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 Security Risks from Bogus Whois Problem Reports
posted by Mueller on Monday November 08 2004, @03:54PM
Ron_Bennett writes "Bogus "Whois Problem Reports" are increasingly going from being an annoyance to being a real security risk. Some recent incidents I've experienced due to Whois Problem Reports *merely* being filed:* Dotster, about two weeks ago, threatened to delete a domain if I didn't respond.
* BulkRegister, just yesterday, threatened to suspend a domain if I didn't respond within 5 calendar days.
What good are Whois Problem Reports when anyone can file one and there is virtually no screening performed to ensure such reports have any validitity to them; reports filed on some of my domains claimed everything was wrong, including the expiration date - what!? Talk about pure nonsense!
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As of now, if one wants to cause a registrant problems, all they need to do is file bogus reports at the Internic link below (it's so easy, it's frightening!) - heck, if someone really wanted to be deviant, they could spread a virus that sends bogus Whois Problem Reports from hijacked computers...
http://wdprs.internic.net/
In addition, some registrars, such as GoDaddy, charge a fee to the registrant for *merely* reviewing a Whois Problem Report for a particular domain, regardless of whether the report is valid - see links below for more details:
http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=67862
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&th readid=328696&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
There is much talk about the transfer policy changes and security, yet bogus Whois Problem Reports is a security risk many times worse.
Some ICANN policy changes are needed pronto regarding Whois Problem Reports...
1. Requiring more than just a name and email for people making complaints - they should have to provide a postal address that's verifyable and/or some other information.
2. Screening of such reports - permit registrars, if they're not already, to toss out Whois Problem Reports that they feel are invalid without involving the registrant; stop wasting their time over this nonsense.
3. A standard on how registrars handle Whois Problem Reports
* including a reasonable time for the registrant to respond, such as 30 calendar days, before any action is taken ... as of now, some registrars do little while others suspend domains within only a few days - so if one goes away on holiday, they could very likely come back and find their domains suspended/deleted.
Something needs to be done before bogus Whois Problem Reports get any further out of hand ..."
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Security Risks from Bogus Whois Problem Reports
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Being the (now mostly former) resident net prophet, this is exactly what I predicted would happen, both on the old DNSO-GA list, their archive search appears broken so I can't point to it without a lot of hassle, and here on ICANNWatch, where the search function isn't broken, it just doesn't seem to parse the archives from prior to the major software change here, so again you'll have to take my word for it. It was obvious at the time to even the terminally clueless (as I also pointed out on the DNSO-GA list, and surprise, it's even in the archives here [icannwatch.org] that picking up deleted domains, and no longer thinking up and registering and offering for sale my-kewl-name-and-it-is-for-sale.com was where the money was (at least allegedly, most of that past and present get rich quick crap is, always has been, and probably always will be just registrars/registries/ICANN selling ocean waterfront property at low tide). So, as I suggested at the time, mebbe you want to pick up a deleted domain, but it isn't deleted. No problemo. You rat them out for supposed false WHOIS data, they fail to respond in time (perhaps because you've letterbombed or virused or social engineered them into non-compliance), and you've got a claim on it thru one (or all, if it's important enough or VeriSign has a monopoly on it) drop service and hey presto, you now own hotmail.com (which was previously accidentally dropped if you know your DNS history) or whatever. But wait, it gets worse, now you have registrars picking up the deleted domains themselves to sell at a greater profit (as I predicted at the above link), primarily to the online pr0n and gambling industries, so of course they have an incentive to see the name drop for bogus reasons. Again, as I pointed out away back, songbird.com registrant (and ICANN apologist, and later staffer, Kent Crispin) had inaccurate WHOIS data. I may well have been the first to use the ICANN link to rat anyone out (like everything else they do, their provided link didn't work for awhile so I kept monitoring it). I never received any notification in response and the WHOIS data remained uncorrected for months. I also pointed this out here and there and someone explained to me patiently that that was a fault with the registrar software. I guess we now have incentive for more faults than San Andreas. Sadly, songbird.com now has a different registrar and appears to have been corrected, and not being a hearing aid company [songbirdstore.com] I probably can't get it from him via the UDRP. Shucks. Too bad no-one appears to be listening to my warnings (and BTW John Berryhill said many of the same things), which is why in matters ICANNian I'm now mostly in formal wear. -g
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