assume that is the basis of their arguements) rises to the level of conspiracy... IANAL, obviously. ** Reply to message from Bob Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Thu, 17 Jun 2004 16:54:20 -0500 Anything I/we can do to help the cause? Bob Martin Quoted from different thread: (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator. if you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing in court filings at some point.) -- Paul Vixie -- Jeff Shultz A railfan pulls up to a RR crossing hoping that there will be a train.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Anything I/we can do to help the cause? Bob Martin yes. I almost missed this one. There are few entities for which i have more contempt than ICANN. But verisign heads the more contempt than ICANN list by several orders of magnitude. in my estimation it would like to control telecom by control of the numbers associated therewith. In addition to the present issue which owen de long described here masterfully last fall, verisign's alliance with EPC global at some point in the future could give it huge power in supply chain rfid numbering systems. Finally there is something doing in the voip area that i am not clear on at all but which i didn't like the sound of when i read the description. I am tying to stay away from this cesspool. It brings no income - only grief. But, knowing what i know, i am remiss if i don't stick my head up here. I go waaa back with network solutions to 1994 actually and i keep damned good archives. If I can assist Paul or the anti-verisign part of this case in building the details of the history of who did what to whom, I gladly will do so Quoted from different thread: (note that verisign has amended their complaint against icann (since the court dismissed the first one) and i'm now named as a co-conspirator. if you reply to this message, there's a good chance of your e-mail appearing in court filings at some point.) -- Paul Vixie -- = The COOK Report on Internet Protocol, 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA 609 882-2572 (PSTN) 703 738-6031 (Vonage) Subscription info prices at http://cookreport.com/subscriptions.shtml Report on economic black hole of best effort networks at: http://cookreport.com/13.04.shtml E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] =
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
Anything I/we can do to help the cause? not at the moment. i'm not a defendant, just a named co-conspirator.
Re: Verisign vs. ICANN
For that matter why don't they just name entire NANOG! I remember what a reaction there was on the list and 100% of those responding were purely negative of Verisign wildcards. Hmm, I remember a whole lot of really irrational and really unhelpful replies. Granted, there were some well thought out replies sprinkled in there, but I dunno if I want to be grouped with all of the other posters. :-)
Re: Verisign vs ICANN
Kee Hinckley wrote: Never mind that there isn't a standard format for the returned information between providers. The whois database is not a replacement for a DNS query. I´m sure Verisign will come up with a XML Schema for whois information soon. Pete
Verisign vs ICANN
I don't think anyone holds Matt personally responsible for what has happened so please remember that when responding. Verisign has broken everything and unlike the success of their grandfathered monopoly on registrations this might spell the end of their reign over these zones. This has broken the net, an intense attack on the domain name system would probably have had less impact than the havoc Verisign has caused with their point everything to Verisign hack. I'd think this was very irresponsible behaviour, and conjures up shades of past ghosts (does anyone remember CORE?) if I were an oversight authority I'd be very incredibly pissed off right about now. (stupid question) Doesn't the IAB have any authority left? It's interesting that now ICANN -- perhaps for the first time ever -- might be in the position to do something positive and prove it's not all about backroom politics. It's also ironic that someone would have had to spend years in prison for doing what they've done with or without notice or malicious intent. When people are running around hacking new code into BIND, several MTAs, and bog knows what else you can't say you didn't break anything. Throwing up piles of servers and network equipment to be able to respond to garbage IP traffic because you're aiming the world at your network isn't particularly intelligent either but what do I know about it? Len
Re: Verisign vs ICANN
On Sat Sep 20, 2003 at 03:28:59PM -0400, Len Rose wrote: Verisign has broken everything and unlike the success of their grandfathered monopoly on registrations this might spell the end of their reign over these zones. This has broken the net, an intense attack on the domain name system would probably have had less impact than the havoc Verisign has caused with their point everything to Verisign hack. Sorry, the Internet is broken, because of this? I can still access the websites I could access before. I can still send and receive email. I can still FTP files from FTP servers. To users of the Internet, nothing is broken. Okay, to Internet Experts, things are broken - their domain checking scripts no longer return domain available (why not just check whois.internic.net?). Some spam filtering has stopped working (I've not noticed any increase in the spam in my inbox). Maybe some other tools are misbehaving, but in general, all user-level stuff is just working as before. Not that I condone what Verisign have done - it's an abuse of monopoly as far as I'm concerned - but I do belive there is a lot of emotion involved in this. Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1628 407720 (x37720) | Si fractum Technology Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1628 407701 (x37701) | non sit, noli BBC Internet Operations | Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]| id reficere BBC Technology, Maiden House, Vanwall Road, Maidenhead. SL6 4UB. UK
Re: Verisign vs ICANN
I have lots of dns-related activity on both systems and within applicaitons that are broken now because I am no longer able to differentiate between a bad domain name and a working domain. It's not at all minor. You underestimate what this has done, I think. A major change in key functionality of the domain name system (at least for GTLD .COM and .NET) has taken place. I know at least one voice/ip company that has been forced to re-write portions of their phone application because this suddenly broke how the domain name systsem had been functioning. To say it's all about running whois queries reveals the depth at which you must make use of the domain name system. I'm sure those who maintains your name servers for you, and those who maintain your network and systems for you probably would answer differently. Thanks. Len (I won't respond publicly to this thread again I promise) Simon Lockhart wrote: [..] Sorry, the Internet is broken, because of this? I can still access the websites I could access before. I can still send and receive email. I can still FTP files from FTP servers. To users of the Internet, nothing is broken. Okay, to Internet Experts, things are broken - their domain checking scripts no longer return domain available (why not just check whois.internic.net?). Some spam filtering has stopped working (I've not noticed any increase in the spam in my inbox). Maybe some other tools are misbehaving, but in general, all user-level stuff is just working as before. Not that I condone what Verisign have done - it's an abuse of monopoly as far as I'm concerned - but I do belive there is a lot of emotion involved in this. Simon [..]
Re: Verisign vs ICANN
At 8:37 PM +0100 9/20/03, Simon Lockhart wrote: Okay, to Internet Experts, things are broken - their domain checking scripts no longer return domain available (why not just check whois.internic.net?). To quote Verisign, although this is true of all other whois providers: TERMS OF USE: You are not authorized to access or query our Whois database through the use of electronic processes that are high-volume and automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or modify existing registrations; the Data in VeriSign Global Registry Never mind that there isn't a standard format for the returned information between providers. The whois database is not a replacement for a DNS query. -- 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 vs ICANN
KH Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 17:03:04 -0400 KH From: Kee Hinckley KH The whois database is not a replacement for a DNS query. Especially considering how Verisign whois info often lags waaay behind what is correct. Outdated NS info, anyone? Eddy -- Brotsman Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita _ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses : [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked.
