Wildcards or KeyWords???

[Barry Margolin]

In article <cmbucb$hj5$1 at sf1.isc.org>,
 "Kerry Thompson" <kerry at security.geek.nz> wrote:

> It sounds like the function where you enter keywords in the location field
> on some browsers, they get URL-wrapped and sent to a search engine and the
> user either gets the search results page or directed to the site at the
> top of the search.
> 
> This is a function of the browser program, and has nothing to do with DNS.

It *could* be done by DNS.  Similar to the way that NSI set up a *.COM 
wildcard so that any nonexistent domains would be redirected to their 
server.  You could create a DNS server that reacts to nonexistent 
hostnames by returning the IP address of the search engine.  The search 
engine can then look at the Host: header to find out the hostname that 
was entered into the browser.

The problem with this is that not all hostname lookups come from names 
typed into browsers.  This design would cause problems when people 
mistype hostnames in email addresses, for instance.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***