[luau] DNS wildcards

[Keith]

You may be aware that VeriSign deployed a wildcard A record in the .com
and .net TLDs on the 15th of this month.  What this results in is "fat
finger redirection" to an address that VeriSign owns and tracks.  In plain
English, if you go to a .com or .net address that doesn't exist you will
be redirected to an IP that VeriSign owns rather than be presented with
an NXDOMAIN error.  If you do this with a web broswer you will be
presented with a VeriSign "Site Finder" page, complete with links to
paid advertisements.

The ICANN, and much of the Internet community at large, is disgruntled
to say the least.  Pages worthy of reading:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-19sep03.htm
http://www.iab.org/documents/docs/2003-09-20-dns-wildcards.html
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lewis-to-twomey-21sep03.htm
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/secsac-to-board-22sep03.htm

All of which can be found:
http://www.icann.org/announcements/

There are numerous technical and ethical implications of this sort of
practice in the .com and .net TLDs.  I leave it as an exercise for the
users of this list to discuss such implications; I am curious as to your
thoughts.  For further thought food see the recent NANOG list archives:

http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/threads.html

Yes, none of this is necessarily Linux-specific but it will certainly be
worthwhile to see how the Open Source community will address impending
issues if the wildcard record isn't pulled.

Aloha!
krjw.
-- 
Keith R. John Warno                  [k r j w  at  optonline dot net]
"And that's the way it is..."
       -- Walter Cronkite