Category: Internet

Tripping over to Loren Webster’s In a Dark Time weblog, I was surprised to see “Domain expired”. However, it’s been renewed so more poetry should be forthcoming. If you’re thirsting for the words now, then you can use his “tilde” URL – http://gemini.hmdnsgroup.com/~loren/In_a_Dark_Time/. Now might also be a good time to go to his front page, because I can see he’s added new material. You won’t be able to comment, though, or access a permalink unti his DNS renewal has propagated throughout the threaded void. The registrars say up to 72 hours, and an expiration can take longer than a new domain. Still, less than a day, I estimate.

This is a good time to mention that several .info registrars, such as my own, Dotster are giving away free .info domains. One site started it – DomainSite, but they’ve since gone to a fee of 0.99. Which is still very cheap.

So far, I’ve snapped up the following domains:

burningbird.info
dynamicearth.info
lampsurvivalguide.info
netsurvivalguide.info
practicalrdf.info
missouriphotos.info
prettypics.info
shelleypowers.info
mirrorself.info
yasd.info
aboutwomen.info
ladygeek.info
ladygeeks.info
photobird.info
solarlily.info
itkitchen.info
bookofcolors.info
saltofthesea.info
reallysmartweb.info
reallysmartpeople.info
hintofspice.info
sensualist.info
pragmatist.info
poetryfinder.info

Some of these really beg for a site, don’t they?

There is a limit of 25 domains per registering entity, in this case myself. This may only be for each registrar, but I think 24 domains is enough, don’t you?

Why is this happening? Most likely to begin to fill up namespace for this new TLD (Top Level Domain), and start generating interest in the .info domain. This domain is an unrestricted domain, which means anyone can register a domain name–here’s your chance to have a free domain for one year. Next year, of course, it will cost you.

Going back a moment to Loren’s site, the use of the tilde (’~’) has been around since Apache was a pup, I believe. My first site was a ’tilde site’, before buying my first domain (not easy to obtain in the early days; free at first, and then horribly expensive until Internic decided to allow competition).

A tilde site is one in which multiple accounts are hosted in one shared environment, and each account has a specific name attached to it, such as my own, ’shelley’. These are hosted in a specific directory, usually labeled the ‘home’ directory. A person can then access the site using the IP address or general name for the server, followed by a /~(name), and the web server, at least Apache, will serve up the pages until whatever domain name they use propagates through the system.

So if I, in my gluttony and greed for domains, happen to forget to renew my burningbird.net domain registration (horrors!), you could still access my site using http://gemini.hmdnsgroup.com/~shelley/, or this weblog using http://gemini.hmdnsgroup.com/~shelley/weblog/.

Of course, using the tilde site to access the page could cause some interesting challenges if you’re using the top level relative URL, as I am using for some my of my stylesheet effort. The reason why is that the top level domain in this case is no longer burningbird.net, but gemini.hmdnsgroup.com. And there is no /look, /photos, or /mm subdirectory at this location.

I have said it before and will say it again – blacklists are evil.

In an effort to reduce the serious spammer problems we’ve been having (specifically my domain and some others are being targetted), Hosting Matters is now blocking SMTP access based on IP addresses from some kind of ‘list’. Well, Charter cable is on that list, which means I can’t send email. HM put back the block of IP addresses I was in when I couldn’t send before–but my cable company just now changed my IP address, and I am, again, blocked from responding to an email.

(Update: and HM is again whitelisting the block holding my IP address – Annette and the gang respond faster than any other ISP I’ve ever had.)

I wish people would remember that the bad guys can route around blocks and blacklists faster than the rest of us can.

In the meantime, please direct all email to me – and I mean all – to my gmail account (in the sidebar). I’m a bit worried about the reliability of gmail, too, but at least I can respond back in this system.

I think Hosting Matters is the best ISP there is, and appreciate their interest in keeping us up and running, and bug and collapse free (they’re obsessed with this–I like this in an ISP).

But blacklists are evil.

Netcraft started a bit of a panic with an ill-considered writing about a new ICANN ruling that if a registrar or domain owner doesn’t respond within five days to a request, the site can be transferred automatically. I noticed that Dorothea just wrote on it, as have others including Kottke. But as Kottke found out the ruling doesn’t make your domain as vulnerable as it would first seem.

How it would work: I’m right in the middle now of transferring four domains from Dotster to GoDaddy. I’ve initiated the appropriate requests and punched in the appropriate codes. The transfer hasn’t completed yet. Why? Because Dotster is known to be a problem when it comes to you moving your domains away from the company. They don’t seem to want to let them go.

In the past, any registrar could make it extremely difficult for you to transfer, until you finally give up and continue to pay them to maintain the domain registration–what amounts to legal and technical extortion.

However, now, registrars can’t drag their corporate feet. Unless a dispute occurs, the registrar must respond to a legitimate request from another registrar in five days, or the transfer automatically proceeds regardless. Not another person, a registrar. A registrar that is responsible for making sure that all the of the appropriate authorizations are in place to prevent someone from hijacking your site.

Now remember, a registrar has certain obligations they have to meet to continue being a registrar, including getting the appropriate authorizations in place to ensure that someone can’t steal your domains. Registrars that don’t quickly lose their registrar status, and whatever dubious transfer is initiated is terminated. If you want to move a domain, they have to contact the domain owner and inform them of the request, and ask the owner to respond either confirming or declining the move.

(I also had to provide a code to move a .info domain.)

Much of the hand waving on the part of registrars in this is let people know about this change, which is significant. It also highlights the reason the contact information for the domain has to be up to date (though you can use third-party companies now to hide your information from casual WHOIS users).

However, a great deal of the hand waving is marketing and registrar intimidation. By all means, lock your domains–extra precautions should help (but check out the policy for unlocking the domains, first, before you push that button). It’s more important, though, to ensure that your contact information for your domain contains an up to date email that will ultimately resolve to you, so you can dispute a domain request if one comes up unexpectedly. And to ensure that you’re given a timely reminder when your domain is about to expire.

Now, we’ll see if Dotster complies with this new ruling, because it’s fast approaching the time when it has to allow the transfer.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m about to head out for a new hike in a special place I’ve not been before. During the drive, I’ll wrap my mind around some things I want to write about, not the least of which are another beautiful protest, individualism and community, weblogging and writing, and possibly the World of Ends, though this will most likely get wrapped into individualism and community.

Question to the thousands who saw the World of Ends as a new definitive answer for the foolish masses who don’t ‘know’ the Internet: Exactly what will you do differently, today, after reading this essay, then you did yesterday before reading this essay? Just curious, is all.

I actually have a lot of things I want to write about. This is a very good feeling to have. Back to the burn.