TriNetre - Archive for March 08, 2004
(no longer updated)
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That TLD is .root. It's existence is as real as any other TLD such as .com or .org.
Unlike most TLDs, .root TLD is not delegated to a second tier or servers. Instead it is handled directly by the root servers themselves.
.root contains exactly one name: vrsn-end-of-zone-marker-dummy-record.root.
That name is associated with exactly one resource record: a TXT record containing the single word "plenus", a Latin word meaning "full" or "complete".
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Where did this TLD come from? What purpose, if any, does it serve? Who authorized it?
Source: CaveBear Blog
Zhang Yining tries to drill a hole into the verification process used by OpenPGPComment plugin. He also tries to demo this attack in a comment at Jacques Distler's blog.
Check out the demo for youself and see if you are fooled. If you are a person who is prudent enough to check out the PGP signed comment, you would have noticed that the verification process states explicitly that the public key of "Mary" was retrieved from http://www.yining.org. That should set off enough alarm bells to wake up even the most gullible.
Since the basic tenant of verification involved in PGP/GPG is that you do not trust anything by default, if you do not know Mary personally or through the blogosphere, you should be paranoid. The only way I would even remotely trust that Mary did indeed write that comment was if the key that was used to sign that comment was advertised in a domain (say www.maryparker.com) that I think/know that Mary controls.
Do read the comments where Jaques tries to explain the same points.
Vikas Kamat has decided to take his business away from EV1Servers.net after they decided to pay SCO for the license to use Linux on its hosting servers.
I protested, saying it was immoral to fund a blackmailing company.
But in today's response, the CEO of EV1Servers.net justifies his decision. He does not recognize the legitimate reasons of my anger (and I am not alone, see this SlashDot thread).
Now I must do what I said I would do - switch to a different company.
I respect people who stick to their principles.
