Domain Troubles · 2006-03-11
Last week, one of my domains (umdhub.com) got locked because I had supposedly listed fraudulent contact information in my registration or was using the domain for spam. If you check the WHOIS record, the first allegation is clearly false, and you’ll have to take my word on the second.
For the technologically un-initiated, let me go into a brief digression about domain names. Simply put, a domain name is a name like “google.com” or “cnn.com” that allows people to easily identify a computer on the internet. When computers communicate, they do not use the system of names, instead, they fine one another by a sequence of numbers called IP addresses. To bridge the gap, domain names were developed where a name would be translated to a numerical address. When you request “google.com,” the computer looks up the appropriate numerical address, and then communicates soley via that.
A natural result of this system is that a single address may have many domain names. For example, the address of the machine that had umdhub.com is 129.2.216.191. It also happens to have umd.xenoform.net, and hub.student.umd.edu. When you connect to the server from any of the four methods (directly by address or any of the three names), you are really connecting to the exact same computer.
Historically, we used umd.xenoform.net because I had not yet bought umdhub.com. Today, it is maintained for backwards compatibility for people who are very slow to update their bookmarks. hub.student.umd.edu is the the result of having to choose a name when registering a computer on a residential connection on campus. We encourage everyone to use umdhub.com when dealing with the computer because the other addresses may be discontinued in the future.
In any case, all of this was resolved when I finally got in touch with my registrar. Unfortunately, my registrar would only work with fax. Unfortunately, my registrar is also in Switzerland. Very unfortunately, Fedex/Kinkos sees fit to charge $3.50/page + $6/connect to send a fax internationally. I have to say though, I am very impressed with my registrar, Joker.com. Within a few hours of sending the fax, the domain was unlocked and everything returned to normal, complete with a typically polite Swiss/German apology for the inconvenience.
