I've been thinking that there should be a new type of record introduced to be application specific for HTTP, just as MX only applies to smtp. Due to a wide variety of applications relying upon A records as their method, or method of last resort (eg: if no MX, go directly to the IN A record) perhaps there needs to be some new HTTP specific record introduced? This would allow anyone to add their own wildcard entries for their own redirect services (eg: aol and microsoft could run their own on their own nameservers) without impacting the alternate applications. This may be a bit late in the picture to apply this, but I'm sure that the browser people (ms, aol/netscape, mozilla, apple/safari) would be willing to do the minor additional coding work as it obviously would mean the ability to redirect the ad revenue to their own services easier if this were implemented, without all the other damage of intrudcing flat-out A records in wildcarded zones to be used by the http protocol. - Jared On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 10:06:13AM -0700, Wayne E. Bouchard wrote:
Yes, I will heartily agree with this. Having this functionality be triggered by a wildcard in the DNS records is the wrong approach. It's the application that should be taking care of this
if (NXDOMAIN) redirect(preferences->sitefinder_host, url);
If verisigin wants to partner with someone to actually host the sitefinder site but have some switch integrated into like IE/Netscape/whatever to use that site, I have no problem with this. It becomes a choice of the individual user to use it and the rest of us don't get screwed by something we have no control over.
On Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 04:07:53PM +0100, Ray Bellis wrote:
Quoting Rusty Lewis from http://verisign.com/corporate/news/2003/pr_20031007b.html?sl=070804
"We will continue to take feedback from both Internet users and the technical community on how we can ensure that the service is available for the many Internet users who clearly like it."
Well that's very simple Rusty - stop screwing around with *our* DNS and write a plugin for IE to catch NXDOMAIN, just like the Google toolbar does.
That'll allow 90% of the browsing population a *choice*, something the wildcard clearly does not.
Ray
-- Ray Bellis, MA(Oxon) - Technical Director community internet plc - ts.com Ltd
Windsor House, 12 High Street, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 2PJ tel: +44 1865 856000 email: ray.bellis@community.net.uk fax: +44 1865 856001 web: http://www.community.net.uk/
--- Wayne Bouchard web@typo.org Network Dude http://www.typo.org/~web/
-- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.