North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: InterNIC Weekend Outage?
I suppose I can share parts of a story. I went to use a legacy /16 we had only to see in-addrs fail. Checking the Internic/Arin registry showed no entry. Upon contacting the NIC I was told "Prove it's yours." I said "you're the guys with the database, and WHOIS isn't showing it, put it back and I'll prove it's mine." Feel free to find 128.65.0/16 anywhere. Let me know who you think it belongs to. Ehud >At 08:46 AM 3/4/1999 -0800, "Gregory A. Carter" <[email protected]> wrote: >>Have a guy that had this emailed from his ISP. If this is in fact true we >>all could have some very unhappy customers in the comming days. I haven't >>personally experienced any troubles yet form any customers but I plan to >>keep an eye out. I'd also be interested to see if anyone else can confirm >>this report or has further details. >> >>Greg >> >>---------------------------------------------------------- >> Over the weekend the Internic, the registry >> that handles all .com, .org, and .net domain names, had a >> power outage. Allegedly, their backup generators actually >> made the situation worse, computers crashed, and data was >> lost. They won't officially admit to it, but word from >> some of the bigger ISPs is that approximately 18,000 >> domains were inadvertantly deleted. It seems to have >> mostly effected domains that were coming due for renewal >> in March. IF you have a domain name hosted with us, please >> check http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois to make sure it >> is still registered. If you have any questions, just reply >> to this email. >>----------------------------------------------------------- >This is partly true, but I am sure it had nothing to do with a power >outage. InterNIC did, indeed, drop over 18,000 domain names on the night of >Sunday February 28. This affected at least 3 names controlled by my >organization, all of which were due for renewal during the month of March. >I am aware of one other ISP who lost 220 names at the same time. I believe >most, if not all, of those names were likewise due for renewal during March. >NSI is not admitting much, as is to be expected. But I can tell you that >they did an emergency root server update at my insistance late Monday >night, just as they had done a while back after they messed up AOL.COM. >But they even screwed that up by putting in erroneous information for the >domain servers associated with at least one of my domain names. >Note that these involve domains that were paid in full to some date in >March and would be coming due for renewal during the month, but were >instead dropped even before their renewal date. Contractually we have 30 >days from the due date to make payment. Only after that date should >InterNIC have the right to terminate a domain, and that should only take >place after a reasonable grace period of being "on-hold." >Again. This involves domains that were paid in full, and inspite of that >fact InterNIC removed the domains in clear violation of their "contract." >Their attitude toward most of those involved is one of, "Tough sh*t!" >without even caring that they are in the wrong or that they are destroying >people's lives and businesses. >That isn't earth-shattering news, as they have maintained such an attitude >for years. What is news is the fact that they seem to be deliberately >embarking on a new campaign of extortion to the benefit of their new >worldNIC.net domain registration "service." As you may know they will soon >lose their monopoly as other companies are going to be involved in >maintaining the domain name registry. Gearing up for that eventuallity, >NSI has started registering names under their new domain at worldNIC.net. >Apparently they are trying to move some of the larger consumers of domain >names to their new service, and at the same time they are raising the >stakes. >If you've been in this business very long you will recall that when we >first started having to pay for domain names it was $100 for the first 2 >years. Then it dropped to $70. Do you know why? It is my understanding >that the extra $15 was supposed to be saved in an 'Intellectual >Infrastructure' account, pursuant to NSI's agreement with the National >Science Foundation when it took over from NSF the domain name registry. >That never happened, and at one point there was talk of NSI having to issue >refunds of all the overpayments. That never happened either. The point >is, we now pay $70 for the first 2 years and $35 annually thereafter. >Now check out http://www.worldnic.net and notice that Network Solutions is >raising the price to $119 per domain name. Now we have a choice. We can >register a name through Network Solutions at InterNIC.net for $70, or we >can register a name through Network Solutions at WorldNIC.net for $119.00. >Now there's one very creative way to break up a monopoly. Can you spell R I >P - O F F ? >One victim of this scam was told yesterday, by someone at InterNIC.net, >that she would have to go to WorldNIC.net <http://www.worldnic.net> to >re-register the 220 domains that had been improperly terminated. The >domains in question had already been paid for, with renewals coming due >sometime in March. Examine the economics there. 220 domain renewals at >$35 is $7700. Compare that with having to start over with new 2 year >registrations at $119 each. That's $26,180, a rip-off of $18,480. The >Internet has long been called the Information Super-Highway, and now NSI >has learned the art of HIGHWAY ROBBERY. >Hard to believe? Well, it should be hard to believe that they could even >conceive this scam, much less get away with it. But this is what really >happened this week since last Sunday. >I've also been told that another 7,000 domain names were dropped Monday >night, bringing the total to 25,000 domains. Multiply that by $119 and you >can clearly understand NSI's motivation. That amounts to close to >$3,000,000. Three million reasons for InterNIC to screw with your domains. > And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If they are not stopped, this >could start to run into some "real money." >You could be their next victim if something is not done immediately to stop >this practice. >In the meantime NSI denies any financial responsibility for their errors. >Contractually their liability is supposedly limited to $500 per domain >name, but try to get it from them. I called to demand compensation and got >the expected run around, only to be told flatly that there was nothing I >could do about it. We'll see about that. >At the very least their scam has been exposed for what it is. Perhaps that >will end the practice. Yet, somehow I am not so gullible as to believe >that they won't continue the scam in some form. >More information on the matter can be found at >http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_75171,00.html and you >might want to contact Gilinda Rogers <[email protected]>, the victim with the >220 names. The last I had heard from her, two of the names that were >stolen from her have already been registered by others. Try to imagine >yourself in such a situation!
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