🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:
> I have a couple of domains up for renewal on GoDaddy in February and 
> with all the BS surrounding SOPA, I decided to dump them.  Not having to 
> deal with DNS registrars very often, I'm not too versed on the good guys 
> and bad guys out there.  I'm leaning towards Gandi.net.  Others are 
> dnssimple or namecheap.  
> 
> I also have one with Network Solutions up in February and although 
> Network Solution never came out officially for SOPA, I think they have 
> language that excludes them from any nastiness which was much of the 
> reason why GoDaddy supported SOPA in the first place and still doesn't 
> not support SOPA.  Network Solutions may be laying low like a cat so as 
> not to rock the boat even though they tacitly support SOPA as written 
> because it benefits them.  The only reason I'm still with Network 
> Solutions is because every year I just say screw it and renew because 
> it's so much easier than dealing with the hassles of a transfer.  The 
> GoDaddy domains are so much cheaper I usually get multiple years with 
> them.

I never figured out who is not netsol and less sketchy than godaddy, and 
not as stupid as register.

Out of all three, I can renew over the phone with a person in the US with 
godaddy. I really don't have time for the convoluted website and capchas 
or HTML email.

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:

>I have a couple of domains up for renewal on GoDaddy in February and 
>with all the BS surrounding SOPA, I decided to dump them.  Not having to 
>deal with DNS registrars very often, I'm not too versed on the good guys 
>and bad guys out there.  I'm leaning towards Gandi.net.  Others are 
>dnssimple or namecheap.  

>I also have one with Network Solutions up in February and although 
>Network Solution never came out officially for SOPA, I think they have 
>language that excludes them from any nastiness which was much of the 
>reason why GoDaddy supported SOPA in the first place and still doesn't 
>not support SOPA.  Network Solutions may be laying low like a cat so as 
>not to rock the boat even though they tacitly support SOPA as written 
>because it benefits them.  The only reason I'm still with Network 
>Solutions is because every year I just say screw it and renew because 
>it's so much easier than dealing with the hassles of a transfer.  The 
>GoDaddy domains are so much cheaper I usually get multiple years with 
>them.

I changed registrars of a domain, once. Yes, it was a hassle, but now
that I know to change the administrative contact first, if I ever have to
go through it again, it'll be much less of a hassle.

In article presence@MUNGEpanix.com says...
> I never figured out who is not netsol and less sketchy than godaddy, and 
> not as stupid as register.
> 
> Out of all three, I can renew over the phone with a person in the US with 
> godaddy. I really don't have time for the convoluted website and capchas 
> or HTML email.

If I'm reading you right you advocate apathy.  Apathy is certainly the 
simplest route.  I was reading over these domain transfer procedures and 
could envisage having to talk with drones on the telephone should 
something get lost in transit.  I could be in and out of Godaddy with a 
re-up in a matter of minutes as well as Network Solutions.  Also, 
gandi.net is foreign and takes Euros and namecheap is the same price as 
godaddy without Danica Patrick.  Easydns is about double godaddy.  I 
also got recommended dyn.com for its performance at $15/year.  Dnssimple 
is another one.

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:
> In article presence@MUNGEpanix.com says...
>> I never figured out who is not netsol and less sketchy than godaddy, and 
>> not as stupid as register.
>> 
>> Out of all three, I can renew over the phone with a person in the US with 
>> godaddy. I really don't have time for the convoluted website and capchas 
>> or HTML email.
> 
> If I'm reading you right you advocate apathy.  Apathy is certainly the 
> simplest route.  I was reading over these domain transfer procedures and 
> could envisage having to talk with drones on the telephone should 
> something get lost in transit.  I could be in and out of Godaddy with a 
> re-up in a matter of minutes as well as Network Solutions.  Also, 
> gandi.net is foreign and takes Euros and namecheap is the same price as 
> godaddy without Danica Patrick.  Easydns is about double godaddy.  I 
> also got recommended dyn.com for its performance at $15/year.  Dnssimple 
> is another one.

netsol doesn't deserve to exist. I won't use them again. Register.com got 
all fucking stupid on me, asking for all sorts of identity theft 
documentation. Fuck that shit. They would not let me change my info on a 
domain, so I trasferred everything away, which they didn't want 
documentation for. Dumbasses.

gogaddy is obnoxious, but cheap, has never fucked me over and it's not 
some foreign bullshit front corporation on some tax haven island like 
gandi or any of those other sketchy as fuck places. If I can't walk 
through the front door of your office, I'm not doing business with you.

Godaddy is starting to get more expensive, but I suspect everybody else is 
too. I'm not in love with them, but don't see a close second option at 
this point.

Cydrome Leader <presence@mungepanix.com> wrote:

> gogaddy is obnoxious, but cheap, has never fucked me over and it's not 
> some foreign bullshit front corporation on some tax haven island like 
> gandi or any of those other sketchy as fuck places. If I can't walk 
> through the front door of your office, I'm not doing business with you.

Yeah that is one major consideration CL is making.

If you ever have to deal with a domain being hijacked, or one that "expired"
by accident, dealing with the offshore ones are a nightmare, generally
you'll lose the domain or have to pay 1000's to recover it.

Big plus for both godaddy or networksolutions is, if you suspect wrong
doing, a call to the FBI really stirs up the shit and gets results.

I hate godaddy myself, six pages of bullshit "why not add..." just to do a
domain renewal, but as I long as I see they are still in Arizona, they'll
get my business.

Their stance on SOPA was outright stupid but this boycott is almost as
stupid. They host/registered something like 32,000,000 domains and a couple
hundred thousand moving away isn't exactly going to put much of a dent in
their operations.

Use the non-u.s. based ones if you want, but I'm telling you, if you hit a
bump in the road, better kiss your domain goodbye and look for a
replacement.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

On 12/26/2011 12:22 AM, Mark Anderson wrote:
> I have a couple of domains up for renewal on GoDaddy in February and
> with all the BS surrounding SOPA, I decided to dump them.  Not having to
> deal with DNS registrars very often, I'm not too versed on the good guys
> and bad guys out there.  I'm leaning towards Gandi.net.  Others are
> dnssimple or namecheap.
>
> I also have one with Network Solutions up in February and although
> Network Solution never came out officially for SOPA, I think they have
> language that excludes them from any nastiness which was much of the
> reason why GoDaddy supported SOPA in the first place and still doesn't
> not support SOPA.  Network Solutions may be laying low like a cat so as
> not to rock the boat even though they tacitly support SOPA as written
> because it benefits them.  The only reason I'm still with Network
> Solutions is because every year I just say screw it and renew because
> it's so much easier than dealing with the hassles of a transfer.  The
> GoDaddy domains are so much cheaper I usually get multiple years with
> them.
>


Have you looked at Namecheap.com?

Bruce Esquibel <bje@ripco.com> wrote:
> Use the non-u.s. based ones if you want, but I'm telling you, if you hit a
> bump in the road, better kiss your domain goodbye and look for a
> replacement.

FWIW, namecheap is in Cali

Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
> Bruce Esquibel <bje@ripco.com> wrote:
>> Use the non-u.s. based ones if you want, but I'm telling you, if you hit a
>> bump in the road, better kiss your domain goodbye and look for a
>> replacement.
> 
> FWIW, namecheap is in Cali

You mean california, that communist broken down shithole where the only 
thing that's still legal is being a mexi that crossed the border without 
permission?

Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote:
> Geoff Gass <glg@tanzenmb.com> wrote:
>> Bruce Esquibel <bje@ripco.com> wrote:
>>> Use the non-u.s. based ones if you want, but I'm telling you, if you hit a
>>> bump in the road, better kiss your domain goodbye and look for a
>>> replacement.
>> 
>> FWIW, namecheap is in Cali
>
> You mean california, that communist broken down shithole where the only 
> thing that's still legal is being a mexi that crossed the border without 
> permission?

it's still part of the us

In article bje@ripco.com says...
> I hate godaddy myself, six pages of bullshit "why not add..." just to do a
> domain renewal, but as I long as I see they are still in Arizona, they'll
> get my business.

I decided to keep everything as is and any new domains I'll try 
namecheap for any new domains I need this year to try them out.  


I never quite understood this entire DNS racket.  What does one have to 
do to become a registrar where you can hand out domain names and charge 
yearly rent?  The forces of monopoly may not completely succeed with 
SOPA but they'll keep trying until they do.  If that happens isn't it 
possible that a bunch of parallel sets of root DNS servers surface where 
someone typing google.com could get some phony google.com hosted in some 
off shore tax haven.  But the pirate Internet would still resolve 
piratebay.org, free of censorship, and making us all criminals for 
pointing our DNS servers to the wrong root servers.

On 2012-01-04, Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:
> The forces of monopoly may not completely succeed with 
> SOPA but they'll keep trying until they do. 

Hmm... 

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:

> I never quite understood this entire DNS racket.  What does one have to 
> do to become a registrar where you can hand out domain names and charge 
> yearly rent?  The forces of monopoly may not completely succeed with 
> SOPA but they'll keep trying until they do.  If that happens isn't it 
> possible that a bunch of parallel sets of root DNS servers surface where 
> someone typing google.com could get some phony google.com hosted in some 
> off shore tax haven.  But the pirate Internet would still resolve 
> piratebay.org, free of censorship, and making us all criminals for 
> pointing our DNS servers to the wrong root servers.

It is a racket.

If someone died and left me god of the internet, first thing I would do is
get rid of the current dns system and make everyone go back to use ip
addresses. Technical problem abound with that, but nothing that can't be
worked out.

If someone wanted a domain name, it would be $1000 a year or worse. If you
couldn't afford it or thought it unreasonable, you could just use a
sub-domain belonging to someone else.

It wasn't like this in the beginning, early on there was no charge for
domain names but the process was long and complicated. They actually
verified information. You needed to justify it. The zone records needed to
be set up before the approval. If you fucked something up, back to square
one.

As far as becoming a registar, couple forms and money to buy into the TLD,
probably around $10k or better for most of them (each). Not much to it. Have
to prove you are a legit biz, someone in charge, bank account, normal proof.

Alternate DNS has been around since the beginning, I think, if I remember
correctly, even Karl from MCS was involved with one. First one I remember
was Carl Palmer, was called the rabbit network. Alternate root servers,
alternate DNS servers. Actually it's possible Carl and Karl were in bed
together, or mortal enimies, forgot about all that until now.

They exist now to an extent, I beleive if you use TOR (the onion router),
there is another TLD called .onion you can access. In theory, stuff not in
the .onion TLD gets dropped through from the normal root servers, ones with
the .onion extention get added in.

They always have had the same problem, getting people to use them. Then you
have the trust issue. All you need is some admin with a god complex deciding
that aol.com should be blown off the internet, makes a quick edit "because I
can justify it" and there goes that idea out the window.

About 10-12 years ago networksolutions.com tried something like that. If you
mistyped a url (ripqo.com instead of ripco.com), they rigged it so it went
to a landing page rather than letting the browser tell you the domain didn't
exist or the more cryptic "host not found" error. Basically they tried using
mis-spelled domain names as an advertising method for their services.

Anyway, the group in charge of domain names is called ICANN. They delegate
power to the registars like godaddy and namecheap. They are the ones that
steered everything to the mess we have now.

Like you pointed out, no one anywhere can "own" a domain name. No matter who
you are, how many you claim ownership to, you are mearly renting them on a
year-to-year basis. And don't me where all the money is going to, because I
don't know. Godaddy alone is supposed to have 32 million registrations,
ignoring all their other services and averaging a renewal at $10, thats $320
million a year just for them.

They claim $6 ot $7 of that goes to ICANN, and again, for what? What the
fuck do they need all that money for? Figure if there are 100 million domain
names total, thats like $600 million a year, just their take.

It costs that much a year to keep this mess in order?

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

In article bje@ripco.com says...

> Alternate DNS has been around since the beginning, I think, if I 
remember
> correctly, even Karl from MCS was involved with one. First one I remember
> was Carl Palmer, was called the rabbit network. Alternate root servers,
> alternate DNS servers. Actually it's possible Carl and Karl were in bed
> together, or mortal enimies, forgot about all that until now.

If Karl was involved then was he trying to set up a porn free DNS 
network?  That could have been a legit feature actually for families 
with young children.  Karl would be King of Virtue.

> They exist now to an extent, I beleive if you use TOR (the onion 
router),
> there is another TLD called .onion you can access. In theory, stuff not in
> the .onion TLD gets dropped through from the normal root servers, ones with
> the .onion extention get added in.

I heard TOR is in extreme peril with passage of SOPA.  Anything 
anonymous will be and probably anything using strong encryption.


> Like you pointed out, no one anywhere can "own" a domain name. No 
matter who
> you are, how many you claim ownership to, you are mearly renting them on a
> year-to-year basis. And don't me where all the money is going to, because I
> don't know. Godaddy alone is supposed to have 32 million registrations,
> ignoring all their other services and averaging a renewal at $10, thats $320
> million a year just for them.

With the passage of SOPA there will be demand for alternate DNS and not 
just for pirates.  I haven't read much about the great Chinese firewall 
but wonder how that's enforced.  Do they blacklist IP ranges at the 
nation's edge routers?  If so, how is this blacklist maintained?  Inside 
China Internet censorship would be easy to enforce.  Just track down the 
violator's IP to their home address and send a team to roust the 
bastards.  I'm sure they don't have to go through any pesky court 
proceedings with all the due process mamby pamby stuff.

The court battles with alternate DNS could be interesting however.  
Let's say Microsoft builds their own DNS which maps all google requests 
to bing.  Is that violating any law?  It's their DNS and people 
voluntarily choose to use their DNS so how could google complain?

BTW: Both our Senators are yes votes for SOPA.  Durbin is a co-sponsor 
and Kirk got $750K from pro-SOPA forces.  Both our guys are bought and 
paid for so no use writing them a letter.  

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambradnylion.com> wrote:

> With the passage of SOPA there will be demand for alternate DNS and not 
> just for pirates.  I haven't read much about the great Chinese firewall 
> but wonder how that's enforced.  Do they blacklist IP ranges at the 
> nation's edge routers?  If so, how is this blacklist maintained?  Inside 
> China Internet censorship would be easy to enforce.  Just track down the 
> violator's IP to their home address and send a team to roust the 
> bastards.  I'm sure they don't have to go through any pesky court 
> proceedings with all the due process mamby pamby stuff.

I think in China, the way I understand it, the pressure is put on the ISP
and networking companies. They get a list of banned sites and ip addresses
and it's up to them to make sure the customers are blocked or re-routed to
state sanctioned sites.

That in itself isn't much different than the early days here in the states.

When Ripco started, being we were a commercial business, unless we
filed/signed a NSF agreement, we couldn't get to tax-paid-for networks with
the colleges and univerities. Our upstream (uunet) just took the routes out.
There wasn't anything cloak and dagger, it was understood that is the way it
worked.

The bit with SOPA, I beleive what people are worried about, is beyond that
bit of censorship with domain names. In China, if you were anti-government
and like set up a blog in Italy, they'll start digging through logs trying
to figure out who it is, without any kind of due process. They'll pressure
the ISP/network company to start looking for China-to-Italy connections and
turn them over.

SOPA here opens the same door. In theory, the way I read it, if someone like
uploads a video to YouTube which is copyrighted to someone else, YouTube has
like 5 days to remove video and turn over all info they have about the
uploader, else they will feel the same rath. What is worse is it seems links
to copyrighted material falls under the same crime. So if Kenji posts a
reddit link which leads to another link leading to some copyright crime,
they can come after me, reddit and end up with Kenji, without having to step
into a courtroom.

It's too much power being handed over to idiots.

> The court battles with alternate DNS could be interesting however.  
> Let's say Microsoft builds their own DNS which maps all google requests 
> to bing.  Is that violating any law?  It's their DNS and people 
> voluntarily choose to use their DNS so how could google complain?

I don't think it's illegal, but it's easy to make it so.

If MS does that, I don't think it's a problem.

But if MS contacts like Comcast and makes some backroom deal with them to
push their DNS servers to the end customers, that probably would be illegal.
The end customer wouldn't know. Class action suit anyway.

Remember the DNS servers on your home computer (unless you manually put them
in) were given by DHCP when it booted. The router told the computer what DNS
servers to use, the router got those numbers from the ISP upstream.

It's trivial for the upstream to change that profile to anything they
wanted. I'm just saying if they did it for a you scratch my back, I'll
scratch yours reason, that would be illegal unless they disclosed it to
their customers and gave them options.

Actually what you bring up is the basis for some of the viruses and trojans
going around. It modifies a file on your computer called hosts which is
usually checked before a dns query is made. If the virus can modify the file
and add in an entry, like "1.2.3.4   www.google.com", everytime you try to
go to google, it'll go to whatever is answering 1.2.3.4 instead.

Handy for getting people to hand over their login and passwords in the
clear if you can get 1.2.3.4 to look like what they are expecting.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com