Adam

Forgive me if I don't respond to all your points but I think the point I
was making was misunderstood.

My main point is that just because something is there, whether it's new,
old, easy, hard, whatever, to use and implement - that doesn't mean it
will become an accepted "standard" overnight, or over many years for that
matter.

In relation to this discussion, this marketing push into an area that's
new to the end user (at least, and many a sys admin), will create some
kind of havoc (confusion on a grand scale).

As an example, look at the spam issue and open relay mail servers.  Sure,
an experienced sys admin such as yourself could secure a SMTP server in
minutes but if it's that easy then why does Australian busniess and
govenment have such high occurance in the ORBS "blacklist." [I don't
think it would be wise to continue this thread on these lists]

IMHO, Australia's sys admin industry is either underexperinced or
overworked.   Until corporate Australia take a different approach to their
IT requirement's it will remain that way.

Cheers
Craig

PS.  I was counting year's professionally employed as my experience, lucky
13 otherwise.

PPS  Time does equal money, if it doesn't then it's charity.  (Which isn't
a bad thing :)

____________ Craig Clark ________________ craig§cac.nu ____________ 
      Professional consultant by day, eccentric geek by night!
        What do I do on the weekend?? You don't want to know!
===================================================================  

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Adam Todd wrote:

> >> >Examples which we are currently testing include: 
> >> >http://S�draK�rr.se.nu, http://F�reningsSparbanken.se.nu/, 
> >> >http://dom�n.se.nu and http://tillbeh�r.se.nu/
> >> 
> >> Bah - it's just another "sellathon"
> >
> >So it's not technically impossible.  But the marketing "sellathon" will
> >create havoc.
> 
> Why create havoc?  THere is already enough havoc with ICANN and it's total
> mess of registrations.  Instead of just Domain Horders and speculators
> which was the biggest problem (although recently it didn't stop people
> registing names like 'microsoft-.com') we now have Domain Slammers.
> 
> A Domain Slammer is someone who uses another registrar to knock your
> legitimate registration out of the Registry.
> 
> So 846 people who registered xxx-.com names (or net etc) will be getting
> arefund after it took ICANN 2 months to decide it was not permitted.  My
> the Banking industry must love us and our Credit Card Payment Refunds!
> 
> Now there is NO Guarantee youe domain name in COM/NET/ORG/EDU will in fact
> remain in yur name.  And if it changes - for whatever reason, too bloody
> bad!  It's between you, the new registrant and (not likely but) the
> registries.
> 
> >Just because something is possible, technically, doesn't
> >mean it happens.
> 
> Very true.  Technical we can release toxic poisons into the air to reduce
> population growth.  But we don't do it do we?
> 
> And on that basis, we now have auDA which is following in ICANN's footsetps.
> 
> >In my time in the I*net industry (which could be counted
> >in years on one hand)
> 
> I now need two hands and two feet to count my Internet (R&D/user) years.
> 
> >I've seen many a site that just don't keep up with
> >current release servers (DNS included).
> 
> This is true.  I have a report here that identifies every visible DNS
> server in the world and the version it's running.  Mind you 99.9% of GOV.AU
> sites are all running vunerable and highly quesitonable DNS servers and
> configurations.  Far too many on MS NT platforms with buggier bugs than the
> Y2K problem.
> 
> When the script kiddies get bored of changing the ABA and Super boards web
> pages, they'll start on DNS and making your request go to Adult web sites
> instead!
> 
> >It all costs money to update,
> 
> Not really.  It does cost time.  It only costs money if you employ a brain
> dead idiot who says he's been sorting out internet problems since the
> Internet begain in 1994.  That's when you know you have problems!
> 
> Mind you - I do a lot of DNS and other server resource upgrading and
> security checking for corporates now, simply because there are far too many
> ease of vunerability hackings going on.  My services are cheap but sheesh
> ... it's safer.
> 
> Anyway, what has this got to do with a "hack" of a DNS server, that will
> obviously fall into your exact criteria - being out of date with current
> functionality and safe code?
> 
> >for a lot of the decision makers, they cannot see the advantage in such
> >updates.  Therefore, industry follows the latest trends 3-5 years after
> >they happen.
> 
> Yep, not uncommon.  Fortuantley not so much inmy client base.
> 
> >Problem with that is the people at the front, i.e. using
> >extended character sets, at being held back.
> 
> I doubt that at all.  In fact the you can use ANY character you like in a
> Domain Name, with the exception of a '-' at the end (so it seems with some
> software: telnet and ftp) there is nothing fancy or wonderful about using
> extended character sets.  I've been using thiem to hide services for years. 
> 
> Extended character sets are also becoming surprisingly common amoungst Adlt
> Web sites.
> 
> >I'm not saying it's right or wrong..  that's just the way I see it.
> 
> But it's NOT NEW.  It's NOT Special.  It's just someone boasting about
> somethign that is uncommon and promoting themselves to sell more product by
> a misleading and deceptive means.  There is no fancy R&D needed to do this,
> it's not special and can exist in ANY domain name space today.
> 
> I'm sure the ACCC will like to hear about this.  I might get around to
> writing a formal complaint about misleading and deceptive practises.
> 
>