Regarding panix.com

Mon Jan 17 00:57:54 UTC 2005

Bruce Tonkin wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> Melbourne IT restored the nameservers and contact details associated
> with this name first thing this morning (Monday in Melbourne,
> Australia).

And the lack of response on a weekend is completely inappropriate. I'm glad you 
finally decided to do something, but there is no way in good conscience I can 
recommend MIT to anyone at this point.

This is analogous to a conversation I had with a friend this past week. He's 
owed me money for quite some time, and FINALLY gave me part of it several 
months ago, but only part. When I complained, he said "but I GAVE YOU money 
already..."

Of course he did, but his resolution of the problem took a long time and wasn't 
a complete resolution.

Similarly, your resolution of the problem took way too long to get started. I 
suspect there are PANIX customers who have suffered real losses as a result of 
this problem, much like the ISP I used to work for suffered when some idiot 
working for Network Solutions fat-fingered a domain change and took the ISP's 
main domain name off the net for three days (this was back in the late 90s). 
Your response is better than that of the NetSol moron I talked to who seemed to 
think the incident was funny, but there is no excuse for you not AT LEAST 
having a 24-hour emergency pager/cell phone/OOB notification system for 
incidents like this. MIT is a registrar. You knew about the change in ICANN 
policy and should have been proactive in setting up a safety net for people who 
ended up getting caught by it.

I'm not blaming you for the problem itself - I'm blaming you for not acting 
immediately when notified of it, and apparently adopting a "so what?" attitude 
on top of that. Not very professional.

I can think of at least two big registrars that have 24x7 customer service. I'm 
not even asking for that much from you...

-- 
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol at JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"In case anyone was wondering, that big glowing globe above the Victor
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amount of rain the Southland has gotten this winter (January 12th, 2005)