Re: Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should beremoved?
--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 15:57:48 -0400 Reply-To: egullich@tonic.to Originator: com-priv@lists.psi.com Sender: com-priv@lists.psi.com Precedence: bulk From: egullich@tonic.to (Eric Gullichsen) To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv@lists.psi.com> Subject: Re: Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed? X-Comment: Commercialization and Privatization of the Internet This is an official reply to Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com> who recently cross-posted to inet-access@earth.com, nanog@merit.edu, domain-policy@lists.internic.net, and com-priv@psi.com under the Subject heading: Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed? As TLD admin for the .TO ccTLD, I thought Mr. Shein's posting deserved a reply. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Shein: I am the hostmaster and Administrative, Technical and Zone Contact at Tonic, the top level domain name registration authority for the .TO country code (http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois?to5-dom). Since June 1997, our automated domain name registry at http://www.tonic.to has been facilitating the registration of .TO names as a service to the global Internet community. Neither Tonic nor IANA policy requires the registered owner of a .TO name to be physically situated in the Kingdom of Tonga.
We've been having increasing problems with one or more porn sites in the .to domain promoting itself by massive spamming of AOL customers using one of our domains in their From: header thus causing both complaints to us and thousands of bounces from AOL due to bad AOL addresses in their spam lists.
We are sorry to hear that you have been having problem with SPAM involving a .TO domain, and wish to draw your attention to the fact that .TO is the *only* top level domain we know of with an explicit antispam policy. We at Tonic feel strongly about spam, and believe it to be theft of service, and a very bad thing for the net in general. It is our policy to terminate the registration of a domain name involved in spam, after warning the domain name holder to cease unsolicited bulk mailings that involve a .TO name.
From our FAQ (at http://www.tonic.to/faq.htm):
Q: I'm a spammer. Is a .TO domain something I should use? Tonic feels very strongly that the sending of unsolicited bulk email ("spamming") constitutes theft of service, and we do not condone the use of .TO domain names for this purpose. If we receive complaints that a .TO domain name has been used for this purpose, we will advise the domain owner of the complaint and request that they desist from this activity. Tonic reserves the right to remove any .TO name registration if a name is used as a source of spam, or an address to which to reply to such bulk mail solicitations. We have had to delete a number of .TO domains for egregious SPAM and will continue to do so in the cases where a stern warning fails to solve the problem. Please send a copy of any SPAM involving a .TO domain name to: hostmaster@tonic.to and we will warn the spammer and/or terminate the domain name registration.
Looking at the .to domain I can't help but notice it's heavily laden with what appear to be porn sites (sexonline.to, come.to, xxxhardcore.to, etc.)
In support of this assertion I want to show you an SMTP conversation with what claims to be the Consulate of the Government of Tonga in San Francisco (This San Francisco office is listed as an official Tongan contact point for visas etc by the US State Dept):
world% telnet sfconsulate.gov.to 25
Trying 209.24.51.169... Connected to sfconsulate.gov.to. Escape character is '^]'. 220 colo.to SMTP ready, Who are you gonna pretend to be today? VRFY
The .COM domain is no less "heavily laden" with porn sites. You will note that sexonline.com and xxxhardcore.com are names registered with the InterNIC. The come.to site is a free web redirection site supporting more than 100,000 customers. Furthermore, Tonic is a domain name registry, not a content censor. postmaster
500 Bloody Amateur! Proper forging of mail requires recognizable SMTP commands!
The primary nameserver for .TO is physically located at the Consulate of Tonga in San Francisco. On all our machines, we run the Obtuse smtpd/smtpfwdd SMTP store and forward proxy (http://www.obtuse.com/smtpd.html) to secure our port 25 and thereby prevent 3rd party mail relaying. Your reasoning as to why its responses to incorrect SMTP commands constitutes evidence that the .TO domain is "negligent", "mismanaged" and "an attractive resource for criminal activities" is ironically incorrect. In fact, having an *unsecured* port 25 open to mail relaying would be negligent. Best regards, - Eric Gullichsen Tonic Corporation Kingdom of Tonga Network Information Center http://www.tonic.to Email: egullich@tonic.to --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
As mentioned out in NTK, Internet has put set Tuvalu top-level domain "on hold". What has happened? Registrant: Tuvalu top-level domain TV17-DOM Ministry of Finance and Tourism Funafuti, TUVALU Domain Name: TV Domain Status: On Hold Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA iana@iana.org (310) 822-1511 Record last updated on 15-Sep-98. Record created on 18-Mar-96. Database last updated on 2-Oct-98 03:53:16 EDT.
if you want the long version of it, join gthe NANOG list (North American Network Operators Group).. but basically, this TLD is mostly a spam/rogue TLD.... J-Dog On Sat, 3 Oct 1998, Ulf [iso-8859-1] Möller wrote:
As mentioned out in NTK, Internet has put set Tuvalu top-level domain "on hold". What has happened?
Registrant: Tuvalu top-level domain TV17-DOM Ministry of Finance and Tourism Funafuti, TUVALU
Domain Name: TV Domain Status: On Hold
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority IANA iana@iana.org (310) 822-1511
Record last updated on 15-Sep-98. Record created on 18-Mar-96. Database last updated on 2-Oct-98 03:53:16 EDT.
[Tuvalu TLD put on hold]
if you want the long version of it, join gthe NANOG list (North American Network Operators Group).. but basically, this TLD is mostly a spam/rogue TLD....
That is quite scary. If someone outside the US uses a .COM or other generic TLD name, even if the name has been used for years and is a, say, European trademark, anyone in the US can register that name as a trademark, and Internic will take the name away from the legitimate owner. You may say that's ok because `generic' TLDs are de facto American, but now Internic even decides to disable the name space of a sovereign state? If there is any such thing as Infowar, I guess this must be it. In case the upcoming EU regulation on unsolicited mailings has the effect some claim it will, can Internic just declare .DE a spammer domain and disable FITUG's address as well? Dealing with contents is not any naming authority's business. It wouldn't be even if you actually needed a domain to send spam.
participants (3)
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J-Dog -
Robert Hettinga -
ulf＠fitug.de