[IP] Verisign draws fire over Site Finder service Boston Globe
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Verisign draws fire over Site Finder service
Experts say it will spur surge of spam
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 9/18/2003
VeriSign Inc., which oversees the popular ''.com'' Internet domain, has
ignited a digital firestorm with its new method for dealing with mistyped
Internet addresses. Experts say it will lead to a surge in spam, or
unwanted e-mail, and that Verisign has no right to impose the system on
millions of Internet users.
Verisign insists the new service, Site Finder, will help casual Web surfers
who've gone astray.
VeriSign launched Site Finder on Monday. Previously, when an Internet user
mistyped an Internet address that ended in .com, the browser would usually
display an error message, indicating there was no such address. Some
browsers have been programmed to respond by taking the user to an Internet
search service run by Microsoft Corp., which makes most of the world's Web
browsing software. Other Internet companies, such as Google and America
Online, let users install software that will cause the browser to go to
their search services when an incorrect address is entered.
But VeriSign is using its control over the .com domain to route wrongly
typed .inquiries to a VeriSign search site. VeriSign won't reveal the name
of the search engine company it uses, but VeriSign receives revenue from
the company for sending it traffic.
VeriSign began work on the system a year ago, spokesman Tom Galvin said.
''We began to think of a service that would help improve Web navigation,''
he said. Galvin said VeriSign informed a major Internet regulatory body,
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), of the
Site Finder plan. He said ICANN president Paul Twomey raised no objections.
An ICANN spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny this.
There have been plenty of objections from others, though.
''It's harmful because it broke a lot of things,'' said David Farber,
professor of telecommunications systems at the University of Pennsylvania
[somepeople don't get the word -- now at Carnegie Mellon :-) djf ] and
former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission.
Farber said that many spam filters used by Internet service providers, or
ISPs, won't work properly under the new system. That's because spammers
commonly send out junk mail using nonexistent Internet domains. Under the
old system, an ISP's spam filter could check on whether a domain existed.
If it didn't, the filter would receive an error message, and the filter
would discard the mail as spam. With Site Finder, the spam filter will
always be told that the domain exists, causing it to let the spam through.
''You can actually make a mail connection to nonexistent domains now,''
said Lauren Weinstein, cofounder of People for Internet Responsibility.
''This is the kiss of death for ISPs.''
The Internet Software Consortium, a nonprofit group that makes the most
commonly used domain-routing software, has introduced a modification that
will bypass the new VeriSign service, causing mistyped .com addresses to
generate the old error messages.
Galvin said VeriSign has received complaints from ISPs that Site Finder
caused an increase in spam. ''We're working with the user community to
address that,'' he said.
But critics say VeriSign should have worked more closely with users from
the beginning. They point out that it was the US government that assigned
the company control of .com, by far the most popular Internet domain. This,
they say, imposes a special responsibility on VeriSign.
''My personal feeling is, they violated the trust,'' Farber said.
Former software entrepreneur and Internet security expert Richard Smith, of
Brookline, said VeriSign should not make major changes without consulting
Internet oversight groups.
''They can't act unilaterally on this,'' he said. ''There are too many
constituents who have a stake in this working right.''
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@xxxxxxxxxx
This story ran on page E2 of the Boston Globe on 9/18/2003. © Copyright
2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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