[dns-operations] bogus claims arising from Nominum marketing drivel

[Paul Vixie]

> From: bert hubert <bert.hubert at netherlabs.nl>
> Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:58:52 +0200
> ...
> That Nominum branded itself post-Kaminsky as the "saviour of the net"
> because they copied what more responsible nameservers had been doing
> for ages is also not helpful.

nominum was retrying with TCP whenever they saw a TXID mismatch in UDP,
before kaminsky's report.  i have reservations about this approach, but it
is nevertheless not a copy of what anyone else was doing.  note, i'm not
telling any secrets here, the namedroppers@ archives cover all this.  you
should not claim that nominum copied anyone else's approach to kaminsky,
and they are right to claim credit for having a unique approach.

> Google will find the "Nominum DNS Protects 120 Million From New Risk"
> article for you. The sheer guts.

so ZDnet published a nominum press release as if it was a news story.  i am
disappointed but not surprised.  sometimes editors scrambling for words
lower their standards.  sometimes editors aren't technologically adept
enough to tell that they're being snowed by PR types.  happens all the time.

> But, wrapping up, like you said marketing is marketing. But this stance
> of Nominum is unhelpful to say the least. It will probably not help them
> in any way in cooperating with the "freeware legacy dns industry" also
> known as the DNS community. But perhaps they are not interested.

i expect that this stance WILL be helpful -- to nominum's bottom line.