chapmancentral

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Due to an outbreak of cluelessness in the world domain registrar community there may be a period
of DNS flakiness on chapmancentral. This address will work:

chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

<insert humorous reference to lemon-soaked paper napkins>

does anyone here have any idea what on *earth* is going on with DNS these days? I have noticed for
the best part of a week now that many DNS queries are just being rejected with no reply.

At first I thought this was just NTL being pants as usual; but it is only affecting *some* sites
rather than the entire NTL DNS boxes falling over
[1] - and Guy is on Demon via BT ADSL...

is there some big snafu with DNS in general, and if so has anyone actually "gathered the fruit of
the clue tree" yet? I'm surprised even the media haven't picked up on this; or is it just some
localised problem within the UK?

Alex
[2] which happens every so often..

Mr R@t (2.3 zulu-alpha) comms room 2 said:

does anyone here have any idea what on *earth* is going on with DNS these days? I have noticed for
the best part of a week now that many DNS queries are just being rejected with no reply.

At first I thought this was just NTL being pants as usual; but it is only affecting *some* sites
rather than the entire NTL DNS boxes falling over
[1] - and Guy is on Demon via BT ADSL...

is there some big snafu with DNS in general, and if so has anyone actually "gathered the fruit of
the clue tree" yet? I'm surprised even the media haven't picked up on this; or is it just some
localised problem within the UK?

Not sure whats going on but have problems on ntl as well enough to make me set up bind so all sites
visited ips are cached locally for later retrieval.

Ivor Cave

Mr R@t \(2.3 zulu-alpha\) comms room 2 said:

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Due to an outbreak of cluelessness in the world domain registrar community there may be a period
of DNS flakiness on chapmancentral. This address will work:

chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗

<insert humorous reference to lemon-soaked paper napkins>

does anyone here have any idea what on *earth* is going on with DNS these days? I have noticed for
the best part of a week now that many DNS queries are just being rejected with no reply.

At first I thought this was just NTL being pants as usual; but it is only affecting *some* sites
rather than the entire NTL DNS boxes falling over
[1] - and Guy is on Demon via BT ADSL...

is there some big snafu with DNS in general, and if so has anyone actually "gathered the fruit of
the clue tree" yet? I'm surprised even the media haven't picked up on this; or is it just some
localised problem within the UK?

Nominet seem to have recently cleared out a lot of domains which haven't had their renewal fees paid
- it happened to one of mine, much to my embarrassment.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

Anagram: I'm soon broke.

James said:

Quoted message said:

Mr R@t \(2.3 zulu-alpha\) comms room 2 said:

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

> Due to an outbreak of cluelessness in the world domain registrar community there may be a
> period of DNS flakiness on chapmancentral. This address will work:
>
> chapmancentral.demon.co.ukchapmancentral.demon.co.ukOpen ↗
>
> <insert humorous reference to lemon-soaked paper napkins>
>
does anyone here have any idea what on *earth* is going on with DNS these days? I have noticed
for the best part of a week now that many DNS queries are just being rejected with no reply.

At first I thought this was just NTL being pants as usual; but it is only affecting *some* sites
rather than the entire NTL DNS boxes falling over
[1] - and Guy is on Demon via BT ADSL...

is there some big snafu with DNS in general, and if so has anyone actually "gathered the fruit
of the clue tree" yet? I'm surprised even the media haven't picked up on this; or is it just
some localised problem within the UK?

Nominet seem to have recently cleared out a lot of domains which haven't had their renewal fees
paid - it happened to one of mine, much to my embarrassment.

This might be a part of the problem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

17 September 2003 Updated: 12:10 GMT

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/>

*Register Services* *Register ISP* <http://www.vcisp.net/> *Reg Jobsearch*
<http://www.jobsite.co.uk/theregister> *Reg Merchandise* <http://www.cashncarrion.co.uk/>
*Bookstore* <http://www.pearson-books.com/registerbookstore/> *Mobile, Wireless, PDA Store*
<http://www.expansys.com/register.asp> *Reg Reader Studies* </content/58/index.html>

*Sections* *Front Page* </content/1/index.html> *Software* </content/4/index.html> *Enterprise
Systems* </content/53/index.html> *Servers* </content/61/index.html> *Storage*
</content/63/index.html> *Personal Hardware* </content/54/index.html> *Semiconductors*
</content/3/index.html> *Internet* </content/6/index.html> *Security* </content/55/index.html>
*Virus News* </content/56/index.html> *Business* </content/7/index.html> *Networks*
</content/5/index.html> *Bootnotes* </content/28/index.html> *This Week's Headlines*
</content/29/index.html>

<http://www.rackspace.co.uk/index.php?committed=true&CMP=PAC-committed>

*Wireless - Operators* </content/59/index.html> *Wireless and Mobile Devices*
</content/68/index.html> *Wireless - WLAN* </content/69/index.html> *Wireless - 3G*
</content/64/index.html> *Broadband* </content/22/index.html> *The Mac Channel*
</content/39/index.html> *Channel Flannel* </content/51/index.html> *Small Business*
</content/67/index.html> *BOFH* </content/30/index.html> *Letters* </content/35/index.html> *Site
News* </content/31/index.html> *Contact us* </content/62/index.html>

*The Reg Newsletter* Enter your email address here for our daily news update. Privacy Policy
</content/31/28796.html>

Get the Reg Screensaver. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/31/17656.html>

Join the Reg SETI group.
<http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_join_form&id=145855>

Join Reg Cancerbusters. </content/31/30699.html>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Verisign DNS change broke my HP printer By John Leyden "]<[email hidden]>
Posted: 17/09/2003 at 10:24 GMT

*Letters*/Reg/ readers have plenty of say about Verisign's controversial move to direct surfers
who get lost on the Web to a search site run by the company. Our coverage provoked a large number
of letters, almost all hostile, about Versign's audacious typo-squatting land grab.

All your Web typos are belong to us <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32852.html>

Martin Ward is the first to fire brickbats at the company, which /Reg/ readers have rechristened
as "VeriSlime".

*Verisign are essentially "squatting" on every unregistered domain name, and using them for
profit. How many trademarked names does that include? What are the fines for squatting on just
*one* trademark for commercial exploitation?*

Roger Thomas worries about the implications if other DNS providers adopt Verisign's tactics.

*That's a worrying article, and just thinking about the issues raised I can see the following:

1) If it’s good enough for Verisign to mess about with the root servers I can see other DNS
providers doing the same, by redirecting users to their own systems.

2) This will poison DNS servers across the world as they will end up caching the SOA records
created by Verisign for these 'dynamic' DNS entries. While the time to live on these records is
short, real entries will be dropped as the junk entries are added to the database. There is now
a new DNS attack were nodes on the internet create vast numbers of random DNS look up requests
so clearing the DNS caches of all the DNS servers they access.

Oh life if going to be fun.*

Let's start a campaign against Verisign, reader Steve Foster, suggests.

*I think we need to start a global campaign to black-list Verisign if they don't back off.*

Pete Farrow favours more direct action.

*This means that the basic "sender domain does not resolve" check in Sendmail and many other mail
server software is now obsolete because any .net and .com now resolves. This will open the
internet up to more spam.

But there is a solution, perhaps mail servers should check to see if the sender domain for a
particular piece of email resolves to the Ip above. If it does, forward the email to Verisign, any
of the email addresses on this page should do :

verisign.comindex.htmlOpen ↗

If the email sender domain resolves to the bogus Verisign wildcard entry, then its only fair that
the email gets forwarded back to them, as it’s obviously spam and it resolves to their address.

If the internet community applies such a rule, then I think this wildcard DNS nonsense will soon
be retired. You could also check the web site at Verisign automatically to see if they change
their email addresses just to make sure you always forward the unresolving mail to a real
mailbox.*

Adrian Wilkins seconds the motion.

*Bloody 'ell... so where can we get the home addresses of the "pigtastic" monopolisers of the
internet?

I'm only asking because, as a responsible sysadmin, I believe that all mis-addressed surface mail
should get redirected to there as well... 🙂 *

And what of the wider implications of Verisign's audacious domain land grab? Abby Patel is worried
about privacy.

*Thanks for running the Verisign story on the Register. As an ISP, this is of great concern to
us, as you rightly pointed out, this un-announced and unwarranted change is breaking services. As
an example, we provide SPAM filtering for our broadband customers. One of the many checks we do
is to ensure mail is coming from actual registered domains. With a single action, this test no
longer works, adding to the already difficult war on the volumes of SPAM that our customers have
to deal with.

However, the other worry is the data retention that Verisign admits it is carrying out if you look
at their terms and conditions. Amazingly enough, they in their PDF file discussing the change,

"2.4 Monitoring and Communication

VeriSign actively monitors all traffic associated with Site Finder, including DNS queries matching
the wildcard entries in .com and .net and associated responses, and all traffic sent to the
response server. This traffic is correlated and monitored in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, by VeriSign's Network Operations Centre... complete traffic stream to the .com and .net
name servers and the response server, as well as rolled up statistics, are stored for analysis."

So, you mistype a domain name, and suddenly to have agreed to Verisign’s T&C's to let them collect
information about you. What if the URL was mistyped but had some personal information in it, e.g.
dummysite-that-is-not-real-at-all.comuserid=mylogin,mypassword=passwordOpen ↗

Similarly, the SMTP service that replies with the 550 error only does so after you have specified
the recipient. What will Verisign do with all the "from" mail addresses that they will be logging?
A ready made list of live e-mail addresses for selling on to marketing companies perhaps?

However, it seems that the T&C's might help us to stop this abuse. If you do not agree to the
T&C's the only option they have is to not redirect your netblock to their site. So, give them a
call on 0800-032-2101, select 2 to speak to their support department and once you get a human,
tell them that you don't agree to their T&C's and can they remove your netblocks!*

Nick Ryan picks up the theme.

*Gah. Note the thinly veiled threats in their whitepaper..

Bah, it has cut'n'paste disabled, of course.

Verisign actively monitors all traffic ... 24 hours a day, 7 days a week ... Anomalous events are
escalated to engineering staff ... Several hours of the complete traffic stream are stored for
analysis.

Reading between the lines ; "Try to DoS attack us at your peril, punks"

While this monitoring data will not be public available at the launch of Site Finder, Verisign is
considering making this information available in the future

"If we get a lot of hits for particular unregistered domains, we might consider selling them to
interested parties for inflated prices (via a front company, naturally)"*

Will anybody defend Verisign? Only reader Justin Cordesman has anything positive to say about
Verisign's radical changes.

*For some reason I think there was forewarning of this, as a response to typo squatting. Which
is worse, your customer getting a search page (and not one that pops up zillions of ads and
tries to make itself your default) when they mistype your address, or getting a [censored] site or pop
ups or an error?*

Although Verisign suggested it might be making changes a few weeks ago it was only when the
changes were made this week, without specification notification or debate on the technical and
commercial implications on the move, that things really kicked off.

But who cares for the wider implications, when your printer stops working. Reader Daniel Salzedo
relates his tale of woe.

*Thanks for your article "All your Web typos are belong to us", because without it I would
probably never have realized why my networked HP printer was refusing to print.

I have an HP Deskjet 6127 which has a built-in NIC and TCP/IP printing capability. Just a basic
printer used by one small department and it's been working fine since it was setup. I have a
simple LAN with one main W2K Server running DHCP and DNS. I usually setup any shared printer on
this server, so installed the HP software which sets up a TCP/IP local port and points it at the
printer. As the printer was setup to use DHCP for ease of use the TCP/IP printer port maps via the
printer's name.

Today, for no apparent reason, print jobs just stuck in the queue for a few minutes before timing
out. To make a long and tedious set of troubleshooting steps short, it turned out the problem was
the Verisign DNS change. Due to the way DNS is setup on the server (Because it is the LAN's
top-level DNS server) a search for the local printer was being routed via the Internet. I guess it
must always have worked this way, but because the printer would never resolve to a routable IP
address it must have then tried a local lookup.

Anyhow now, thanks to Verisign, my server always resolves the printer to the external IP address
for their search service, hence the dead print jobs, forcing me to move the printer share to a
different server.* ®

Click here to request your FREE Oracle9iAS Release 2 J2EE Developer CD <ad.doubleclick.net-ad.doubleclick.net-Open ↗
/clk;5900302;3439904;c?http://www.oracle.com/g-" rel="ugc nofollow noopener">ad.uk.doubleclick.netclk;5865077;8242027;oOpen ↗
o/?&Src=1769049&Act=40> Intentia & Sun deliver midmarket collaboration solution <ad.double-ad.double-Open ↗
click.net/clk;6113889;3439904;t?s0b.bluestreak.comix.eOpen ↗> Rackspace is
the first Host to offer Red Hat Enterprise, exclusive special offer click here!
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/offers/hosting/linux.html> Reg Rubberwear - designer PVC for the
discerning punter at Cash'n'Carrion
<http://www.cashncarrion.co.uk/?listPos=&op=catalogue-products-null&prodCategoryID=21> The Reg
Mobile/ PDA store - for all your wireless needs <http://theregister.co.uk/pz/?mobilestore> Your
signature is an IT industry mark of excellence - Jobsite <http://theregister.co.uk/pz/?jobsite2>

Whoops sorry did'nt mean to send the page...

Sorry again....I'll get my coat!!