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The Internet Technology

Dot-Word Bidders In Last Minute Dash 51

Posted by Soulskill from the sit-back-and-watch-them-scramble dept.
benfrog writes "Dot-word bidders are in a last-minute dash for domain names as ICANN has revealed its timetable for the controversial new TLDs. The organization will close its TLD Application System (TAS) at a minute before midnight tonight (23.59 GMT, 19.59 ET, 16.59 Pacific). The TAS was originally supposed to close on April 12, but the deadline was extended twice because of a security bug. The winners for domains will be selected (initially) by a 'widely derided mechanism' of 'digital archery' in which every bidder will be assigned a date and time and then be asked to login to a secure website and hit a submit button as close to that time as possible."
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Dot-Word Bidders In Last Minute Dash More

Dot-Word Bidders In Last Minute Dash

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  • .first (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You know some-one out there is hoping and praying.

  • Archery (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spad ( 470073 ) <slashdot@ s p a d . co.uk> on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @01:35PM (#40158231) Homepage

    The winners for domains will be selected (initially) by a 'widely derided mechanism' of 'digital archery'

    This replaced the original plan for a massive game of "Pin the tail on the domain" after they realised it would be impractical to get everyone together in one room.

  • That percentage sounds more like a sickening thud than a mad dash.

  • Who would NOT be using a bot for this? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mehrotra.akash ( 1539473 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @01:40PM (#40158287)
    At the end, isnt it just a game of who is closer in terms of network distance to the servers hosting the game?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtaylor ( 70602 )

      Not really. It is a game to be won by the person with the most consistent ping time.

      Either way, if you're paying several hundred thousand for a domainname then locating staff nearer to the server shouldn't be a big deal for a one-time event.

      • Staff? You're kidding me? This will be automated with scripts. You're nuts if you're depending on a human to hit "submit" button on website for a high value domain name. Scripts, properly executed, will be within milliseconds (ie, margin of error) of the exact time needed. This solves NOTHING.

    • Maybe at the last second it prints a capcha-style message telling you to wait some number of seconds before pushing the button--weed out some of the bots.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by green1 ( 322787 )

        haven't we seen articles saying that bots are now more likely to be able to beat captchas than humans are? I know I usually have to reload many captcha images 2-3 times before I can find one that I can guess at with any likelyhood of success.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dissy ( 172727 )

          haven't we seen articles saying that bots are now more likely to be able to beat captchas than humans are? I know I usually have to reload many captcha images 2-3 times before I can find one that I can guess at with any likelyhood of success.

          In fact such bots have been created, tested, proven, boxed, and sold [deathbycaptcha.com].

          Hell, for only $1.39 per 1000 solved captchas, we could spend as much as a cup of coffee and never have to try reading those annoying blurs again!
          Sadly I don't suspect it actually would work like that for us non-spammers :{

          Speaking of spammers, I have a feeling I'll be needing to update my filters to preemptively drop email from any TLD more than 3 characters. Sorry dot-info owners, but you can blame ICANN for this one.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by green1 ( 322787 )

            I'd be more inclined to white-list TLDs rather than just dump everything over 3 characters, depending on who you do business with there are a lot of 2 letter TLDs you could easily drop too

  • My choices.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @01:43PM (#40158337) Journal
    1. .comdotcomdotcom (what? am I stuttering?)
    2. .dotdot (The dreaded ellipsis)
    3. .dashdot (a pirate domain)
    4. .slashslashcolonhttp (just to mess with people)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by khr ( 708262 )

      My first choice was .127...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fotbr ( 855184 )

      .slashslashcolonptth (just to mess with people)

      ftfy

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        I can't help but read "ptth" as an onomatopoeia for a leaky balloon, and not as a backwards version of http (even though intellectually I know that it really is spelled that way).

        I always think of the protocol portion of a URI as being atomic anyways, so no... I'm afraid that you really didn't really ftfm.

        I thank the sincerity of your effort, nonetheless. But I really did say what I meant.

    • h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-slash-slash-colon-h-t-t-p You know they'd do it, too.
      • One more slash in there and you'd have a word-wise palindromic domain!

        (http-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-slash-slash-slash-colon-http)

    • I wouldn't mind getting my hands on clownpenis.fart (to host my resume), however the chance of someone dropping $180k on .fart is probably low...

  • Is Slashdot going to register .slash? That would be confusing...."Slash-Dot-Dot-Slash". But repeat it three times, and we'd get a lot more users signing up.

    Or even worse: slashdot.dotslashdotdot.dotdotdot.dotslashdotdot.slashslashdot That URL would just be a cry for help.

    • Or even worse: slashdot.dotslashdotdot.dotdotdot.dotslashdotdot.slashslashdot That URL would just be a cry for help.

      Wouldn't slashslashslash.dotdotdot.slashslashslash be more of a cry for help?

      73s

  • Simple Program (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @02:09PM (#40158659)

    Simple solution to this problem is to first get NTP running on a Linux that is tied to a local GPS receiver and make sure it's running long enough to be stable (a few days). Start probing port 80 by opening TCP connections and record response times. Average the times. Divide by two and subtract that from the appointed time. You might want to subtract a bit more to account for the internal server delays. Write a small program that can hit the virtual "login" button at the calculated time. You should be able to get your "login" request to arrive at the destination very close to the right time if you are careful to get the TCP port opened and stable, then do the HTTP post/Get or what have you at the calculated time.

    Want to be even more accurate? Find a server to do this on that is the least number of hops between you and the server, opting for the lowest latency links you can manage. But this just makes the calculations more sure, the problem remains the same.

    Anybody trying to hit the "submit" button manually is going to loose..

  • the domain "thebirdisthe" is ALL MINE SUCKERS.

  • and at first glance assumed that it meant that ".word" was gonna be a tld. I got a little excited because I realized that I might be able to buy birdisthe.word, and I then I could put a clip of Peter Griffin singing "Surfin Bird" on repeat and send the link to my friends to annoy them. Then I reread the summary and was very disappointed.

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