I mean the actual Internet - the one of cooperation between individuals. The one that connected individual networks and worked on cooperative standards. One could building and using services, trade information, play, work, communicate. It was a culture of exploration and information. One where those entrusted with a position of influence treated those positions with the utmost respect.

Today one of those parties entrusted with a position of influence, VeriSign, the registrar in charge of the .com and .net root servers, has taken upon itself to cybersquat on every unregistered domain name by putting a catch-all ANAME record into the root servers that points at a server of their own.

In effect, any typo or unregistered name goes to them to use for whatever purpose they see fit. This is immoral and a breach of trust at the very least, and breaks a lot of stuff. The reason for this is that it doesn't adhere to accepted standards of Internet protocols.

Many other things, like mail transport for some domains that do not have an MX record, will be broken. Domain services for expired domains may be hijacked for a time until reregistered. Of course, in time these hijacks may be redirected to other sites - how would you like it if you're hawking a product and then someone typos and gets a competing product rather than yours?

Never mind that all this misdirected traffic surely gets logged by VeriSign, including GET and POST variables for URLs, email contents, etc. I am sure that's going to become a regular stop on subpoena runs now.

Add to that that VeriSign's terms of service for this "feature" are to simply stop using it - basically, if you don't like what they're doing, quit using DNS. Basically, stop using the Internet. (Does the definition of hubris have VeriSign's logo as an example now?)

What made me more sad is that people I work with just didn't care. I pointed this out to them, let them know some of the potential consequences, and responses ranged from outright ignorance like:

Network Solutions (VeriSign) owns that stuff

to:

would you like to borrow my lance and horse? I see windmills...

something like:

Please up the PMS Meds, your current dosage is not having the desired effect.

when I asked why accepted, working, published and widely-adopted standards don't mean crap at the whim of one organization.

Somehow, I expected more from these people, but then I realized why I shouldn't - they weren't part of the Internet I knew and loved. They've been around as long as the commercial version has. Why shouldn't they accept this sort of perversion of the system? It's just another milestone in making the Internet into cable TV.

As far as I'm concerned, the Internet is largely ruined. Granted, I can narrow my focus and only visit the parts that are of concern to me - basically, pare myself down to a "personal internet" and isolate myself from this sort of thing. In reality, we all do - we all tend to put blinders on and look at our particular interests, and keep finding the same core set of sites that we visit regularly.

My counter to this is that yes, once I could. Once you start messing with the underlying structure of basic services that make the Internet possible, like resolving domain names into IP addresses, then you're shoving it in my face. I have to deal with the crap simply because I'm human and I make typos sometimes, or perhaps a domain name goes down.

I'd go so far as to say that if things like this stick, the Internet is effectively ruined. In fact, a few things ruined the Internet:

• Money ruined the Internet. The Internet went big-time. It got commercialized, and as such it has slowly been eroded for purposes that don't serve the almighty buck.
• Newbies ruined the Internet. When there were very few people on the Internet, it was an insular academic and research community. Once people started to get on it for recreational purposes, there was a desire to sell products and services to them. Users brought money; we saw the decline start around 1992.
• Apathy ruined the Internet. The lack of understanding or simple caring that was exhibited by my coworkers earlier today shows why organizations get away with things like this.

In fact, if stuff like this keeps working to essentially commercialize the Internet and make it a channel for corporate advertising and content delivery, then it will cease to be a useful medium. I do not welcome our new Internet overlords.

I band together with others in wholeheartedly saying FUCK VERISIGN!

What can you do? Well, for one, you could write the ICANN, but most likely, your complaints will fall on deaf ears.

Since all VeriSign understands is money, make them understand through money - don't use their services. That means don't use Network Solutions for domain registrations, use one of the alternatives instead. Don't use Thawte for secure certificates for your websites or code signing or anything else. Don't buy any services or consulting from VeriSign.

This goes for anything advertised on their sites or on typoed URLs. Deny them revenue from this action by denying those who would look to profit from it as well.

restlessmind