[Note from Matthew Gaylor: It seems that the US House of
Representatives, Republican leadership conference has established
http://www.gop.gov/. A misuse of the domain name system which gives
the impression of official .gov sanction when the site is really just
a politics as usual, partisan site. To be fair the Republicans claim
that their site is in Beta and that it is an official site due to
their Congressional status. I find much of this idea rather
offensive and unfair to Independents and third parties who will not
be afforded the opportunity to hide partisanship under a mask of
legitimacy. Of special note is the use of a private ISP Capital Area
Internet Service (CAIS-DOM) to host the site. Is this to bypass the
congressional system and if so why?]
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 18:10:41 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Farber), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Gaylor),
State and Local Freedom of Information Issues <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: Jim Warren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: fwd: www.gop.gov ??!!!
I just received this from a friend.
>Did you see that the Republican Party has established the domain
>www.gop.gov? I'm very surprised that a partisan group could have a .gov
>domain. I was also very disturbed by the fact that I couldn't get into
>the site without accepting all the cookies that were being set. Looks
>like a bad precedent to me on both counts.
1. I wonder if this is really a Republican Party website -- as it's name
certainly implies? The InterNIC Finger gives no listing for it.
[Note from Matt Gov't sites need to looked up on www.nic.gov]
2. I completely agree with the writer: Who the hell is granting dot-GOV
status to a @#$%^ political party?!
3. And if they're going to give ".GOV" status to the Republicrats (and,
presumably, the Demopublicans), will they also give it to the Libbies, and
the Peace & Freedom ... and the Flat Earth Party, and the 4th Reich, et
al?! Maybe this is the first step to making dog-GOV meaningless as a
top-level domain.
4. When I attempted to go to it's home-page, I too, found that it tried to
set two cookies -- which I refused. Then it promptly died saying, "No
Cookie! To access this site your browser must be accepting cookies."
5. Pretty damned arrogant no matter who's running it -- but especially if
it really is the Repub Party. (The Party of the People? Apparently not
unless the People let the Party set tracking/surveillance cookies ... and
gawd knows what else!)
--jim, Jim Warren; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contributing Editor & technology public-policy columnist, MicroTimes Magazine
Also GovAccess list-owner/editor; 345 Swett Rd, Woodside CA 94062
voice/650-851-7075; fax-for-the-quaint/650-851-2814
[self-inflating puff: Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award, Playboy Foundation;
Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (in its first year);
James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award, Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif
founded InfoWorld; the Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conferences; etc etc etc.]
And...
From: Jim Warren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: fwd: www.gop.gov ??!!!
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ahah! The plot thickens.
On the one hand, www.gop.gov -- by its dot-GOV domain-name -- pretends to
be an official government site. And from what those who've accepted its
cookies say, it *says* it's an official site of an official caucus within
the official House of the official Congress.
However ... curiously, it appears that -- in spite of it's dot-GOV name --
it's being run as a private operation through a private ISP, and definitely
*not* through any official congressional system! See the following, that
just came in from a net-geek friend.
--jim
>A "WHOIS" on gop.gov didn't turn up anything at networksolutions
>but I did find that the domain is hosted at Capital Area Internet
>Service in McLean...
>
>Capital Area Internet Service (CAIS-DOM)
> 6861 Elm Street, Third Floor
> McLean, VA 22101
> US
>
> Domain Name: CAIS.COM
>
> Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
> Network Operations Center (CAIS-NOC) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> CAIS Internet
> 1255 22nd Street
> Washington, DC 20037
> US
>
> (202) 715-1300 -- NOC (703) 448-2091 Fax- - (703) 790-8805
> Billing Contact:
> Billing Office (BO-ORG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> CAIS Internet
> 6861 Elm Street, Third Floor
> McLean, VA 22101
> US
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