[MUD-Dev] OT: Mail not getting to the list

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <33DE1226.D05BFB56 at darklock.com>, on 07/29/97 
   at 06:03 PM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com> said:

>coder at ibm.net wrote:
>> 
>> It turns out that Network Services, the guys that are in charge of the
>> world-wide top level domains (things like .com, .edu, .nl, etc)
>> screwed up and corrupted the top level name servers.  

>Actually, as I understand it, AlterNIC -- a competitive company to
>Network Services -- exploited a bug in the DNS standard to redirect
>internet DNS servers to its own (incomplete) database in an attempt
>to usurp the 'monopoly' held by NIS on the top level domains.

This is partially true (it not exaclty a bug, its an unintended use of
a performance enhancement to the DNS protocol).  The real problem was
taht about a week after this one of the NS drones pushed a bad data
set to the top level domain servers.  This was a seperate problem from
the AlterNIC fiasco.

>NIS is trying to recover from a literal attack on the domain name
>services themselves. They've done pretty well, all things considered...

Yeah, right.  The attack was obvious and of sub-undergrad complexity. 
Any one of use could code it up in under an hour.  The fix was even
more simple.  They've been about as responsive and competant here as
your average toad.


>In short, NIS is not to
>blame.

Sorry, NIS __is__ to blame for *later* corrupting most of the TLD
servers.



--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...