There are not enough 4 letters words to articulate my feelings towards
spam.

--
Keith

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994180

Web traffic redirection system challenged

17:37*17*September*03*NewScientist.com

News service*Programmers are planning to sidestep a controversial new
service that redirects internet users who mistype a web address to a
commercial search engine.
VeriSign, which runs the master domain name servers for all sites ending
with .com and .net, launched the redirect service on Monday. Instead of
returning a standard "site not found" message for mistyped URL, the Site
Finder system forwards such requests to a search page operated by the
company. The same happens with URLs for non-existent sites.

But an important software group now says it will create a software patch
to bypass Site Finder.

The non-profit Internet Software Consortium develops BIND, the domain
name software used by about 80 percent of the internet's Domain Name
System (DNS) servers. The ISC has yet to give technical details of its
patch.
Some critics say root operators should not be allowed to profit via
their operation of the domain service. But Danny Sullivan, editor of
SearchEngineWatch.com says this is a matter of some debate.

"Nobody has any idea who owns this traffic," he told New Scientist.
Those using Internet Explorer and AOL's browser are already redirected
to a company page when a site is not found, Sullivan points out.

Spam filter

However, VeriSign's scheme has attracted the sharpest criticism because
it can snarl up some company's spam filters. These filters check to see
if an email has come from a legitimate web site before allowing it to
reach a user's inbox. With Site Finder in place, even bogus emails
appear to come from a valid domain, meaning spam email may get through.

The Domain Name System connects a web site name to the numerical
internet address of the computer hosting it. For example, when
www.newscientist.com is typed into a web browser, a DNS server links
this translates this into the numerical internet protocol address
194.203.155.123 which identifies the computer hosting the site.

DNS consists of thousands of local servers and a handful of "root"
servers that hold the master records. If an invalid address is entered,
the local DNS server first checks to see if it is cached locally before
referring to another server higher up the chain.
*
Will Knight
*
© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.
*


_____

"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor
_____

"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
_____

"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature

----------
The mailbox, BunnERabbit@webtv.net has been circumvented to fight spam.
To send mail... substitute ModerateMammal
----------

"BunnERabbit" <BunnERabbit@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:5031-3F6B0996-18@storefull-2311.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> There are not enough 4 letters words to articulate my feelings towards
> spam.

If I thought I could get away with it, I would start torturing and murdering
people who are responsible for spam in my inbox.