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 鈥渟ite not found鈥� 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鈥檚 Domain Name System (DNS) servers. The ISC has yet to give technical details of its patch.
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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.
鈥淣obody has any idea who owns this traffic,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. Those using Internet Explorer and AOL鈥檚 browser are already redirected to a company page when a site is not found, Sullivan points out.
Spam filter
However, VeriSign鈥檚 scheme has attracted the sharpest criticism because it can snarl up some company鈥檚 spam filters. These filters check to see if an email has come from a legitimate web site before allowing it to reach a user鈥檚 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 鈥渞oot鈥� 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.