Verisign draws fire over Site Finder service Boston Globe

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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Verisign draws fire over Site Finder service

Experts say it will spur surge of spam

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 9/18/2003

VeriSign Inc., which oversees the popular ''.com'' Internet domain, has 
ignited a digital firestorm with its new method for dealing with mistyped 
Internet addresses. Experts say it will lead to a surge in spam, or 
unwanted e-mail, and that Verisign has no right to impose the system on 
millions of Internet users.

Verisign insists the new service, Site Finder, will help casual Web surfers 
who've gone astray.

VeriSign launched Site Finder on Monday. Previously, when an Internet user 
mistyped an Internet address that ended in .com, the browser would usually 
display an error message, indicating there was no such address. Some 
browsers have been programmed to respond by taking the user to an Internet 
search service run by Microsoft Corp., which makes most of the world's Web 
browsing software. Other Internet companies, such as Google and America 
Online, let users install software that will cause the browser to go to 
their search services when an incorrect address is entered.

But VeriSign is using its control over the .com domain to route wrongly 
typed .inquiries to a VeriSign search site. VeriSign won't reveal the name 
of the search engine company it uses, but VeriSign receives revenue from 
the company for sending it traffic.

VeriSign began work on the system a year ago, spokesman Tom Galvin said. 
''We began to think of a service that would help improve Web navigation,'' 
he said. Galvin said VeriSign informed a major Internet regulatory body, 
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), of the 
Site Finder plan. He said ICANN president Paul Twomey raised no objections.

An ICANN spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny this.

There have been plenty of objections from others, though.

''It's harmful because it broke a lot of things,'' said David Farber, 
professor of telecommunications systems at the University of Pennsylvania 
[somepeople don't get the word -- now at Carnegie Mellon :-)  djf ] and 
former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission.

Farber said that many spam filters used by Internet service providers, or 
ISPs, won't work properly under the new system. That's because spammers 
commonly send out junk mail using nonexistent Internet domains. Under the 
old system, an ISP's spam filter could check on whether a domain existed. 
If it didn't, the filter would receive an error message, and the filter 
would discard the mail as spam. With Site Finder, the spam filter will 
always be told that the domain exists, causing it to let the spam through.

''You can actually make a mail connection to nonexistent domains now,'' 
said Lauren Weinstein, cofounder of People for Internet Responsibility. 
''This is the kiss of death for ISPs.''

The Internet Software Consortium, a nonprofit group that makes the most 
commonly used domain-routing software, has introduced a modification that 
will bypass the new VeriSign service, causing mistyped .com addresses to 
generate the old error messages.

Galvin said VeriSign has received complaints from ISPs that Site Finder 
caused an increase in spam. ''We're working with the user community to 
address that,'' he said.

But critics say VeriSign should have worked more closely with users from 
the beginning. They point out that it was the US government that assigned 
the company control of .com, by far the most popular Internet domain. This, 
they say, imposes a special responsibility on VeriSign.

''My personal feeling is, they violated the trust,'' Farber said.

Former software entrepreneur and Internet security expert Richard Smith, of 
Brookline, said VeriSign should not make major changes without consulting 
Internet oversight groups.

''They can't act unilaterally on this,'' he said. ''There are too many 
constituents who have a stake in this working right.''

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray () globe com.

This story ran on page E2 of the Boston Globe on 9/18/2003. © Copyright 
2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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