Web 2.0.11562 beta

Yeah as much as I hate to be a lemming, I registered my name in this TLD today. The underlying idea is slick - keeping more domain-specific information within the DNS system itself. DNS has proven to be the most important and robust protocol powering the Internet since TCP/IP. We really could not function in our day to day activities without the ability to resolve domain names. Think about it - no email, no websites, and yes … no twitter!

Selling people vanity domain names is old hat of course. The .NAME TLD came out years ago and people (including yours truly) bought their names in this TLD. Now this one is different in that the contact info for the registrant is provided directly by the nameservers. Whether this idea is going to gain the critical mass needed remains to be seen.

Such an interesting story this week all over the web: researchers at UC Berkley and UC San Diego spent some time this spring infiltrating a giant botnet called Storm Worm. This botnet has been estimated to send up to 20% of the spam on the Internet. So the researchers substituted their own faux phishing sites as the link targets in the spam in order to gather metrics.

The results: hundreds of millions of emails, an estimated three quarters of which were intercepted and only 28 would-be sales. On the other hand, when they tried to estimate malware-installing effectiveness it turns out that fully 10 percent of people following the link actually click on to install the payload! Conclusions: First, it takes such a low number of sales to make spam campaigns profitable that it will surely continue unabated; second, malware distribution can be accomplished effectively using the services of botnet operators. Both of these phenomena will evolve and flourish.

In other newsnetwork attacks would seem to be increasing at a faster rate than last year, according to Arbor Networks’ annual survey of ISP’s. Not only that but there is a broadening out of attack types. The main focus for concern is attacks  on DNS and network infrastructure systems. DNS cache poisoning has jumped up to be the second largest threat in the eyes of respondents, exceeded only by botnets and followed closely by route hijacking. Some of the things the public usually worries about rank significantly lower: worms, identity theft, etc. And the bad news: attacks are getting more specific to networks, regions, and applications!Purchase Brahmi

Let me take up the position that nobody wants to hear - Verisign deserves this increase and fought hard to win it as a consolation prize. They implemented a scheme whereby non-registered .com and .net domains typed in inadvertantly would resolve to what amounted to a basic parking page. Monetizing typo traffic by taking advantage of their position as registry for .com and .net.

People became insensed with jealous rage and ICANN stepped in and forbade it. Most people feel that it’s unfair for Verisign to have a permanent monopoly in the lucrative .com market, even though they are unaware of how we got to this situation. In the early days Verisign stepped up and did what it took to make the DNS system happen. No it’s not enough to have BIND, and to have ISPs setting up nameservers - it required some infrastructure that someone had to provide.

OK so I’m following Kevin Murphy’s lead again, but I’m intrigued by the nation of Cameroon’s inevitable rise to type-in traffic stardom. I’m referring to their change in policy to allow any requests for any unspecified .cm domains to resolve to a PPC page that they can make money from. I remember the outcry when Verisign tried it, but as pointed out Cameroon does not fall under any jurisdiction that has any power to make them stop. Even OpenDNS can not help here, since HTTP requests to .cm domains may in fact be legitimate. Well OK, I may never have gone to a .cm site before today, but the point remains valid.

In other news, Moniker.com was apparently bought by Kanoodle. When you look at some of the ethically-challenged registrars operating today I think they picked a winner! Elsewhere it was noted that iREIT purchased some additional portfolios consisting of some 40,000 domains including CreditReports.com and FarmLoans.com. Nice.

Maybe I’m the only domain name investor who thinks OpenDNS is a good thing. I think it’s good because it leaves a path open for future improvements to the DNS system we all know and love. First some debunking….

The widely touted benefits and exaggerated blogger claims sound like a load of hooey to me. Spamhaus inntegration sounds OK, but this will not change the balance of power in the war against spam. This will help deter phishing attacks, but is by no means anywhere near the end of the story. It’s just not that simple. And yes they will serve many, many ads on pages for not found domains. Not all that different from Verisign’s old Site Finder plan, except as somebody pointed out people opt in to this service.

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