[IP] VeriSign prepares to relaunch "Site Finder" -- calls

Mon Feb 23 19:41:34 UTC 2004

> nanog at riva.net (Randall Pigott) writes:
> 
> > I am curious what the operational impact would be to network operators
> > if, instead of Verisign using SiteFinder over all com and net, Verisign
> > or their technology partner for SiteFinder began coercing a large number
> > of independent ISPs and network operators to install their form of DNS
> > redirection at the ISP-level, until all or most of the end-users out
> > there were getting redirected.
> 
> It would be no worse than NEW.NET or any other form of DNS pollution/piracy
> (like the alternate root whackos), as long as it was clearly labelled.  As
> an occasional operator of infrastructure, I wouldn't like the complaint load
> I'd see if the customers of such ISP's thought that *I* was inserting the
> garbage they were seeing.  So I guess my hope is, it'll be "opt-in" with an
> explicitly held permission for every affected IP address (perhaps using some
> kind of service discount or enhancement as the carrot.)

Yup. This is the form I saw in the PRC, both with the CNNIC provisioned
means for resolving names using Big5 and/or GB encodings, and the Microsoft
and RealNames provisioned means for resolving names not in ASCII (with the
added benefit of a bug in MS's IE navagator's handling of Unicode).

There was a visible operational impact of the second service -- ever n2a
for n not in (ASCII or Big5 or GB) resulted in overseas b/w use, first to
Redmond, then to Redwood City, and finally to Reston. My hosts complained
of the cost of every browser in the PRC generating trans-pacific packet
streams.

North Americans on fat pipes may not care, but where the meter is running,
and ASCII is awkward, there will be operational measureables.

Eric