The very first declaration from ISOCNZ on the many issues of Telecom's
XTRA ISP. Better late than never at all. Could this be the start of a
more proactive involvement in the New Zealand internet from the society
that started off with high ideals to be a leading influence in NZ
internet issues.
ISOCNZ speaks out on Xtra's action of
blocking access to Voyager.
18 Aug 96
Well its been just over a month, from the 22 July 1996, when the Internet
Society of NZ dropped their almighty clanger on the NZ Internet when they
introduced their half-baked, ill-managed, and bloody annoying new scheme
for registering and charging for domain names.
Despite a tirade of complaints and subsequence display of sheer arrogance
from several ISOCNZ spokespeople, they have done absolutely nothing to
improve the situation. In fact we have now discovered that ISOCNZ are
incapable of applying even the smallest spark of common sense when it comes
to the management of domain names.
In a recent report in Infotech Weekly it was disclosed that ISOCNZ was
party to yet another rip-off scam involving internet domain names in
New Zealnad. By allowing domain names to be issued on a 'first come first
served' basis the door was opened for a scam to be run by a new company
calling itself the 'Domain Name Registrations Company'. They applied for
and were given domain names that used the names of some of the largest
companies in New Zealand. It soon became obvious that their plan was to
sell off these domain names to the highest bidder for as high a proce as
possible. The situation came to light when an ISP, Netbyte, tried to
secure the domain name sanyo.co.nz for Sanyo NZ who were in the process of
connecting to Netbyte for Internet Services. When it was discovered that
the name had already been allocated to the Domain name company and they
were contacted a price of $10,000 was demanded for the dns name.
Would this ever have happened under the previous scheme of dns name
allocation? Not a chance, Rex Croft, from Waikato University, who
managed the .co.nz domain, did apply some measure of common sense to the
issuing of dns names.
Companies requiring a dns name had to follow some
simple and common sense guidelines, the name could not be generic and
prooof had to be made available that the domain name was actually to be
owned and used by the company applying for the dns name.
Not now, that simple common sense has evaporated, enter the scam artists
to make an easy picking from selling domain names.
ISOCNZ is their wisdom have already stated that the use of a dns name is
between the people it was allocated to and the real comapny wanting to
use their name in a domain name.
The ISOCNZ lawyer pointed out that there was no legal issue concerning
ISOCNZ.
My view is that ISOCNZ are totally responsible. If they are supposed to
be managing the NZ dns then how can they allow such a rip-off to occur?
Wriggling out of responsibility is just about all we have come to expect
from ISOCNZ.
ISCONZ has proven yet again that it is a complete waste of time.
I earnestly urge anyone considering getting involved with ISOCNZ to
think again. Any ISP paying $1000 per year for membership must be
feeling pretty annoyed by now as just about all of ISOCNZ's actions to
date have been aimed at making life more difficult for New Zealand ISPs.
I call upon the ISOCNZ committee to resign.