You may be aware that VeriSign deployed a wildcard A record in the .com and .net TLDs on the 15th of this month. What this results in is "fat finger redirection" to an address that VeriSign owns and tracks. In plain English, if you go to a .com or .net address that doesn't exist you will be redirected to an IP that VeriSign owns rather than be presented with an NXDOMAIN error. If you do this with a web broswer you will be presented with a VeriSign "Site Finder" page, complete with links to paid advertisements.
The ICANN, and much of the Internet community at large, is disgruntled to say the least. Pages worthy of reading: http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-19sep03.htm http://www.iab.org/documents/docs/2003-09-20-dns-wildcards.html http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lewis-to-twomey-21sep03.htm http://www.icann.org/correspondence/secsac-to-board-22sep03.htm All of which can be found: http://www.icann.org/announcements/ There are numerous technical and ethical implications of this sort of practice in the .com and .net TLDs. I leave it as an exercise for the users of this list to discuss such implications; I am curious as to your thoughts. For further thought food see the recent NANOG list archives: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/threads.html Yes, none of this is necessarily Linux-specific but it will certainly be worthwhile to see how the Open Source community will address impending issues if the wildcard record isn't pulled. Aloha! krjw. -- Keith R. John Warno [k r j w at optonline dot net] "And that's the way it is..." -- Walter Cronkite
