[TriLUG] Verisign's wildcard in .com and .net (fwd)

[Dan Monjar]

This might be interesting to some... from another group I am on.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 02:36:34 PM +0930
From: xxxxx
To: info-pmdf at process.com, info-multinet at process.com
Cc:
Subject: Verisign's wildcard in .com and .net

Hi all,

An item of general interest.

I'm told that Verisign has inserted a wildcard DNS record into the .com and
.net TLDs, with the effect that a query on an unregistered domain name now
resolves to a specific IP address.  This hasn't manifested itself here yet,
but I guess it will over the next day or so.

One of the side-effects is that any attempt to block email by checking that
the sender's domain exists, will now fail.  Another side-effect concerns
mis-configured mail servers or DNS entries: if you are configuring a mail
relay and/or put a typo in the MX record, you may get unexpected results
since the IP address indicated by Verisign happens to be running an SMTP
server.

I'll refrain from repeating the outraged comments on various discussion
groups.  It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves.

Regards,


---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



--
Daniel Monjar
IS Manager, Technical Services
bioMérieux, Inc.
Durham, NC US
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