Is Muddleworks scanning your DNS too?

[Joseph S D Yao]

Somewhat more on topic [now that the USA Thanksgiving holiday is over
and we should be thinking about more than the etymologies of "wee" and
"twee"]:

On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 03:51:47AM +0000, Neil W Rickert wrote:
> Danny Mayer <mayer at gis.net> writes:
> >At 01:39 PM 11/27/02, David Miller wrote:
> 
> >>This is exactly what we're doing.  The purpose is a reverse dns
> >>accelerator for high end web sites who want to resolve log files in
> >>real-time, or resolve log files that are simply too large to handle
> >>now.  An additional use is customization of the web site in real-time
> >>based on the resolved hostname.
> 
> >This seems to be based on a number of erroneous assumptions:
> >1) No DDNS so the PTR names are not changing
> >2) Different users won't use the same IP addresses
> 
> More importantly,
> 
>   They are collecting your data.
>   The cost of collection is partly paid for by you.
>   They are then selling your data for their own profit, without your
>   permission.
> 
> Why is this not theft?
> 
> What is the status of DNS data?  Is it in the public domain?  Or is
> it implicitly copyright, but made available for limited use (similar
> to the data in published telephone directories).

Data in published telephone books is the property of the telephone
company, not of the subscriber.  Is this theft?

I don't have so much of a problem with what they are doing on these
grounds.  There have been no legal decisions on any of this, and I can
hardly claim any legal expertise, but ISTM that we are making this data
publicly available.  I have other DNS that I do not make publicly
available.  If they somehow got hold of this, THEN I'd have a problem.
;-)

But I do have a problem with it on the question of accuracy, which has
been mentioned several times.  Many domains do not have accurate
reverse DNS, whether accidentally or - think of this - deliberately.
And some does not exist, either through ignorance or premeditation.
The company had better issue a massive disclaimer on these grounds.

-- 
Joe Yao				jsdy at center.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
OSIS Center Systems Support					EMT-B
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