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ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Decius at 6:14 am EST, Feb 10, 2009 |
So, if you have a domain you are required to publish a telephone number in the whois database for everyone in the world to access. I have a number of domains, including this one. I had a working email address and real mailing address in the contact fields for these domains, but the phone number was phoney. (My registrar had my real phone number, but it wasn't published in whois.) Why? Because I don't want to publish my personal cellphone number so that every idiot who wants to buy one of my domains can call me up at any hour of the day and talk to me about it. There is no real technical or administrative coordination issue that could possibly come up with any of my domains that would require that someone be able to immediately reach my personal cellphone. An email would always suffice. I could go to the trouble of setting up a voice mail box, but I'd never check it, so this would be a waste of time. ICANN's policy is that if any of your whois contact information appears to be invalid anyone can file a complaint about this. You receive an email and you are required to fix your contact information in 5 days. If you do not do so, you loose the domain. God forbid you are on vacation or in the hospital. God forbid your spam filter eats the email advising you that you have 5 days to comply. You must absolutely drop everything and fix your domain contact information immediately, because it is absolutely necessary that everyone in the world have a telephone number where you can be reached. Because its so likely that people who are the victims of these invalid whois complaints won't manage to update their contact information in time, this process becomes a pretty effective way to steal their domains. You prepay a registrar to instantly register the domain if it becomes available, file your complaint, and wait a week. Poof - the domain is yours. Someone did this to Blogworld this morning. Because I'm not interested in publishing my cellular phone number I purchased proxy whois information for all of my domains. This has the following side effects: 1. My domain name registrations now cost twice as much as they used to.
2. My name, real email address, and valid mailing address are no longer published in the whois database and are no longer available to people who have a legitimate technical or administrative reason to contact me.
3. Law enforcement filing a subpoena have exactly the same information that they had before. In other words, DNS costs more for me, whois has less useful information in it, and a squatter almost got control of one of my domains. What an excellent set of policies! |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Hijexx at 11:43 am EST, Feb 10, 2009 |
Decius wrote:
In other words, DNS costs more for me, whois has less useful information in it, and a squatter almost got control of one of my domains. What an excellent set of policies!
Does ICANN get a cut of the proxy registration revenue? |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by flynn23 at 3:08 pm EST, Feb 11, 2009 |
Decius wrote:
So, if you have a domain you are required to publish a telephone number in the whois database for everyone in the world to access. I have a number of domains, including this one. I had a working email address and real mailing address in the contact fields for these domains, but the phone number was phoney. (My registrar had my real phone number, but it wasn't published in whois.) Why? Because I don't want to publish my personal cellphone number so that every idiot who wants to buy one of my domains can call me up at any hour of the day and talk to me about it. There is no real technical or administrative coordination issue that could possibly come up with any of my domains that would require that someone be able to immediately reach my personal cellphone. An email would always suffice. I could go to the trouble of setting up a voice mail box, but I'd never check it, so this would be a waste of time.
Why not just set up a vm box that emails you when someone puts a message in it. Some systems even email you the message, making maintenance a breeze. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Decius at 4:00 pm EST, Feb 11, 2009 |
flynn23 wrote:
Why not just set up a vm box that emails you when someone puts a message in it. Some systems even email you the message, making maintenance a breeze.
Two reasons: First, ICANN gave me five days to comply or loose my domain. This purposefully unreasonable time period does not create an situation that is conducive to solution shopping. Second, I shouldn't have to. ICANN is forcing me to publish an email address and a phone number. So I publish a phone number that converts calls into emails that are sent to the email address that I published. So its basically no different that if I'd just published the email. Therefore, requiring me to publish a phone number does not help the stability and security of the internet in any way. Its a stupid requirement and it shouldn't exist. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by flynn23 at 6:54 pm EST, Feb 12, 2009 |
Decius wrote: flynn23 wrote:
Why not just set up a vm box that emails you when someone puts a message in it. Some systems even email you the message, making maintenance a breeze.
Two reasons: First, ICANN gave me five days to comply or loose my domain. This purposefully unreasonable time period does not create an situation that is conducive to solution shopping. Second, I shouldn't have to. ICANN is forcing me to publish an email address and a phone number. So I publish a phone number that converts calls into emails that are sent to the email address that I published. So its basically no different that if I'd just published the email. Therefore, requiring me to publish a phone number does not help the stability and security of the internet in any way. Its a stupid requirement and it shouldn't exist.
You're thinking like an idealist, not a problem solver with better things to do with his time. =) |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Decius at 7:28 am EST, Feb 19, 2009 |
flynn23 wrote:
You're thinking like an idealist, not a problem solver with better things to do with his time. =)
Well, the stability and security of the Internet is kind of what I do, and I do think these policies cause problems. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by flynn23 at 4:02 pm EST, Feb 25, 2009 |
Decius wrote: flynn23 wrote:
You're thinking like an idealist, not a problem solver with better things to do with his time. =)
Well, the stability and security of the Internet is kind of what I do, and I do think these policies cause problems.
So then I was wrong. Solve the whole problem, from the root. When is DNSSEC going to be a reality? When will real trust between peers appear? What to do when they are ad hoc or anonymous? Big problems to solve, but even greater rewards methinks. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Lost at 2:09 am EST, Feb 12, 2009 |
Email just written by me: To: abuse@godaddy.com cc:ABCONLINEPHARMACY.COM@domainsbyproxy.com, webmaster@abconlinepharmacy.com After repeated attempts to contact abconlinepharmacy.com directly, I request that godaddy take action in this matter. I receive approximately 5 SPAM messages, with no opt out, to the address abconline@mydomain.com per day. I only used that address when creating an account at abconlinepharmacy.com, a godaddy registered domain. They are illegally sending spam from a domain registered with godaddy. Please take action in this matter. Thanks, Me
This is a real abuse issue, these guys took my email address and flood me with drug spam. But I doubt godaddy will take action in this matter, and I have no way to contact abconline directly that they will respond to. The system is broken. Attacks are possible. Actual registrar regulation does not happen. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Decius at 7:36 am EST, Feb 12, 2009 |
Jello wrote:
Email just written by me: To: abuse@godaddy.com cc:ABCONLINEPHARMACY.COM@domainsbyproxy.com, webmaster@abconlinepharmacy.com After repeated attempts to contact abconlinepharmacy.com directly, I request that godaddy take action in this matter. I receive approximately 5 SPAM messages, with no opt out, to the address abconline@mydomain.com per day. I only used that address when creating an account at abconlinepharmacy.com, a godaddy registered domain. They are illegally sending spam from a domain registered with godaddy. Please take action in this matter. Thanks, Me
This is a real abuse issue, these guys took my email address and flood me with drug spam. But I doubt godaddy will take action in this matter, and I have no way to contact abconline directly that they will respond to. The system is broken. Attacks are possible. Actual registrar regulation does not happen.
Who is there ISP? Are they reputable? Have you complained to them? |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Lost at 10:21 am EST, Feb 12, 2009 |
Decius wrote: Jello wrote:
Email just written by me: To: abuse@godaddy.com cc:ABCONLINEPHARMACY.COM@domainsbyproxy.com, webmaster@abconlinepharmacy.com After repeated attempts to contact abconlinepharmacy.com directly, I request that godaddy take action in this matter. I receive approximately 5 SPAM messages, with no opt out, to the address abconline@mydomain.com per day. I only used that address when creating an account at abconlinepharmacy.com, a godaddy registered domain. They are illegally sending spam from a domain registered with godaddy. Please take action in this matter. Thanks, Me
This is a real abuse issue, these guys took my email address and flood me with drug spam. But I doubt godaddy will take action in this matter, and I have no way to contact abconline directly that they will respond to. The system is broken. Attacks are possible. Actual registrar regulation does not happen.
Who is there ISP? Are they reputable? Have you complained to them?
No, but I should. I'm tired of the emails. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Decius at 7:30 am EST, Feb 19, 2009 |
Jello wrote:
No, but I should. I'm tired of the emails.
See, thats exactly my point. People default to checking DNS whois and expect it to work. Thats the wrong approach to dealing with security issues. You should use IP address whois and work with ISPs and not domain name holders. ISPs are organizations that can be expected to be responsible and can be held accountable. |
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RE: ICANN's totally stupid whois regulations strike again
by Lost at 3:48 pm EST, Feb 19, 2009 |
Decius wrote: Jello wrote:
No, but I should. I'm tired of the emails.
See, thats exactly my point. People default to checking DNS whois and expect it to work. Thats the wrong approach to dealing with security issues. You should use IP address whois and work with ISPs and not domain name holders. ISPs are organizations that can be expected to be responsible and can be held accountable.
It is because I've heard of Godaddy's aggressive shut-downs for arbitrary complaints that I went to them, but you're right. I'm pretty sure the emails are coming from some foreign place without any enforcement though. |
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