Entries tagged with “WHOIS” from Domains / Internet Technology News - DNS News
Nominet maybe attracting some undue attention due to behind the scenes squabbles, governance reviews and proposed policy changes, but the registry is also developing new features and services.
Today they announced a number of things that are worthy of attention.
The biggest one in many respects is the introduction of a new domain locking mechanism - "phishing lock".
This new mechanism allows registrars to effectively lockdown a domain or an entire account should they feel that the domain(s) are being used for phishing fraud or other types of abuse:
Nominet's information page on the new mechanism makes it clear that the lock's usage will be monitored and that registrars should not abuse it or use it for any purpose other than that for which it was intended:
However it is unclear how they will act should a registrant contact them directly when their domain is locked.
Full details on their site
The other changes were not as "exciting" in some respects, but are still worth mentioning.
If you follow domain disputes or want to investigate them the new DRS (Nominet's dispute resolution service) search function is a welcome addition. You can now search past DRS decisions using a range of options including keywords, domain name, expert etc.,
The other big change today was the introduction of "standard EPP". EPP is a system used by many of the domain registries to handle registrations and modifications to domain names. Unfortunately many registrars were not overly impressed with Nominet's implementation of EPP, so this new "standard" version may prove to be more popular, as it uses data structures that are similar to those used elsewhere.
It will be interesting to see if the registrar community adopt the new EPP, though its impact on registrants in either case should be minimal.
Today they announced a number of things that are worthy of attention.
The biggest one in many respects is the introduction of a new domain locking mechanism - "phishing lock".
This new mechanism allows registrars to effectively lockdown a domain or an entire account should they feel that the domain(s) are being used for phishing fraud or other types of abuse:
* Remove the domain name from the zone file. This means that the domain name will not resolve to a web page and email directed to it will not be delivered.
* Lock all information relating to the domain name. This prevents registrant transfers, registrar changes, nameserver modifications and domain name cancellation.
* Set the domain name's status on the WHOIS to "suspended".
* If applied to an account, lock all domain names on the account. If applied to a single domain name only, that domain name will be locked. Other domain names in the same account will be unaffected.
* Not make any changes in respect of invoicing. If the domain name is not yet invoiced it will be invoiced as normal.
Nominet's information page on the new mechanism makes it clear that the lock's usage will be monitored and that registrars should not abuse it or use it for any purpose other than that for which it was intended:
* The registrant has not paid monies owed to you
* The registrant is suspected or accused of civil wrongs, e.g. a breach of contract or IP infringement (although you may wish to take other action if you are hosting the relevant content)
* The registrant has been accused of criminal activity by one person who does not supply supporting information or evidence of the criminality
* The alleged criminal activity has nothing to do with the registrant's domain name
However it is unclear how they will act should a registrant contact them directly when their domain is locked.
Full details on their site
The other changes were not as "exciting" in some respects, but are still worth mentioning.
If you follow domain disputes or want to investigate them the new DRS (Nominet's dispute resolution service) search function is a welcome addition. You can now search past DRS decisions using a range of options including keywords, domain name, expert etc.,
The other big change today was the introduction of "standard EPP". EPP is a system used by many of the domain registries to handle registrations and modifications to domain names. Unfortunately many registrars were not overly impressed with Nominet's implementation of EPP, so this new "standard" version may prove to be more popular, as it uses data structures that are similar to those used elsewhere.
It will be interesting to see if the registrar community adopt the new EPP, though its impact on registrants in either case should be minimal.
As the Telnic (.tel) "go live" progresses, the registry operator has finally launched their WHOIS service.
It's available from the command line or via the web based whois
What makes the .tel whois slightly different is the little addition at the end of the output:
You can read more about encrypting details held in NAPTR records on the Telnic site
It's available from the command line or via the web based whois
What makes the .tel whois slightly different is the little addition at the end of the output:
Contact information: Disclosure of contact data is restricted becauseUnlike other gTLDs, .tel offers a certain degree of security that other TLDs lack when it comes to the sharing of data via DNS.
of UK and EU Data Protection legislation. The contact details for this
contact ID may be available by looking up a domain object in the WHOIS
system. The information can also be obtained through the Telnic
Special Access Service. Visit http://www.sas.nic.tel for more details.
You can read more about encrypting details held in NAPTR records on the Telnic site
ICANN have upgraded the system used for reporting inaccuracies in WHOIS.According to the announcement:
The Whois Data Problem Report System (WDPRS) has a number of advantages over the previous system, which was first introduced in 2002. Among them are:The full announcement is available on the ICANN site, while the new reporting system may be found here
* More detailed information is captured from complainants to assist registrars in investigating Whois inaccuracies
* Duplicate reports regarding the same domain name are not accepted by the system
* Reports concerning domains already on hold are removed
* Greater capacity has been introduced to allow for bulk submissions of reports
* Processes have been put in place to assess registrar compliance with RAA Whois inaccuracy investigation requirements
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John McCormac has been collecting and processing statistics on domain registrations and hosting for as long as I can remember. He is probably best known for Hackwatch and WhoisIreland, which produces monthly reports for the Irish hosting and domain industry.
John's latest project has been in development for several months and offers an alternative to some of the existing domain statistics sites already on the market.
What makes it different is that HosterStats cares about ccTLD data.
Sites like WebHosting.info and DomainTools all but ignore ccTLD data and give a rather skewed perspective of non-US based providers.
With Hosterstats you can easily check the DNS history on any .com/.net/org/info/mobi/eu/asia/co.uk or .ie domain name.
While the site isn't the prettiest at present it is incredibly functional and nice and fast to load, so you get the information that you want quickly and easily.
It will be interesting to see what John plans on adding in terms of features in the coming weeks and months.
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John's latest project has been in development for several months and offers an alternative to some of the existing domain statistics sites already on the market.
What makes it different is that HosterStats cares about ccTLD data.
Sites like WebHosting.info and DomainTools all but ignore ccTLD data and give a rather skewed perspective of non-US based providers.
With Hosterstats you can easily check the DNS history on any .com/.net/org/info/mobi/eu/asia/co.uk or .ie domain name.
While the site isn't the prettiest at present it is incredibly functional and nice and fast to load, so you get the information that you want quickly and easily.
It will be interesting to see what John plans on adding in terms of features in the coming weeks and months.
If you have rules and regulations but don't enforce them then there's little point in having any rules or regulations in the first place.
One of the criticisms that is often levelled at ICANN is with regard to compliance issues. There are a number of areas where ICANN accredited registrars maybe flounting the rules, but if nobody does anything about it then none of the registrars will have any incentive to actually comply.
According to the latest ICANN news alert notices have been sent to both Joker.com and DNS.com.cn for WHOIS policy issues.
All ICANN accredited registrars are bound under their contract with ICANN (the RAA, which has been under review for over a year) and if ICANN deems it necessary they may actually lose their accreditation for non-compliance.
In the last 12 months there have been a number of registrars who have lost their accreditation, though none would have attracted the level of media attention of Registerfly. That a relatively large European registrar such as Joker would be subject to this kind of "wake up call" puts things in a whole new perspective.
What would be the impact on the European internet community if one of their own were to lose their ICANN accreditation?
One of the criticisms that is often levelled at ICANN is with regard to compliance issues. There are a number of areas where ICANN accredited registrars maybe flounting the rules, but if nobody does anything about it then none of the registrars will have any incentive to actually comply.
According to the latest ICANN news alert notices have been sent to both Joker.com and DNS.com.cn for WHOIS policy issues.
All ICANN accredited registrars are bound under their contract with ICANN (the RAA, which has been under review for over a year) and if ICANN deems it necessary they may actually lose their accreditation for non-compliance.
In the last 12 months there have been a number of registrars who have lost their accreditation, though none would have attracted the level of media attention of Registerfly. That a relatively large European registrar such as Joker would be subject to this kind of "wake up call" puts things in a whole new perspective.
What would be the impact on the European internet community if one of their own were to lose their ICANN accreditation?
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The IE Domain Registry made some changes to their whois output before Christmas, though I didn't get a chance to mention it until now.
As some of you may know the IE registration system involves manual validation of each and every application request. Each application is valid for 30 days, however previously it was impossible for a member of the public to know when an application expired.
You can now see it, for example:
It makes life a small bit easier I hope!
As some of you may know the IE registration system involves manual validation of each and every application request. Each application is valid for 30 days, however previously it was impossible for a member of the public to know when an application expired.
You can now see it, for example:
whois chef.ieThat domain application will expire 30 days from now..
% Rights restricted by copyright; http://www.domainregistry.ie/copyright.html
% Do not remove this notice
domain: chef.ie expiry: 01 February 2008
% Application Pending - There is currently an application being processed for
% the domain name you have requested. If unsuccessful, the application would
% expire on the date above.
It makes life a small bit easier I hope!
Nominet has published a very detailed and comprehensive position paper on "front running". Although the paper is a mere 5 pages long it covers all the areas that the topic encompasses very well and is well worth a read.
The topic of "front running" has received some publicity in the last few months. If you're not familiar with the concept Nominet's definition is helpful:
While nobody can deny that there maybe a certain amount of "front running" it probably doesn't warrant as much attention as people are currently giving it. During one of the SSAC's sessions at the recent ICANN meeting in Los Angeles the topic was touched on briefly, but nobody has been able to provide any tangible evidence of it actually occurring.
As someone who works in the internet business I've been contacted several times by clients who felt that they were victims of DNFR. Unfortunately for the clients none of the cases were genuine, as the names could easily have been chosen by someone else for perfectly legitimate reasons.
One of the things that isn't mentioned in the Nominet paper, however, is whois caching. As Nominet is a registry it's understandable that they may have overlooked this issue. In essence what happens is that larger registrars don't use whois lookups to check availability, as whois is far too slow. It might work fine for Joe Soap who only sends a few queries to the servers per day, but when you are generating thousands of queries per hour you want and need ultra-fast responses. Rather than rely on the mechanisms underlying whois many registrars use other methods, such as polling copies of zonefiles etc., to check domain availability. The result being that it is possible that a domain may appear to be available after it has been registered. Of course the time differences we're talking about can be minutes or even seconds, but the average registrant probably isn't aware of this.
In any case I hope that the SSAC and other organisations don't waste too many resources on this sort of investigation. While it may have its merits there are other matters that are of much greater importance to both registrars and registrants that should be addressed and any time spent on secondary and less important matters is a distraction.
The topic of "front running" has received some publicity in the last few months. If you're not familiar with the concept Nominet's definition is helpful:
Domain Name Front Running (DNFR) is a technique believed to exist, but so far unproved, whereby one person monitors the activity of a second person who is planning to register a domain name and the first person then registers the domain name before the second person.
While nobody can deny that there maybe a certain amount of "front running" it probably doesn't warrant as much attention as people are currently giving it. During one of the SSAC's sessions at the recent ICANN meeting in Los Angeles the topic was touched on briefly, but nobody has been able to provide any tangible evidence of it actually occurring.
As someone who works in the internet business I've been contacted several times by clients who felt that they were victims of DNFR. Unfortunately for the clients none of the cases were genuine, as the names could easily have been chosen by someone else for perfectly legitimate reasons.
One of the things that isn't mentioned in the Nominet paper, however, is whois caching. As Nominet is a registry it's understandable that they may have overlooked this issue. In essence what happens is that larger registrars don't use whois lookups to check availability, as whois is far too slow. It might work fine for Joe Soap who only sends a few queries to the servers per day, but when you are generating thousands of queries per hour you want and need ultra-fast responses. Rather than rely on the mechanisms underlying whois many registrars use other methods, such as polling copies of zonefiles etc., to check domain availability. The result being that it is possible that a domain may appear to be available after it has been registered. Of course the time differences we're talking about can be minutes or even seconds, but the average registrant probably isn't aware of this.
In any case I hope that the SSAC and other organisations don't waste too many resources on this sort of investigation. While it may have its merits there are other matters that are of much greater importance to both registrars and registrants that should be addressed and any time spent on secondary and less important matters is a distraction.
Jay reports that WIPO's whois records are not 100% accurate / compliant with ICANN rules. Seemingly they've been reported!
It would be interesting to see how many high profile sites / organisations actually are publishing accurate WHOIS data.
It would be interesting to see how many high profile sites / organisations actually are publishing accurate WHOIS data.
I've never been wholly satisfied with whois output. But when you see inaccuracies at certain levels you have to giggle. There's not much else you can really do.
DomainBlog points to the "oldest domain" which whois currently shows as having been registered in 1950!!
Not bad!
DomainBlog points to the "oldest domain" which whois currently shows as having been registered in 1950!!
Not bad!
One of the sessions I attended at the ICANN meeting in Lisbon earlier this year centred on whois. It became abundantly clear to me that the various stakeholders had very different views and objectives on how to treat and publish registrant data.
I wouldn't care to get into the finer points of the arguments, as the parties involved have done so time and again without reaching an acceptable compromise or agreement.
Milton Mueller's article, "Whois Privacy Stalemate .. Again", which was published on the Internet Governance Project site earlier today covers the situation and the various points of view in some detail.
For those of you who want a bluffer's guide the issues can be split into two broad camps.
On the one side you have individuals and groups who are concerned about privacy issues. Under the current system anyone with access to a computer can glean quite a bit of information regarding a domain holder (registrant) by simply checking the WHOIS output. (There are a multitude of online services that facilitate this).
On the other side of the fence sit law enforcement and IP protection lawyers who want to be able to track down criminals and wrongdoers quickly and easily. If, for example, a domain is being used to run a scam or a phishing attack you might be able to get the site taken offline quickly, but ultimately it would be preferable to trackdown the person or persons behind it (of course it's unlikely that the information they provided to register the domain is accurate, but that's a completely different argument.
The whois debate has also spilled over into the current discussions surrounding the registrar accreditation agreement which I mentioned recently. While whois output may not be central to the RAA the treatment of registrants is, so it's only natural that there would be some discussion. Of course there is a fine line between useful discussion and distracting debate.
Is there a solution? One would hope so, but finding one that marries all parties' concerns into an acceptable compromise solution is not going to be easy.
I wouldn't care to get into the finer points of the arguments, as the parties involved have done so time and again without reaching an acceptable compromise or agreement.
Milton Mueller's article, "Whois Privacy Stalemate .. Again", which was published on the Internet Governance Project site earlier today covers the situation and the various points of view in some detail.
For those of you who want a bluffer's guide the issues can be split into two broad camps.
On the one side you have individuals and groups who are concerned about privacy issues. Under the current system anyone with access to a computer can glean quite a bit of information regarding a domain holder (registrant) by simply checking the WHOIS output. (There are a multitude of online services that facilitate this).
On the other side of the fence sit law enforcement and IP protection lawyers who want to be able to track down criminals and wrongdoers quickly and easily. If, for example, a domain is being used to run a scam or a phishing attack you might be able to get the site taken offline quickly, but ultimately it would be preferable to trackdown the person or persons behind it (of course it's unlikely that the information they provided to register the domain is accurate, but that's a completely different argument.
The whois debate has also spilled over into the current discussions surrounding the registrar accreditation agreement which I mentioned recently. While whois output may not be central to the RAA the treatment of registrants is, so it's only natural that there would be some discussion. Of course there is a fine line between useful discussion and distracting debate.
Is there a solution? One would hope so, but finding one that marries all parties' concerns into an acceptable compromise solution is not going to be easy.
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