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Hostway wants non-existent domain patent

Kevin Murphy, April 29, 2010, Domain Tech

Hostway, the large web hosting company, has applied for a US patent on a system of intercepting and redirecting requests for non-existent domains names.
The application describes “A system and method for controlling internet traffic controls internet traffic directed to a non-existing domain in a centralized manner.”
It appears to cover a service that could be offered to local ISPs, enabling them to show their users monetized search pages rather than domain-not-found error messages.
Under the system, ISPs would intercept NXDOMAIN responses to their users’ DNS lookups.
Instead of passing the error on to the browser, the ISP would consult a centralized controller for the IP address of a context-appropriate landing page to redirect the user to.
It’s not at all clear to me whether Hostway is using the technology or has plans to do so. The application was filed in October 2008.
ISPs using NXDOMAIN substitution to monetize error traffic is widespread but controversial.
ICANN president Rod Beckstrom strongly complained about the practice, which also has security implications, during a rant at the Nairobi meeting last month.
VeriSign’s Site Finder, and later Cameroon’s .cm, both controversially did similar things when they “wildcarded” non-existent domains at the TLD registry level.
Other interesting US patent applications published today include:
20100106650 – covering Go Daddy’s auction services.
20100106793 and 20100106794 – covering email forwarding under Go Daddy’s private registration services.
20100106731 – assigned to VeriSign, covering a method of offering alternative domain names for registration when a buyer’s first choice is unavailable.

.jobs aiming to become a gTLD by the back door?

Kevin Murphy, April 9, 2010, Domain Registries

Employ Media, the company behind the sponsored TLD .jobs, looks like it’s making a play to become a significantly more open gTLD.
The company has proposed a substantial relaxation of its registration policies, based on what may be a loophole in its ICANN registry contract.
Currently, the .jobs namespace is one of the most restrictive TLDs. Only company names can be registered, and registrants have to be approved HR professionals at those companies.
As you might imagine, it’s been phenomenally unsuccessful from a business point of view, with only about 15,000 domains registered since it went live five years ago.
Employ Media now wants to be able to register “non-companyname” domains, and is to apply to its sponsorship body, the Society for Human Resource Management, for permission.
At least, that’s what it looks like. The documents posted over at policy.jobs are pretty opaque.
Indeed, as ERE.net points out, the “proposed amendment” to its charter reads more like a claim that no amendment is required.
The company appears to be pursuing a business model whereby it could auction off (continue reading)

NeuStar files for patent on DNSSEC hack

Kevin Murphy, March 25, 2010, Domain Tech

NeuStar has applied for a US patent on a stop-gap technology for authenticating DNS queries without the need for DNSSEC.
The application, published today, describes a system of securing the DNS connection between authoritative name servers and recursive servers belonging to ISPs.
It appears to cover the technology underlying Cache Defender, a service it started offering via its UltraDNS brand last July.
It was created to prevent the kind of man-in-the-middle attacks permitted by the 2008 Kaminsky exploit, which let attackers poison recursive caches, redirecting users to phoney web sites.
The DNSSEC standard calls for DNS traffic to be digitally signed and was designed to significantly mitigate this kind of attack, but it has yet to be widely deployed.
Some ccTLDs are already signed, but gTLD users will have to wait until at least this summer. The .org zone will be signed in June and ICANN will sign the root in July but .com will not be signed until next year.
While Kaminsky’s vulnerability has been broadly patched, brute-force attacks are still possible, according an ISP’s experience cited in the patent filing.
“The patch that experts previously believed would provide enough time to get DNSSEC deployed literally provided the industry just a few extra weeks,” it reads.