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 Forum index » Meta » Various & Sundry
Stop Versign
Moderators: Giskard, imbri, ndemeter
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be

 		Stop Versign
Anybody notice how if you misspell a site name you don't get the same error message anymore? If you haven't, just try to go to a site like unnfiction.com to see what I mean. Verisign has started a "service" called Sitefinder that provides a page with other possible urls that you meant to type in.

There is much controversy around this because of the following (from what I understand Wink )

1. This helps spammers avoid detection. People researching spam often use the domain checking system to check if the site where junk mail came from actually exists.

2. There are ads placed on this new Sitefinder. Like we really need any more ads thrown in our faces.

3. Verisign plans to keep a log of the incorrectly typed urls to sell to third parties. I'm sure lots of spammers would like to know that mikeymouse.com or goggle.com are accidentally typed in x-thousand times a day and would take advantage of it somehow.

4. This may violate user privacy. Sometimes usernames and passwords are included in some web site queries. Verisign would have access to this in the logs they are keeping.

5. This would also be used for incorrect email addresses. If you send an email with a mistyped domain name verisign says it will still bounce, but will still be going to their mailserver where I'm sure they keep logs. Will they be harvesting emails? passwords? usernames?

6. Network Administrators use DNS to troubleshoot - knowing that if they got an error message that something wasn't configured correctly. Now nonexistant sites get redirected to sitefinder.verisign.blehblehbleh.

7. Verisign is also getting free advertising. Everyone else has to pay for a domain name. Verisign is getting every mistyped domain for FREE.

I've found some sites that claim that Versign's sitefinder system is down, but I still get the redirected pages on my machine. Also, there has been an anti-trust lawsuit filed. If you'd like to sign the petition against verisign's sitefinder service, you can do so at http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/.

***EDITED to fix my silly typo stuff*** Wink
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 3:22 pm
Last edited by Varin on Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
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AnthraX101
Entrenched

Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 797

 		Hate to nitpick but everyone and their mother keeps saying that websites no longer throw 404's. They still do, just as before. What you are supposed to get when you go to a non existant domain is actualy the "NXDOMAIN" response, and not the 404 (Page does not exist on server) response. If you are getting a 404, then the domain is lawfully registered, and simply does not have a main page.

AnthraX101

PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 6:31 pm
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Varin
I Have No Life


Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Posts: 2456
Location: South of where I used to be
AnthraX101 wrote:
Hate to nitpick but everyone and their mother keeps saying that websites no longer throw 404's. They still do, just as before. What you are supposed to get when you go to a non existant domain is actualy the "NXDOMAIN" response, and not the 404 (Page does not exist on server) response. If you are getting a 404, then the domain is lawfully registered, and simply does not have a main page.

AnthraX101


Sorry my typo there. Wrong terminology. (I did warn you that what I wrote was limited to my antiquated understanding Wink )There still are 404 messages. You're right. 404 is file not found. I'll fix it up in the post above. It doesn't change the problems behind the issue though.

It's still going to mess with network admins. There are alot of domain vailidity programs out there that ping a site to see if it gives a 404 or nothing. Now the "nothings" aren't nothings anymore. They give back a different response. There's alot of stuff that verisign is messing with that is deeper than just the browser stuff like 404.

Smile
_________________
"I still miss him to this day and probably always will." - Todd Keeler, Chasing the Wish

"meta meta meta, I made you out of play..." ~ j5

PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:29 pm
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