This is a new trick that is gaining in popularity, of information based businesses, due to spammers. It makes automated queries difficult if not impossible. I don't know about godaddy, but I can understand why so many have done this. At the current rate, automated submission programs, for search engines, could be GONE in a few years.
One thing is that none of the idiots that do this graphic thing understand the latin characterset and numerals. They should ENSURE that visual cues are ALWAYS there. Having O and 0, or l and 1 is DUMB. And that is without the distortion, colors, sizes, and orientations they add. All they need is skewing the characters(chosen intelligently) between 30 and 90 degrees, and maybe adding odd borders and graphics, and they will make it easier for a person to see while harder for a computer. What they SHOULD do is have an enforced relay system with limits as to usage. In a way, this is how DNS servers already work. THAT way they can get rid of spammers while INCREASING availability of the information. Steve >-- Original Message -- >From: "Thomas Mon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: Registrar's in violation of WHOIS port 43 requirement; was re: >InterNIC >Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:41:21 -0800 > > >I just read this message from Bill and I was wondering if anyone had >fowarded this message to any type of "Sight Impaired" organizations. This >is clearly not a very friendly thing to do and they should be stopped. > >Tom. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 10:54 AM >Subject: Registrar's in violation of WHOIS port 43 requirement; was re: >InterNIC > > >> *I'm singling out Godaddy as a blatant violator of WHOIS port 43 due to >> the e-mail I received from the "assistant to the president" when I pointed >> out politely that their port 43 WHOIS service (as required by ICANN) >> wasn't working. Godaddy's assistant to the president stated that the >> "standard way" (I haven't seen this RFC) to look up WHOIS information is >> to use the registrar's website; turn cookies on so they can track you; >> turn images on; and manually type the number seen in the image... sight >> impaired people can forget getting any WHOIS information at Godaddy. > >
