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Crawford Sausage Company

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Jan 31, 2016, 4:01:31 PM1/31/16
to
Today I got spammed by Google+ and it ended up in
my inbox because I have google.com white listed for
some reason. The spam was directly related to one
of my series of searches over mysql so that's kind
of creepy.

So that inspired me to check my spam folder which
I haven't done in a very long time. I'm getting
about 50 spams a day now which is up a lot. Most
all the spam however are using those new TLDs like
.data, date, biz, .download, etc. which are trivial
to block. About 25% of spam are .com domains now
and a good portion of those are mailing lists I
can't get off of.

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 9:00:36 AM2/2/16
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Crawford Sausage Company <m...@brandylion.com> wrote:

> So that inspired me to check my spam folder which
> I haven't done in a very long time. I'm getting
> about 50 spams a day now which is up a lot. Most
> all the spam however are using those new TLDs like
> .data, date, biz, .download, etc. which are trivial
> to block. About 25% of spam are .com domains now
> and a good portion of those are mailing lists I
> can't get off of.

I don't get the spammers anymore.

We still get mail addressed to @ripco.com accounts that haven't been used
since 1998/99. Just doesn't make any sense where these lists get their info
from.

I read one time even if they get a 1 or 2 person response from every 1000
they send out, it's a win. But my point is, these mailing lists are so
fucking old and out of date, I can't see how they are getting even the 1 or
2.

Those fucking new top level domains are fucking useless except to the
registars selling them, supposedly there are like 2000 of them now with a
few new ones popping up every week. It's just stupid.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Max

unread,
Feb 2, 2016, 7:20:02 PM2/2/16
to
have I ranted about how pissed I am that I didn't buy maxxxwell.com in '01?

Mother. Fucker.

Michele

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Feb 4, 2016, 4:11:48 PM2/4/16
to
On 2/2/2016 8:00 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
> Crawford Sausage Company <m...@brandylion.com> wrote:
>
>> So that inspired me to check my spam folder which
>> I haven't done in a very long time. I'm getting
>> about 50 spams a day now which is up a lot. Most
>> all the spam however are using those new TLDs like
>> .data, date, biz, .download, etc. which are trivial
>> to block. About 25% of spam are .com domains now
>> and a good portion of those are mailing lists I
>> can't get off of.
>
> I don't get the spammers anymore.
>
> We still get mail addressed to @ripco.com accounts that haven't been used
> since 1998/99. Just doesn't make any sense where these lists get their info
> from.
>

Are they still sending email to my old account?

Crawford Sausage Company

unread,
Feb 4, 2016, 7:03:38 PM2/4/16
to
On Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 8:00:36 AM UTC-6, Bruce Esquibel wrote:

> Those fucking new top level domains are fucking useless except to the
> registars selling them, supposedly there are like 2000 of them now with a
> few new ones popping up every week. It's just stupid.

What kind of companies are buying them? I have yet to see a link in
that namespace during any of my web browsing so far. There might be
value in buying up a TLD like .sucks so you can ransom off those
domain names to anyone and everyone.

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 7:09:29 AM2/5/16
to
Crawford Sausage Company <m...@brandylion.com> wrote:

> What kind of companies are buying them? I have yet to see a link in
> that namespace during any of my web browsing so far. There might be
> value in buying up a TLD like .sucks so you can ransom off those
> domain names to anyone and everyone.

It's just for speculation purposes.

I dunno who is pocketing the money but from what I understand, if you wanted
to create the .eatme top level domain, you pony up $200,000 and fill out an
application, icann posts it, if there are no others interested, after 6
months, you get the privledge to start selling those domains. If there are
others interested, it goes into some kind of closed-bid auction where you
have to blindly add in another $50k or whatever you think is more than the
other guy wants to pay.

Whoever "wins" now have to file how the domains are going to be sold. What
they are going to do with trademark/copyright problems, initial fees to
register, renewal fees. It's easy to say, I'll just sell 20,000 at $10 each,
but very few have met that number (.ninja, .buzz, .club and .xyz seem to be
the most popular) and then they find out after a year, very few renew them.

So they start getting creative, early on there was a .rich or .luxury, they
were going to charge like $10,000 to register then $1000 a year in renewal
fees to keep it, "exclusive" is how they marketed it. Think they got a total
of 8 idiots (and 4 of those seemed to be the owner) and probably abandoned
it.

Another one(s) was .aids or .hiv, maybe $200 in fees but half or most of it
was supposed to go to research, they figured the big corps would register
like apple.aids or microsoft.aids, "just to show they care". Think the
numbers on that one was around 200.

That one for .sucks has been a target of lawsuits even before it was
launched. Some tld's have this "sunrise period" where for more money you can
register a domain name before it's released to the great unwashed masses.
Maybe the sunrise price was $2000 or $5000, when released $100 or
something.

Same logic there, it panics the major companies to pony up and pay for
apple.sucks or walmart.sucks before some snot nosed kid does so it appears
to be an extortion plot of sorts.

There isn't any need for any of these, it just became some kind of stock
market like business. Create a demand where none was before and rake in the
profits.

Or try to.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 7:24:19 AM2/5/16
to
Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:

> Are they still sending email to my old account?

If it was michele@, yeah still is.

Rough guess after only looking at one of the mailers, but probably more than
120 a month.

Probably just spam at this point, "no mailbox here" errors are rejected on
the front end so really can't tell who it is, just have an ip address in the
logs.

This is one that amazes me...

Feb 5 05:20:34 s_local@zone3 sendmail[22208]:
[ID 801593 mail.info] u15BKRtB022208: Milter: to=<alt.sex....@ripco.com>
reject=550 5.1.1 Sorry, no mailbox here by that name or mailbox is over quota

That account "alt.sex....@ripco.com" never existed, it was a single user
on here in 1994 posted a single message to the usenet group alt.sex.playtime
accidently configured the editor to use the group name instead of the login
name and there ya go.

22 years later it still gets email sent to it, dozens a day.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Michele

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 1:40:08 PM2/5/16
to
On 2/5/2016 6:24 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
> Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:
>
>> Are they still sending email to my old account?
>
> If it was michele@, yeah still is.
>

Yeah, it was. Too funny.


> Rough guess after only looking at one of the mailers, but probably more than
> 120 a month.
>
> Probably just spam at this point, "no mailbox here" errors are rejected on
> the front end so really can't tell who it is, just have an ip address in the
> logs.
>
> This is one that amazes me...
>
> Feb 5 05:20:34 s_local@zone3 sendmail[22208]:
> [ID 801593 mail.info] u15BKRtB022208: Milter: to=<alt.sex....@ripco.com>
> reject=550 5.1.1 Sorry, no mailbox here by that name or mailbox is over quota
>
> That account "alt.sex....@ripco.com" never existed, it was a single user
> on here in 1994 posted a single message to the usenet group alt.sex.playtime
> accidently configured the editor to use the group name instead of the login
> name and there ya go.
>
> 22 years later it still gets email sent to it, dozens a day.
>
> -bruce
> b...@ripco.com
>


The fuck?

core

unread,
Feb 5, 2016, 9:00:02 PM2/5/16
to
I've been at the same address for 30 years... I still get snail mail
addressed to my first wife that I've been divorced from for over 25
years.

Michele

unread,
Feb 6, 2016, 2:02:28 AM2/6/16
to
Seems like mailing lists turn into the walking dead after a while.

Crawford Sausage Company

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Feb 6, 2016, 2:11:55 PM2/6/16
to
Interesting. I could see this possibly be useful for a TV commercial
say instead of match.com they could advertise it as match.date. T
hat has problems because .com has been synonymous with root for
as long as there has been a web. If a commercial has to inform you
that match.dat is a valid url it may defeat these new TLD's entire
purpose, simplicity Even .org and .net don't get used much.

To companies like Apple it would be loose change in the couch to
purchase .apple, or ibm purchasing .ibm. There may be value in
that since those corporations can divvy out domains to partners
and when those partners stop being partners they can take them
away because they own the entire namespace. So if you went to
say newegg.apple it would present a page that lists all the top
deals at newegg for apple products. That could be useful.




Bruce Esquibel

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Feb 7, 2016, 7:58:50 AM2/7/16
to
Crawford Sausage Company <m...@brandylion.com> wrote:

> Interesting. I could see this possibly be useful for a TV commercial
> say instead of match.com they could advertise it as match.date. T
> hat has problems because .com has been synonymous with root for
> as long as there has been a web. If a commercial has to inform you
> that match.dat is a valid url it may defeat these new TLD's entire
> purpose, simplicity Even .org and .net don't get used much.

It's been tried...

http://domainnamewire.com/2015/02/03/see-buzz-domain-name-on-wheel-of-fortune/

My problem is I never considered a domain name as the guide to what is
underneath the surface. I mean a long time ago when this shit all started,
if you wanted to put up a website/blog about playing poker, getting the
domain name of poker.com, playingpoker.com or similar, you did have a leg up
on being found.

These days, it just doesn't work that way. Even here, last week when you put
up the post about the gyros at that Georges place, never heard of it and
wanted to see what they had.

You mentioned Cortland and Damen, pulled that up on the Maps program, a
building with "Georges Hot Dogs" and an "I" (for info) was there, click/tap
that, showed the full name, address and phone along with a yelp link. Click
on the link, yelp shows the reveiws, some pictures and the URL of the place.
One more click, there you are on their website.

The domain name didn't have anything to do with it. He could be using
deathbyslowpoison.com or ourketchupreallysucks.com, but it wouldn't of made
any difference to me with the way I tracked them down.

And that's my point, if we decided to start registering .hotdogs as a top
level domain, is that really going to help anything with him and his
business. I mean him having http://georges.hotdogs for his website is a
novelty item, but that's about it.

> To companies like Apple it would be loose change in the couch to
> purchase .apple, or ibm purchasing .ibm. There may be value in
> that since those corporations can divvy out domains to partners
> and when those partners stop being partners they can take them
> away because they own the entire namespace. So if you went to
> say newegg.apple it would present a page that lists all the top
> deals at newegg for apple products. That could be useful.

Yeah if doing that becomes "a thing". I just don't see it. If I wanted to
get a new iPod or iPad, I'd probably start with a search for "iXxx on sale"
or something and not sit here typing in sears.apple, walmart.apple,
costco.apple and what other vendors (even if I knew all of them) to see what
they had.

Even if apple listed them on a page to go through, the url of where you are
going to is irrelevant. They can do that now going the other way around,

sears.apple.com
costco.apple.com
walmart.apple.com

or they mix it up the other way, sears can do a apple.sears.com and costco
can do apple.costco.com. It doesn't help because it's not "a thing".

At one time, when people used to sit around typing in random domain names to
see what was there, fine. But these days with google, bing, yahoo,
duckduckgo and hundreds of other search engines, again I just don't see
where (or how clever) the domain name is, that it's going to make a
difference.

Just now for yucks I typed in

bestgyrosinchicago.com

and there is nothing there, no server/host, checked whois, no such domain
name is registered.

Why not? For the $12 or so you can own it, but is it worth anything to
anyone?

Now in the search box, type in "best gyros in chicago" and what comes back?

chicagoist.com
cbslocal.com
thrillist.com
chicago.eater.com
yelp.com
tripadvisor.com

The first hit that isn't a review site is on page 2, "Jesters Fast Food
Restaurants". They aren't even in fucking Chicago.

All this boils down to is the domain name, what top level it's under just
doesn't make a difference in the real world. It's a vanity thing and nothing
else.

True story:

Back when Ripco was just starting out and we were ordering the hardware and
trying to figure out things (no inet connection, just talk), the domain name
to call it came up for discussion. Naturally I didn't see anything else to
call it except ripco.com.

Nope, the other guys that were there just didn't think it was a good idea,
people would think it meant rip off company, if they used the email for
business it would be embarassing. So they talked me out of it.

Back then domain names, besides being free were registered by email to the
internic, usually handled by the upstream provider, in our case it was uunet
technologies.

So we filed for rci.com

Couple weeks later (yes it used to take weeks, sometimes months to get a
domain name), I was in the office by myself when uunet calls. The guy on the
phone says the application for rci.com got turned down because it was
already registered and "in use". He wanted to know if we had an alternate.

My kneejerk response was going to be "we'll call you back" because it needed
to have "a meeting" to figure it out but then I'm thinking, what the fuck
does it really matter, it's not what you call it but how reliable the
service and performance is going to be, so I told him to file for ripco.com.

If there was someone out there not wanting to do business with us because of
the name, fuck them, I wouldn't want to do business with them for that
reason.

So here it is, like 22 or 23 years later and pretty much the last man
standing. If we would of done better with rci.com, I don't see where and
how.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com


Michele

unread,
Feb 8, 2016, 3:58:03 AM2/8/16
to
You also had a bit of notoriety behind you in the early days of the ISP.
That didn't hurt.

Cydrome Leader

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Feb 8, 2016, 1:48:37 PM2/8/16
to
Nice research on the results for the hod dogs and gyros. The "most badass"
domain we snatched up years ago when things were still free was
"glass.com". That thing was going to make money, and everybody was going
to get rich. Then you had to pay for stuff and somebody forgot to renew
it, and we lost it. We also "lost" a /16 too, back when that shit was free
too, if you asked.

Take a look at glass.com these days. Any money spent registering that
domain would have been a loss of the $5 it cost back then.




Cydrome Leader

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Feb 8, 2016, 1:55:21 PM2/8/16
to
All the old school places have wonky names though-

"the world" still not sure WTF their domain is, without searching. here we
go http://theworld.com/ Note the new dialup pricing as of Sep 1, 2010.

"panix"
"mindspring"
"earthlink"

Still never figured out Hurricane Electric's story.

Even using internet back then meant you were pretty edgy to start with, I
really don't think anybody gave a hoot about the hosts and domains used.

Michele

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Feb 8, 2016, 11:15:00 PM2/8/16
to
The Internet was edgy in 1993? I remember waiting for the World Wide Web
Worm page to load up in order to search the innertubes in '93. Can't
remember who we were dialing into then.

I have a picture here somewhere of one of the old copmuters logged into
the Unix shell of Ripco. That's 1994-95. If I find it, I'll put it up on
Imgur for shits and giggles.

Bruce -- you care to share the story of how you named your servers?

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 9:10:00 AM2/9/16
to
Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:

> The Internet was edgy in 1993? I remember waiting for the World Wide Web
> Worm page to load up in order to search the innertubes in '93. Can't
> remember who we were dialing into then.

Actually I think CL isn't that far off the mark, in the first 2 or 3 years
we operated, much of the internet was reached using ip addresses and port
numbers. Hostnames and domains were around, but most of "the good stuff" was
passed around only by ip address.

The reason for that (the way it was explained to me) was because of how the
colleges and universities were wired up. I guess from the dorm rooms to the
computer lab, anyone could plug a machine in and get it on the net. To get a
hostname though, required going to the dns admin (probably staff) and
requesting it, too many question, stupid ideas, can cause problems, most
elected to stick with an ip address only.

A side note to that, someone else told me some colleges had a monthly fee to
use the network but didn't have control of the actual connection. Basically
what that means is, if someone plugged in a machine and got a dynamic
address for it (or stole a static one), if they were not paying, they
wouldn't get a hostname and reverse dns entry for the domain.

The key point to that was, many systems used to run a frontend called
tcpwrappers which was software that ran before other software. So like if
someone went to ftp.ripco.com and we were running it, the wrapper would look
at the inbound ip address, then do a hostname lookup for that, then verify
the hostname matched the ip (reverse lookup). If all of that was kosher, the
program would hand off to the ftp program and all was well.

Naturally anyone "borrowing" the connection who didn't have a hostname and
matching reverse record would be rejected, giving them incentive to pay the
access fee.

Not really sure if all that was true, but made sense on some level.

> Bruce -- you care to share the story of how you named your servers?

Pffft, I think I remember all the hostnames but not sure about who the
people were anymore. I'm sure it's in the CUD and EFF archives but I'll give
it a shot.

I'm pretty sure the first machines online were:

rci.ripco.com
golden.ripco.com
foley.ripco.com

then later these were added:

lawson.ripco.com
gail.ripco.com

We had others later on (like 2 dozen) but those were just named after what
they were doing with part numbers (web servers, terminal servers, dns
servers).

The rci machine was the hub, I guess you can call it, exported the file
systems to the other machines, ran mail, was the admin login box. Was just
named after the company initials.

The machines foley and golden were the shell boxes, they were named after a
couple secret service agents (Tim Foley and Barbara Golden). For those of
you who weren't born yet, ripco started as a bulletin board (1983) and in
May of 1990 got raided and seized by the U.S. Secret Service as part of this
"operation" called Operation Sundevil. Apparently me and like 42 other
bulletin boards around the country were part of some kind of underground
theft ring, yanking in 13 billion a year in computer trespassing thefts.

I never got my check from that work.

Foley and Golden were the two agents here in Chicago assigned to handle my
seizure.

Lawson I'm fuzzy about, I think he was an assistant states attorney here in
Illinois that had a bug up his ass to bring the hammer down on ye old ripco.
The Secret Service got there first and somewhat ruined his day. I beleive he
was the one prosecuting (in 1987) two guys (one from ripco called Shadow
Hawk I) and the other from down south (The Prophet). After that went to
trial (and de boyz off to jail), he set his sites on me but kept missing.

From what I understand, he applied several times to get warrants issued on
ripco but never passed the muster with the judge and got turned down over
lack of evidence. When the SS got it done from Arizona (reason for the
Sundevil name), he was supposed to be really pissed about it.

So as a consolation present, I named a machine after him, was another shell
box added when the system grew.

If that wasn't the guy from Illinois, it was the name of the "expert" the SS
had to write up everything, posts on ripco remembering the death of Jim
Morrison (of the Doors) as being radical anarchists. How a blue box can
bring down the 911 system in 13 states. You know, the real and true facts.

The machine called gail was the news server (usenet). It was the first box
we had where all it did was usenet. It tended to panic alot and have
breakdowns, just like the woman we named it after, Gail Thackery.

She was the head clown calling the shots from Arizona, supposedly feeding
all this crap to the secret service to get them to do her bidding. Many
people who met her in person figured she was on the edge of having a nervous
breakdown and generally started to spew (ranting and raving) instead of just
having a conversation.

And that I think is about it.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 9:52:08 AM2/9/16
to
Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:

> Nice research on the results for the hod dogs and gyros. The "most badass"
> domain we snatched up years ago when things were still free was
> "glass.com". That thing was going to make money, and everybody was going
> to get rich. Then you had to pay for stuff and somebody forgot to renew
> it, and we lost it. We also "lost" a /16 too, back when that shit was free
> too, if you asked.

> Take a look at glass.com these days. Any money spent registering that
> domain would have been a loss of the $5 it cost back then.


And that's why this whole domain name business actually turned into one
stumps me.

We aquired dildo.com back in the mid 90's, some guy in Oklahoma wanted it
registered (still in the internic days) and couldn't find anyone down there
to do it. They considered it obscene or something, the bible belt, what you
expect. Called us, no problem, registered the domain name for him, but the
website/email was "to come later", so all we had were zone records for it.

A year went by, never heard from him, the phone (which I think was in
norman), disconnected. Tried the u.s. mail, nothing.

I was going to drop it when they started to charge for annual renewals but
at the last second figured there was some novelty owning it, so I changed
all the registration records over to ripco and paid for it.

Long story on what happend next but the only money that domain name ever
made for us was it being used as a gateway. Even now I think if you hit
dildo.com it goes to some adult novelty company in Las Vegas. The idea is,
if you purchase anything that way, there is a cut or split of the sale. I
don't really handle this anymore and haven't seen a check in years.

But my point is, at least a half dozen times, we've been offered money to
sell the domain for the intent purpose of using it for a web site and it
just doesn't work. One guy even thought it was worth "millions" and we
couldn't keep a straight face. He "borrowed" it for a few months (the
domain, under our control, pointing to his website). He silently disappeared
along with the rental checks. Everyone else that did the same setup (try
before you buy) ended up the same way.

It just isn't worth shit for what it is.

But yet if it goes up for speculative value, see like:

http://www.ha.com/information/sell-domain-names-and-intellectual-property.s?type=surl-ip?ic=ih-domain-ip-consign-clickImage-012516

There is a possibility of making 5 or 6 figures from it, just because some
idiot out there thinks it'll make a great investment.

Just doesn't make any fucking sense.

If you are asking why we don't pull the trigger now, it comes down to once
it's gone, it's gone. Unlike a 66 Chevy Malibu for your first car, you can
always get one later on to make your own. Domain names are one of a kind so
unless you pay to get it back, you can't get another one "just like it".

I think I mentioned recently there was domain name (qnb.com) that recently
sold for like 1.7 million dollars, to the Qatar National Bank.

I remember, probably in 1997 or 98 where nearly all the 3 letter domain
names were registered, except for a few that were at the bottom of anyones
list, I'll bet qnb.com was open and available. Paying the $35 a year
(remember godaddy and the others weren't around yet) would of been stupid.

Oh well.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 2:26:02 PM2/9/16
to
Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:
> On 2/8/2016 12:55 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
>> Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:
>>> On 2/7/2016 6:58 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> So here it is, like 22 or 23 years later and pretty much the last man
>>>> standing. If we would of done better with rci.com, I don't see where and
>>>> how.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You also had a bit of notoriety behind you in the early days of the ISP.
>>> That didn't hurt.
>>
>> All the old school places have wonky names though-
>>
>> "the world" still not sure WTF their domain is, without searching. here we
>> go http://theworld.com/ Note the new dialup pricing as of Sep 1, 2010.
>>
>> "panix"
>> "mindspring"
>> "earthlink"
>>
>> Still never figured out Hurricane Electric's story.
>>
>> Even using internet back then meant you were pretty edgy to start with, I
>> really don't think anybody gave a hoot about the hosts and domains used.
>>
>
> The Internet was edgy in 1993? I remember waiting for the World Wide Web
> Worm page to load up in order to search the innertubes in '93. Can't
> remember who we were dialing into then.

It was edgy. It's only in the past 5 years or so where you can actually
email anybody anything. Hell, even doctors put email addresses on their
cards now. I renew my lease through really bad scans and from prints outs
with no problem. hell, I even emailed images of documents to the city of
chicago water department. They were even able to open them and do stuff.



Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 2:39:09 PM2/9/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:
>
>> The Internet was edgy in 1993? I remember waiting for the World Wide Web
>> Worm page to load up in order to search the innertubes in '93. Can't
>> remember who we were dialing into then.
>
> Actually I think CL isn't that far off the mark, in the first 2 or 3 years
> we operated, much of the internet was reached using ip addresses and port
> numbers. Hostnames and domains were around, but most of "the good stuff" was
> passed around only by ip address.
>
> The reason for that (the way it was explained to me) was because of how the
> colleges and universities were wired up. I guess from the dorm rooms to the
> computer lab, anyone could plug a machine in and get it on the net. To get a
> hostname though, required going to the dns admin (probably staff) and
> requesting it, too many question, stupid ideas, can cause problems, most
> elected to stick with an ip address only.
>
> A side note to that, someone else told me some colleges had a monthly fee to
> use the network but didn't have control of the actual connection. Basically
> what that means is, if someone plugged in a machine and got a dynamic
> address for it (or stole a static one), if they were not paying, they
> wouldn't get a hostname and reverse dns entry for the domain.

There was all sorts of nonense running on university networks, including
other businesses, that just happened to be somewhere inside a machine
room.

As for the IP address only stuff, do you recall that fad of decimal
addresses? What was that shit called? Instead of going to
http://12.56.22.203/:8080 you'd go to http://12339483745/:8080. It all
worked on how bind was coded and wasn't really all that amazing, but was
hot for a while.

If you've got a working DAT drive I've got a tape that no doubt has actual
chat/conversations from that the mid-late 1990s.

You had the port 8080 only action for http at Ripco for years. Were you
running CERN httpd on the AT&T unix?


Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 2:50:11 PM2/9/16
to
Agreed. If I'm reading right they were actual sales;

py.com for $358,000 py?
nl.com for $575,000 netherlands? National Limabean?

> If you are asking why we don't pull the trigger now, it comes down to once
> it's gone, it's gone. Unlike a 66 Chevy Malibu for your first car, you can
> always get one later on to make your own. Domain names are one of a kind so
> unless you pay to get it back, you can't get another one "just like it".
>
> I think I mentioned recently there was domain name (qnb.com) that recently
> sold for like 1.7 million dollars, to the Qatar National Bank.
>
> I remember, probably in 1997 or 98 where nearly all the 3 letter domain
> names were registered, except for a few that were at the bottom of anyones
> list, I'll bet qnb.com was open and available. Paying the $35 a year
> (remember godaddy and the others weren't around yet) would of been stupid.

There were some weird restrictions on the 2 letter domains, and I think
there was a premium on any 3 letter ones for a while too. Wasn't any
$575,000 though. Of course sgi, bbn and ge were old enough probably have
them for free though.

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 9, 2016, 5:20:36 PM2/9/16
to
barbie gee <boo...@nosespam.com> wrote:
> I was amazed that the Dept. of Buildings was email attachment able, as
> well. Used to be the entire City of Chicago was able to shirk work by not
> having any kinds of "external" email abilities, but now that jig is up.

I guess in 2016 city governments are finally figuring out this internet
thing.

Anybody know how long it took city hall to finally give in to those new
fangled "telephones" and "electricity"?

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 10, 2016, 7:51:58 AM2/10/16
to
Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:

> py.com for $358,000 py?
> nl.com for $575,000 netherlands? National Limabean?

Yeah but it doesn't matter, I don't think you'll ever see a website for
either one of those, except for "for sale".

In a year or two you'll probably see them back up for auction, likely with
minimum bids of $500,000 and $750,000 respectively.

Beats the .75% or 1% on your banks savings account, doesn't it?

I guess it's better than playing the stock market, don't have to know much
to see a good/decent domain name and figure it'll be worth more than you
paid for it later.

The guy that runs dnw.com does that, maybe spends $1000-$1500 on various
domain names, since you "own" them for a year, just keeps sticking them on
various auctions. I mean if you can turn $20 into $50, you don't even have
to sell most of them to get your money back. One of them might be worth a
few hundred (for no explained reason), and bang, there is your profit.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Beats working for a living.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Geoff Gass

unread,
Feb 13, 2016, 12:20:02 PM2/13/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> So here it is, like 22 or 23 years later and pretty much the last man
> standing. If we would of done better with rci.com, I don't see where and
> how.

so who had rci.com back in the day? It's the timeshare trading company now,
but I can't imagine they were smart enough to get it that long ago.

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 14, 2016, 8:29:29 AM2/14/16
to
Geoff Gass <g...@tanzenmb.com> wrote:

> so who had rci.com back in the day? It's the timeshare trading company now,
> but I can't imagine they were smart enough to get it that long ago.


If memory serves, I think it was a home builder, like Richardson Construction
Incorporated or something similar. They were down south, like Arkansas.

Why they had it in the early days, I don't know. Probably email since web
sites barely existed. Remember back then, domain names were first-come,
first-serve and in theory was yours forever, and basically free (no annual
renewal).

The way internic (or Merit, forgot who did this) checked to see if a domain
was abandoned was if the name servers shown on the record had zone records
for it or not. If you had a domain name pointing to your name servers and
they couldn't get an inquiry, it was deemed "lame delegation" and email was
sent to all the contacts on the registration record and given a 30 day
response period.

I still have a couple of those (I think) saved somewhere, they were worded
about as friendly as an IRS audit letter.

There was some veiled threat after the explanation of the lame delegation
about if they didn't get any response back at all, there was a chance of
jepordizing future registrations either for the name servers or the person
registrating it.

Back then everyone had what they called a "nic handle", mine was BE8 and
that handle was used to register the domains. There used to be a way using a
whois server to dump that, but I don't remember how and I doubt they are in
use anymore, at least after domain name registration companies like godaddy
were created.

So basically if you ignored the letter they either would shut down future
domain name registrations for your name servers or the nic handle. Either
way, it was a pretty brutal threat. Not sure if they ever carried those out
though.

My point is, as long as the owner of rci.com had some kind of response back
from his listed name servers, we couldn't do anything about it. Even if the
response was 127.0.0.1 for everything, was still valid.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 14, 2016, 9:09:25 AM2/14/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:

> Why they had it in the early days, I don't know. Probably email since web
> sites barely existed. Remember back then, domain names were first-come,
> first-serve and in theory was yours forever, and basically free (no annual
> renewal).

Ha, looks like I made a boo-boo.

I thought the domain names were free to register but whilst looking for the
lame delegation email (couldn't find), I found our stash of templates used
to create the domain name.

This is in the 5/96 version:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
An initial charge of $100.00 USD will be made to register the Domain name.
This charge covers any updates required during the first two (2) years.
The Billing Contact listed in Section 6 will be invoiced within ten (10)
days of Domain name registration. For detailed information on billing,
see:

ftp://rs.internic.net/billing/billing-procedures.txt
http://rs.internic.net/guardian/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

But I really don't remember cutting checks for them.

Ok, I see, earlier versions, like the 5/95 ones have no mention of fees at
all. The ones from 9/95 had this version:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A domain name registration fee of .00 US is applicable. This charge
will cover the .00 maintenance fee for two (2) years. After the two
year period, an invoice will be sent on an annual basis.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I guess internic started to charge for them in 1996 somewhere.

But before that (and the .com madhouse), they were free, so I'm not losing
it totally.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 15, 2016, 12:08:01 PM2/15/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
>
>> Why they had it in the early days, I don't know. Probably email since web
>> sites barely existed. Remember back then, domain names were first-come,
>> first-serve and in theory was yours forever, and basically free (no annual
>> renewal).
>
> Ha, looks like I made a boo-boo.
>
> I thought the domain names were free to register but whilst looking for the
> lame delegation email (couldn't find), I found our stash of templates used
> to create the domain name.
>
> This is in the 5/96 version:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> An initial charge of $100.00 USD will be made to register the Domain name.
> This charge covers any updates required during the first two (2) years.
> The Billing Contact listed in Section 6 will be invoiced within ten (10)
> days of Domain name registration. For detailed information on billing,
> see:
>
> ftp://rs.internic.net/billing/billing-procedures.txt
> http://rs.internic.net/guardian/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> But I really don't remember cutting checks for them.

I checked my old email and I think I figured out how this worked.

You could register for free, but had to pay the $100 if you wanted to keep
the domain. Basically, you got the domain for free, they'd wait to collect
money and if months later you never payed, they shut it off.

There was one domain I really liked that I was using, and I also know I
never payed $100 for it, and I did lose it eventually, but it took a long
time. I can't locate any domain registration emails from before 1997
though for some reason.

I keep thinking this had to do with the fact that in 1997 companies were
not paying for domains with credit cards and needed to mail in a check or
something awkward like that. No problem for the rest of us there was no
was in hell Insurance Company B would have a corporate credit card for
buying domain names.




Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 16, 2016, 7:57:12 AM2/16/16
to
Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:

> You could register for free, but had to pay the $100 if you wanted to keep
> the domain. Basically, you got the domain for free, they'd wait to collect
> money and if months later you never payed, they shut it off.

Make sense but either I blotted it out of my mind or there was something else
going on.

In the directory where I found the templates are probably 300+ filled out
between 1995 and 1998. If we were cutting that many checks to Internic or
Netsol, I just don't remember. It was also before online credit card era for
those.

Maybe we just mailed the invoice to the end user and let them deal with it,
but doesn't sound like what we'd do. Normally we'd collect all the fees up
front including the 1st quarter or year of service. In that case the money
went from us to somewhere and I just don't rememeber doing it.

I think in 1999 is when they introduced the secondary registration services,
like register.com and tucows.com and you could do everything online with a
card.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 16, 2016, 11:30:38 AM2/16/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>
>> You could register for free, but had to pay the $100 if you wanted to keep
>> the domain. Basically, you got the domain for free, they'd wait to collect
>> money and if months later you never payed, they shut it off.
>
> Make sense but either I blotted it out of my mind or there was something else
> going on.
>
> In the directory where I found the templates are probably 300+ filled out
> between 1995 and 1998. If we were cutting that many checks to Internic or
> Netsol, I just don't remember. It was also before online credit card era for
> those.

My emails from 1997 indicate you could make credit card payments through
"First Virtual" whatever the hell that was, or call some toll free number
and give a card over the phone. Also, if you had a "5 digit" account
number you could put in on your tab.

All the internet card processing I had to deal with around that time were
really hokey setups. There was some totaly broken "api" that involved
donaloading like 500MB of perl scripts to connect to one bank on the
internet to accept cards. I can't recall the company name, but it was a
big deal at the time, and they really fucking sucked. First Virtual maybe?

We opted for a https form that did basic card number validation and then
wrote shit to a file. Then we'd FTP or MSLANMANthe data to a DOS machine
running some colorful program that could batch process card data from a
file over a modem. Yeah, it had to be a specific type of 2400 baud modem
too. I do recall my Microcom AX/2400c worked fine with that software. You
had to have some weird AT commands just to be assholes to try to force
customers to buy ripoff modems. Bogus transactions we put back onto the
unix box and accounts were invalidated.


Michele

unread,
Feb 16, 2016, 12:13:46 PM2/16/16
to
On 2/16/2016 6:57 AM, Bruce Esquibel wrote:
> Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>
>> You could register for free, but had to pay the $100 if you wanted to keep
>> the domain. Basically, you got the domain for free, they'd wait to collect
>> money and if months later you never payed, they shut it off.
>
> Make sense but either I blotted it out of my mind or there was something else
> going on.
>
> In the directory where I found the templates are probably 300+ filled out
> between 1995 and 1998. If we were cutting that many checks to Internic or
> Netsol, I just don't remember. It was also before online credit card era for
> those.
>
> Maybe we just mailed the invoice to the end user and let them deal with it,
> but doesn't sound like what we'd do. Normally we'd collect all the fees up
> front including the 1st quarter or year of service. In that case the money
> went from us to somewhere and I just don't rememeber doing it.
>

You notified the user of the expiration and collected the entire year up
front when it was due.

smr

unread,
Feb 16, 2016, 7:00:01 PM2/16/16
to
On 2/16/2016 10:30 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
> Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
>> Cydrome Leader <pres...@mungepanix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> You could register for free, but had to pay the $100 if you wanted to keep
>>> the domain. Basically, you got the domain for free, they'd wait to collect
>>> money and if months later you never payed, they shut it off.
>>
>> Make sense but either I blotted it out of my mind or there was something else
>> going on.
>>
>> In the directory where I found the templates are probably 300+ filled out
>> between 1995 and 1998. If we were cutting that many checks to Internic or
>> Netsol, I just don't remember. It was also before online credit card era for
>> those.
>
> My emails from 1997 indicate you could make credit card payments through
> "First Virtual" whatever the hell that was, or call some toll free number
> and give a card over the phone. Also, if you had a "5 digit" account
> number you could put in on your tab.
>
> All the internet card processing I had to deal with around that time were
> really hokey setups. There was some totaly broken "api" that involved
> donaloading like 500MB of perl scripts to connect to one bank on the
> internet to accept cards. I can't recall the company name, but it was a
> big deal at the time, and they really fucking sucked. First Virtual maybe?

I'm having flashbacks to helping customers get Miva Merchant working on
their shitty websites back then. What a cluster fuck that software was.

--
smr

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 7:44:48 AM2/17/16
to
smr <m...@shawnritchie.com> wrote:

> I'm having flashbacks to helping customers get Miva Merchant working on
> their shitty websites back then. What a cluster fuck that software was.

If you ask me, it's just starting to be "ok".

We had that one merchant processor (Retreiver, I think) where even in 2010
they were still using this archaic "solution" for small businesses. This
required an XP box running their software, a "compatable" modem similar to
the one CL was using.

This was they type where after each entry required it to "phone home", even
if it was 10 cards you were running, each one required a call out instead of
running it in a batch.

I think the reason for the goofy "compatable" modem was because it called
into some archaic main frame, one time while trying to figure out why it
dropping the calls on the connect I spotted one of those AT commands and
after a bit of checking, it was trying to put the modem in some 7E2 mode, 7
bits, even parity with 2 stop bits.

What used to drive me nuts with this setup was we had 2 machines, one at
Clybourn and another at the house. After you did all your transactions,
there was another program to run to "close out" or sync the one you were on.

If you didn't, trying to run the other machine wouldn't work, the
transaction would be turned down.

When I cancelled the service I asked them if they were ever going into the
21st century and just do it online via a web site and the guy actually
laughed saying that would never be secure and they had no plans to do so.

By that time I was already using paypal for everything and was just keeping
them as a backup. I guess they are still around but must of been bought out
or taken over, they used to be in Texas somewhere and now it seems they are
up here in South Holland.

Oh well, glad those days are over.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 8:39:48 AM2/17/16
to
Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:

> You notified the user of the expiration and collected the entire year up
> front when it was due.

Yeah on the renewal, but how the ball got rolling from the start is where
I'm drawing a blank.

I mean maybe we did but writing a bunch of $100 checks to either Internic or
Netsol, just don't remember that. I mean maybe we registered it and they
mailed the invoice to them directly or something.

I sort of remember Interaccess registering the domain name in their name, to
make sure the client didn't skip out and try moving the domain somewhere
else unless all the bills were paid. I mean I remember not liking that
policy, at least up until we were having similar problems where that made
sense. But then you had to deal with transfering the domain and Netsol never
made that process simple.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com


smr

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 1:00:02 PM2/17/16
to
You and me both. That shit, even for the times, was dumbly engineered
and harder than it needed to be.

The lack of smart session-awareness in that older stuff still crops up
and bites me in the ass on old TDM shit today.

--
smr

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 1:15:55 PM2/17/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> smr <m...@shawnritchie.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm having flashbacks to helping customers get Miva Merchant working on
>> their shitty websites back then. What a cluster fuck that software was.
>
> If you ask me, it's just starting to be "ok".
>
> We had that one merchant processor (Retreiver, I think) where even in 2010
> they were still using this archaic "solution" for small businesses. This
> required an XP box running their software, a "compatable" modem similar to
> the one CL was using.
>
> This was they type where after each entry required it to "phone home", even
> if it was 10 cards you were running, each one required a call out instead of
> running it in a batch.
>
> I think the reason for the goofy "compatable" modem was because it called
> into some archaic main frame, one time while trying to figure out why it
> dropping the calls on the connect I spotted one of those AT commands and
> after a bit of checking, it was trying to put the modem in some 7E2 mode, 7
> bits, even parity with 2 stop bits.

You have to be right on the remote mainframe stuff, and stupid settings.
2400 baud modems were laughable junk even around that time, and it was
quite the production to get one that worked. I still have that fucker
somewere too. The other gems were the Intel satisFAXion modems for, well
faxing stuff.

Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 1:20:44 PM2/17/16
to
The netsol fuckers really irritated me with the transfer process, even
within an organization like if I bought a domain from a coworker. I
remember it was in fact easier to switch to register.com as you didn't
need to fax in photos and other shit to "prove" who you were. So that's
what I did, just move everything somewhere else so I could continue to use
whatever fake names were hot at the time.

Register.com got all stupid too, and then switching to godaddy was the
easiest way to not have to fax in fake passports or whatever. Been using
them since. They're irritating as well, but have a call center in the US I
work pretty hard, so all is good.




Cydrome Leader

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 1:29:06 PM2/17/16
to
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> Michele <eatshi...@spammers.com> wrote:
>
>> You notified the user of the expiration and collected the entire year up
>> front when it was due.
>
> Yeah on the renewal, but how the ball got rolling from the start is where
> I'm drawing a blank.
>
> I mean maybe we did but writing a bunch of $100 checks to either Internic or
> Netsol, just don't remember that. I mean maybe we registered it and they
> mailed the invoice to them directly or something.

Not sure what you did, but just letting the bill go to the customer really
makes the most sense.

You can't do that now (must prepay) so I've always just thrown stuff on my
account then bill the customer whatevet it cost for their domain. If they
don't pay, well they don't pay and you're out $12 and have a shitty new
yoga website or whatever. I tried a couple times to walk people through
how to reset their godaddy account and to try to pay themselves. It's just
impossible and not worth the effort.


smr

unread,
Feb 17, 2016, 6:50:01 PM2/17/16
to
Yep. If you were paid up when we got a transfer request, we let it go.
Otherwise, nope. Not the kindest policy, but I think they got burned on
quite a few at the very start and quickly implemented this, I know it
was in place by the time I was doing that stuff there in '97.

--
smr

Crawford Sausage Company

unread,
Oct 18, 2016, 3:34:36 PM10/18/16
to
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-internet-address-gtld-trademark-brand-nike-hbo-apple-icann/
> So here it is, like 22 or 23 years later and pretty much the last man
> standing. If we would of done better with rci.com, I don't see where and
> how.
>
> -bruce
> b...@ripco.com

Bruce Esquibel

unread,
Oct 19, 2016, 7:26:20 AM10/19/16
to
Crawford Sausage Company <m...@brandylion.com> wrote:

> https://www.cnet.com/news/google-internet-address-gtld-trademark-brand-nike-hbo-apple-icann/

Yeah, I didn't know there was a $30,000 annual fee for those stupid tld's
besides the $200K to just jump on the bandwagon. I thought ICANN just got a
cut of the sales.

I dunno if it'll totally collapse someday but the ones that release their
sales numbers, it doesn't seem like any of them are taking the world by
storm and it's just becoming a vanity thing.

Most report like 75%-85% renewals after the first year, but the second year
renewals dip to like 65% of those. Many of them are worse and ended up being
sold off to some other registration service.

And again, except for the domain name speculators, there doesn't seem to be
much interest from John Q. Public to get any. Out of all the sites we host
there was only one who lost the .com for either forgetting to renew it or it
being hiijacked and they went with both .dance and .yoga. After a year they
dropped one of them and kept the other. They said if the .com comes out of
ransom mode, they'll get it back and drop the other.

Just not impressed.

-bruce
b...@ripco.com

Crawford Sausage Company

unread,
Oct 19, 2016, 12:51:21 PM10/19/16
to
For large companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. who have a
massive userbase it seems worth the cost and once you have your TLD
you never have to worry about someone hijacking the domain for a brand
you want to launch.

I could see it for secure stuff like banks and money transfers. There
someone could buy up say .bank and become gatekeeper to the domain
making sure only legitimate banks use that TLD.

For smaller stuff you're right, it makes little sense. I was surprised
by all the spammers using these TLDs which is so trivially filtered
that one would think they should know better. Their in business to
not be filtered.

tert in seattle

unread,
Nov 14, 2016, 6:00:02 PM11/14/16
to
Bruce Esquibel wrote:

> The domain name didn't have anything to do with it. He could be using
> deathbyslowpoison.com or ourketchupreallysucks.com, but it wouldn't of made
> any difference to me with the way I tracked them down.

hmm... both of these are still available

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