Sep
16
2003Verisign is Pure Evil
16
2003
Pardon me for stealing Jeremy Zawodny’s headline, but there’s really no better way to put it.
You know those folks who register misspelled domain names, to trick fat-fingered web surfers into visiting their site? Well, they’re evil.
Now, Verisign (who absorbed Network Solutions, the original domain name registrar), through some DNS trickery, rigged up a system whereby EVERY NON-REGISTERED DOMAIN NAME, typed by ANYONE, using ANY web browser (that MSN search thing IE does is small potatoes), goes to a site THEY own. EVERY SINGLE MISTYPED DOMAIN NAME will go to THEIR site. This is BEYOND evil.
One nifty side-effect? No longer will mail sent to a nonexistent domain name “bounce”, because EVERY possible domain name now exists! Wee!
As as test to see it in action, I visited: www.chhhhheeeeessssseeee.com. Sure enough. There it is. Hey neat, the links on the “Sitefinder” page go to “sponsored links”. Imagine that.
That’s it. I’m done with the Internet.