Foxbane Ltd and Steven Heath: NZRS

Andy I have a slight change of mind

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:37:49 GMT

BTW Andy, I have revised my '9 out 10' thinking to about 8 out of 10. You can thank our chat over curry and beer as one of the things getting this thing back up and running. That and who the new NZRS board member is...

More on DNMSL vs DNC

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 02:05:03 GMT

For those that are new or have forgotten DNMSL was in the news in June. In the recent NZOC meeting an agenda item was "Policy Compliance - in committee from approx 5pm". At the time I wondered who this was.

Since reading about the ~~bullet to the head~~ deauthorisation of DNMSL as a .nz registrar this morning I have made some calls and sent some emails.

The first is from Dennis Smith who alleges bias and predetermination of the DNC and requested NZOC appoint a mediator. He states NZOC rejected his request and endorsed the DNC's recommendation. He said me might do a release about this in the new year, or he might not.

The next is I followed up on the "The company has also twice been suspended by the registry for technical breaches." comment as this looked like an unusual event, especially as it had not been reported before (that I am aware of). NZRS will suspend a registrar under two broad areas:

Whois access abuse
Actions that could impact the integrity or performance of the registry

It appears whatever they did, or threatened to do, fell under the second area. This is more than just disagreement on policy and how the DNC enforces policy. For NZRS to suspend a registrar means that they must have had pretty clear evidence of actions that would impact all registrars and/or registrants. What the hell was DNMSL thinking?

If I find any more relevant information I will post about as I am able.

Registrar smoted. DNMSL deauthorised.

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 23:09:09 GMT

Just read that the DNC has deauthorised DNMSL. First time in .nz history.

Bringing home the bacon

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:44:33 GMT

Stuff has a story about a .nz domain name dispute regarding premierbaconco.nz. Is it typo squating or fair use?

I will post my comments on the two sites once I have had a good chance to review them.

Bank Direct Phish

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:29:00 GMT

This morning a post on NZNOG detailed Yet Another Banking Phish (YABP) aiming at Bank Direct clients. The major thing that was different about this YABY was that the scum bag was using a .nz domain name of bankdlrect.co.nz. This means that the registrar and some degree the DNC has some 'power' over the inclusion of this name in the DNS and also its status overall.

As of this 9.30 this morning the name has been removed from the DNS as it is now 'PendingDelete'. Kudos to the registrar Discount Domains on acting in less than an hour on this scum bag. Anyone foolish enough now thinking this is real will not fall for this type of fraud.

Update: While YABY looked nice I realised I typoed and it should have been YABP. I will use YABY for something else :-)

All your .govts are belong to us!

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 09:00:25 GMT

I have been waiting more than a year for this. SSC has finally gone live with their registrar of .govt.nz domain names. Check out http://www.dns.govt.nz/ for your reading pleasure! It is rather heavy on the verbage so it will take a while to go through the entire site...

Stupid .nz related headline award

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 19:53:23 GMT

This headline "Whodunnit? asks Whois" must be one of the most stupid I have seen. I mean what in the hell is the story about by seeing that headline?

NZRS change of Chair

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 23:36:47 GMT

It was announced at the InternetNZ AGM that Anne Urlwin has been appointed the Chair of NZRS. I think Carol, the former Chair, said she had stepped down but I can not recall the exact words used. I follow the NZRS board events quite closely as I recommended the appointment of 4 of them. I even chaired the first NZRS board meeting for the first 5-10 minutes during the process to determine its first Chair.

Who has been a bad boy then?

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 05:11:12 GMT

From the recent NZRS report: On 17 May NZRS withdrew access to the SRS from a registrar for a period of two days. Service was withdrawn because of ongoing abuse of the Whois service by the registrar. On several occasions NZRS had requested that the registrar cease activity that was deemed an abuse or misuse the SRS and was thereby posing a threat to the integrity or performance of the SRS system, but the registrar continued continued the behaviour. This is the first time that NZRS has had to withdraw service from a registrar since SRS went live in October 2003.

Go Kiwi and Domain Name Manager Services common ownership

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 00:28:26 GMT

Both Go Kiwi Internet and DNMSL have only one director and one shareholder. This is the same person for each. They were also incorporated within 6 weeks of each other in 2003. I am not sure what is going on but it looks interesting. From what I can tell so far is that DNMSL is an approved registar (but not connected to the registry, this leads down an interesting side path which I will post on as well) was a registrar for Go Kiwi names of which Go Kiwi was not the 'end registrant'. I think the DNC determined that this was an attempt to avoid the rules that the end registrant had to have the name in their own name.

SSC becomes registrar

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 19:41:28 GMT

NZ Herald has a story on State Services Comission becoming a .nz Registrar. I have been aware of a while about the SSC trying to figure out what to do with the registration name process and how to run it or select a registrar. I find the part that One Squared 'built the registrry'. I assume they mean the little web based application that handles name submissions and the approval process... yeah, that sounds like a registry to me.

Joys of public registrant details

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:58:53 GMT

I wonder if Christian Heritage New Zealand is aware of the details held by NZRS on their domain name (chp.org.nz)? As convicted child molester Graham Capill is still listed as the admin contact person for the domain name on the .nz whois (notice the amusing email address in this context?). Even though he has been removed from all aspects of the site other than a news item stating their disgust at his actions.

Wholesale .nz fee stays same

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:18:38 GMT

InternetNZ has decided to keep the wholesale domain fee the same at $1.75 per month. I was a proponent of the fee being this level at the SRS launch (it was $2). I think at this stage $1.75 but when NZRS is expected to provide 7 figure dividends to InternetNZ I think the 'cost plus' thinking needs to be formalised.

NZRS and catching up

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:30:26 GMT

Last night NZRS had its 3rd birthday celebration 'cocktails'. Overall it was a good evening and saw many people I had not seen for years. It was strange being at an InternetNZ/NZRS event and recognising less than half the people at it. Maybe it is time to get back into the fray...

BTW, I recall all the things said to me last night and the bidding on the audio recording starts at 9am.

PS Thanks for all the people last night that thought I had gone off the deep end with my musings on fricative's. The care and concern was touching :-)

IDG on growth in .nz

Thu, 27 Jan 2005 20:07:07 GMT

IDG has a short article on growth of .nz names over the last 12 months of 22%. This is great news as all the forecasts (which I was involved with) was based on 5% per annum.

Shock Horror, Catalyst IT wins out source with NZRS

Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:46:53 GMT

This is probable the least surprising announcement in a long time from DNC/InternetNZ/NZRS (should we refer to that as DIN from now on? :-)

New NZRS website

Thu, 23 Dec 2004 23:43:08 GMT

The NZRS website has had a major face lift. The first was was born only in a few days before NZRS took over the .nz registry. The major change in the site seems to be the registrar area which of course is private and can't be seen. The rest of it seems to be against the spirit of the entire approach that NZRS is a 'back office' role and not end user facing. Some of it seems to cross over to the DNZ area (esp the FAQ's and such like). I guess time will tell if new features are added to the site or not.

DNC issues .nz disputes process options paper

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 02:23:01 GMT

After years in the making an options paper has been released on possible .nz disputes process (.nzDP?). I was aware of the .uk DRS but always thought it was actually performed by Nominet and not just the first (free) mediation aspect. So far I have no been convinced of a need for a .nzDP but then again I dont have to live with the impact of not having one. Reading the paper I think that a WIPO run process would be worse than status quo and that Option 1 outlined has merit and should be looked at further.

I wonder who in the group does not think a process is required?

draft .nz whois policy

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:46:16 GMT

The DNC has issued the draft whois policy for .nz based on the first round of comments. Submissions are due by the end of January 2005.

Shock Horror! IANA has correct details?

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:36:33 GMT

A journo from stralia (opps I missed the au off the name) emailed me on Tuesday about some background info on the .au ccTLD. This led me to look at the IANA database. I had a nice pleasant surprise when I checked the IANA record for .nz and saw it had been updated in July. It seems like it does not have a single error in it for the first time in about 9 years!

NZRS selects Catalyst IT for outsource

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 08:19:12 GMT

Heard about this last week but finally decided to go to the NZRS website to read the announcement. Catalyst IT is a good company, however... no separation has now occurred from the design, implementation, initial operation and now full out source of the SRS. Guess Catalyst is set for life now as would be very hard now for another company to get this contract off them with all the in house, and all likelihood some undocumented, knowledge.

I think that even with Catalyst IT being a closed registrar is a conflict now based on what they are doing for NZRS.

domainz.net.nz is not valid (so they say)

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 02:54:39 GMT

Back in the dark ages of .nz (AKA the DRS days) Domainz had an interesting way to handle registering their own domain name (domainz.net.nz).

The search logic had a block on searching on the string ‘domainz’ in any 2LD. This was because the name in fact wasn’t actually a regular name in the DRS it was kind of hard coded in the system. The same search block was done on any 2 letter domain name when the .nz policy did not allow a ccTLD string to be registered. You could still use the email template to try and sneak the name past the eyes of an Irishman, but that's another story.

The SRS has been live for approx. 18 months now and Domainz still has the block on searching on their website on any 2LD string with domainz in it. It responds with:

Please provide a valid domain name for the .nz Register

The legacy of the DRS still haunts us…

Whois Review working group formed

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:44:27 GMT

The DNC (no, not this one) is calling for interest in joining the Whois Review working group. It is being chaired by David Russell which should make the results and the input more interesting than normal.

Actrix gets hit with registrar sanction

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:44:21 GMT

DNC has just issued a Registrar Sanction to Actrix. They canceled a name due to non payment from other Actrix services. This is a no no and was a key recommendation of the SRS Working Group to ensure registrants were not held to ransom for bill disputes etc. The sanction is only 24 hours.

InternetNZ members and .nz local internet community

Fri, 30 Apr 2004 02:02:20 GMT

In the recent InternetNZ Council meeting a paper was presented titled REVIEW OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE .NZ OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE. I do not recall any public consultation occurring about this. Perhaps it was just to members, if so InternetNZ has to understand that the membership of InternetNZ does not equal to the 'Local Internet Community'. I am starting to see InternetNZ become very lazy and only bother to inform members about things and then decide on policy or issues based on this.

Another one a report that appears only to be aimed at members titled Report on the Introduction of DNSSEC to the .nz SRS and DNS for InternetNZ Members' Consultation, March 2004

You can hardly say that talking to about 200 people that are not representative of the .nz LIC as consulting and then say no changes are needed. Come on, InternetNZ has million of dollars in the bank (unless it has been spent already), use to to do real meaningful consulting or don't bother at all.