WEBVTT 00:18.720 --> 00:22.200 Well, welcome back everyone. This is Jack Smith again and 00:22.700 --> 00:26.000 today I have Chris here. Hey Chris, how you doing? 00:26.270 --> 00:29.830 Hi Jack. I'm pleased to be here with you. Well, thank you. What an 00:30.330 --> 00:32.670 opportunity. Wow, 00:33.550 --> 00:36.550 do I feel the sarcasm flowing into the room here or are we good? 00:37.050 --> 00:39.790 I don't know what you're talking about. That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. 00:40.750 --> 00:44.150 So I got you, I asked you to join 00:44.650 --> 00:48.390 here because today I want to yabel a bit about domains and 00:48.890 --> 00:52.030 that seems to be stuff that you might be a little bit of acquainted with. 00:52.240 --> 00:55.920 Been there for a couple of years. Sure, lovely. So no, 00:56.000 --> 01:00.560 I was going to discuss about in, in all our merger 01:01.060 --> 01:04.640 and acquisition processes. So when you buy a company they seem 01:05.140 --> 01:09.040 to have all kind of Internet facing things with websites, with email and their 01:09.540 --> 01:13.520 domains and I just wanted to share a bit on how, 01:13.840 --> 01:17.320 how it works and how you transfer those and to the new 01:17.820 --> 01:21.160 ownerships and all the problems that come 01:21.640 --> 01:25.400 that come with it. So welcome to fun with 01:25.480 --> 01:28.600 domains domain. Yeah. Yes. 01:29.100 --> 01:32.840 I mean you mentioned it all already so I think we're done here. No, 01:32.920 --> 01:36.359 thank you for tuning in. See you next. See you next month. No, 01:36.859 --> 01:40.800 seriously, I mean domains. Yes. What can I say about them? Domains and 01:41.300 --> 01:44.600 DNS. Well, I mean certainly especially if you're a small business, you have 01:45.100 --> 01:48.030 to make sure when you register your domain that is in the name of your 01:48.530 --> 01:51.950 web designer so you can access it when you fire them or when they 01:52.450 --> 01:55.550 want to hold you hostage later on because you don't pay their bills or something 01:56.050 --> 01:59.190 like that. There's a very good one that I was going to say for later. 01:59.750 --> 02:04.070 I'm sorry, no, no, no, jumping ahead right here. Well, it's okay actually 02:04.150 --> 02:07.550 because it's a good one to keep in mind to 02:08.050 --> 02:11.590 always read your contract. One of the companies I was moving over, 02:12.090 --> 02:15.910 they had with their Internet, they had their domain name 02:16.410 --> 02:19.690 through an Internet and the thing 02:20.190 --> 02:23.290 was if they moved away one service, they would lose the complete Internet service, 02:23.790 --> 02:27.450 including the domain name. So if we transferred the domain name they 02:27.950 --> 02:31.690 would lose their entire telco contract. Which is kind of actually a good 02:32.190 --> 02:35.970 advice and a good jump too because I 02:36.470 --> 02:38.850 prefer to buy my domain name someplace else than the rest of the services. 02:39.350 --> 02:42.450 Don't we all. And so I have my direct control over that part. 02:42.950 --> 02:46.370 And when the other stuff breaks on, not if, when the other stuff breaks down, 02:46.930 --> 02:50.270 you still at least have your domain name and can point it elsewhere. 02:50.510 --> 02:54.230 That's the thing. Indeed. So no, it's, it's looking 02:54.730 --> 02:58.310 at some, some merchant 02:58.810 --> 03:02.110 acquisitions, M and A in in the past it's always something that 03:02.610 --> 03:05.669 let's forget. Like the domain is. Because I always think about oh, let's, let's copy 03:06.169 --> 03:09.270 over the email. Let's, let's do this from, from, from Google 03:09.770 --> 03:13.310 Cloud to Azure Cloud to it, from local to, to somewhere else. 03:13.470 --> 03:16.550 That's all fine. But then you have to tell the Internet that the emails have 03:17.050 --> 03:22.090 moved and, and also your, your and 03:22.170 --> 03:26.010 what the fun always starts with the inventory 03:26.510 --> 03:29.810 because you're, you're contacting the current, the old owners 03:30.310 --> 03:32.890 of the, who's running the company these days and you ask them like hey, 03:33.370 --> 03:37.370 can you please give me a list of your domain names? First you 03:37.870 --> 03:40.650 have to tell them what the domain name is and usually they will forget some 03:41.150 --> 03:44.930 of them too. They will forget and then you, they come back and they will 03:45.430 --> 03:48.310 give you four or five and then they forgot that they have six, 03:48.810 --> 03:52.150 seven others registered in different languages in different countries. So they 03:52.650 --> 03:55.430 will have, they will have the dot com but also the dot net and the 03:55.930 --> 03:58.750 org which they don't use but, but that they have. And they fell for the 03:59.250 --> 04:02.630 Chinese scam too about the domain registrations that somebody else is trying to 04:03.130 --> 04:06.430 register your domains. So they have those CN domains that they will never use. 04:07.470 --> 04:10.870 They have, I have seen, I have seen domains registered 04:11.370 --> 04:16.000 in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Greece, everywhere that you 04:16.500 --> 04:20.080 could, you could imagine. And indeed and they're, you find out 04:20.580 --> 04:24.680 that they're paying €50, €60 a year per domain name 04:25.180 --> 04:28.640 for that. Just money being, being, being thrown out. And then you 04:29.140 --> 04:32.440 know, you're, you're the lucky person that comes in to clean all of that up. 04:32.840 --> 04:36.520 It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a challenge because if 04:37.020 --> 04:40.320 you're lucky they're all registered at the same place. If you're not, 04:40.820 --> 04:44.320 then every person that once made an 04:44.820 --> 04:48.480 online web app for them put it on its own domain name, does the own 04:48.980 --> 04:53.520 registration and then you can find out what's 04:54.020 --> 04:58.000 where before you have the entire listing. Yeah, the domain is like the unloved stepchild 04:58.500 --> 05:01.200 that is kind of important but you kind of forget about it too. And you 05:01.700 --> 05:04.920 don't know who registered it. And like we said your app designer, 05:05.170 --> 05:08.610 an old employee who's long gone or where 05:09.110 --> 05:12.370 was registered because I knew somebody there or whatever and, or it was 05:12.870 --> 05:16.290 a country level domain that you could only get at one registrar or something like 05:16.790 --> 05:20.690 that. Definitely interesting challenges or you're using 05:21.190 --> 05:25.170 shortcuts for your website in Bitly. And Bitly, 05:25.810 --> 05:29.570 that's Libya, a very stable country to rely on for your Shortcuts 05:30.070 --> 05:33.100 and social media, of course. I mean nothing against Bitly, but I'm just. 05:33.600 --> 05:36.980 Oh yeah, true. That's Libya. Oh yeah. Just think about those things when 05:37.480 --> 05:41.100 you pick your domains or you have a TV and that island happens to 05:41.600 --> 05:45.300 be syncing Tuvalu and at one point, I mean ICANN isn't very 05:45.800 --> 05:49.300 fast at shutting those down, so I mean there's little risk. The latest example for 05:49.800 --> 05:53.580 that is Dot. Sorry, which one was it? 05:54.080 --> 05:57.340 Shit Dot. Shit Dot. 05:57.840 --> 06:01.660 Shit. Doesn't exist yet. That's in the next round for new applications. That's a 06:02.160 --> 06:05.980 good tld. Sorry, lost my train of thought. I think it's. 06:06.380 --> 06:09.340 Was it. Oh, IO. 06:09.840 --> 06:12.940 Sorry. Yes. IO is recent for the island. 06:14.780 --> 06:18.540 The British ocean island territories are changing 06:18.860 --> 06:22.220 potentially ownership to the Maldives which is 06:22.720 --> 06:26.220 a. And then the IO will. Is a less stable government than cease to exist 06:26.720 --> 06:30.220 and IO does in theory doesn't exist anymore. I mean so, I mean but we've 06:30.720 --> 06:34.220 been sunsetting SU for the Soviet Union for a long time and 06:34.720 --> 06:38.160 therefore still domains being registered sometimes under it, which isn't really according to 06:38.660 --> 06:39.080 the rules, but hey, 07:00.050 --> 07:03.530 Okay. No, no, I never had to go 07:04.030 --> 07:07.090 that far in my thing. There is a. 07:07.170 --> 07:10.610 And then once. Once you have all the domain names, 07:10.690 --> 07:14.490 you have to get all the information and then when you're dealing with small 07:14.990 --> 07:18.970 businesses like the big mega corp that is doing the acquisition 07:19.470 --> 07:22.410 that needs and wants to take control of the. Of the domain names, they will. 07:22.910 --> 07:26.090 They will ask you a simple question. Hi, can you please provide me the 07:26.590 --> 07:29.820 zone files? Yeah, well, that's pretty simple. No, 07:30.300 --> 07:33.780 for us. Yes, but imagine that you are a 07:34.280 --> 07:37.780 small business of five folks in the office and 10 in 07:38.280 --> 07:41.180 the workshop and you ask like hi, can you give me your zone files? 07:41.680 --> 07:44.820 Yeah, so because that's going to be the next step before you transfer kind 07:45.320 --> 07:48.780 of the domains to your. To your name servers, 07:48.860 --> 07:52.660 I guess I would say. Yeah, I mean how do you transfer 07:53.160 --> 07:59.560 zone files? Best thing is to print out a bind file on paper and close 08:00.060 --> 08:03.680 that. That doesn't work. I've been asking for zone files left and right 08:04.180 --> 08:07.720 multiple registrars and they like at. 08:08.220 --> 08:12.640 At best they will go into some configuration 08:13.140 --> 08:16.480 webpage from the reseller of. Of the. That the registrar 08:16.980 --> 08:20.120 uses. Like yes, this is our config and you get a screenshot of a web 08:20.620 --> 08:23.730 page with some say I don't. No any registrar that actually exports zone 08:24.230 --> 08:27.730 files for you. No, but any DNS for provider. So I mean like let's say 08:28.230 --> 08:31.330 you sign up for a new account at. Well, I don't know if I Want 08:31.830 --> 08:35.530 to mention, well, Cloudflare or whatever somewhere and they 08:36.030 --> 08:39.490 try to guess all your records. That's usually not. I mean they 08:39.990 --> 08:43.210 go for the standard ones. Yes, but it may or may not work. 08:43.710 --> 08:46.490 Some internal interfaces may be missing. 08:47.220 --> 08:51.180 Yeah, it's my preferred tool to get the zone files 08:51.680 --> 08:55.700 is just choose the command line in Windows NSLookup just 08:56.200 --> 08:59.340 set a type to any and then just get the domain 08:59.840 --> 09:02.620 and then you will get most of it. But not everything. Most name servers are 09:03.120 --> 09:07.100 not that generous anymore in their responses because it kind of helps 09:07.600 --> 09:10.260 other people too that try to like, I mean there used to be an LS 09:10.760 --> 09:14.240 command too and there is. Maybe you should even use 09:14.740 --> 09:18.360 a tool like subdomain Finder. I mean that does exist mostly used by people 09:18.860 --> 09:22.360 that are trying to. Trying to do bad things on your domains. 09:22.860 --> 09:26.080 But you know, maybe you can use those as those things as a tool as 09:26.580 --> 09:29.320 well. That's. I have to add it. 09:29.880 --> 09:33.480 I've always been using NSLookUp to just gather what I have 09:33.980 --> 09:37.440 and then you know, I know the A records, I know NEC names, I know 09:37.940 --> 09:41.310 the nmix, I know the usual culprits. You can then just put in 09:41.810 --> 09:45.790 a sheet and give to Megacorp who will configure it on their DNS 09:47.390 --> 09:52.030 and then they come back. Oh, by the way, we need to transfer the 09:52.430 --> 09:55.870 DNS so can you please go ahead and disable DNSSEC 09:56.030 --> 09:57.790 on all those domains? Oh yeah, of course. 09:58.750 --> 10:02.510 DNSSEC already. I don't know, I was thinking a good DNS 10:03.010 --> 10:06.790 company should also just take one step back quickly. Should also be 10:07.290 --> 10:11.110 able to enable an actual zone file transfer. That's, that's the thing in the protocol 10:11.190 --> 10:14.070 used between second primary, primary, secondary. 10:14.710 --> 10:17.270 The authentication code is what they forget next. 10:17.750 --> 10:21.670 Yeah, so that's. Well, kind of anyways. 10:22.170 --> 10:25.790 Yes, the DNS should be disabled, at least temporarily because likely 10:26.290 --> 10:29.710 your signing is not going to work anymore after. Nope, you transferred the 10:30.210 --> 10:33.750 zones. It won't go anymore. And then yeah, you have the, the authentication 10:34.250 --> 10:38.320 code and then pending your luck, they will make it valid for somewhere 10:38.820 --> 10:42.560 between three days and three months. Well, the authentication code to transfer 10:43.060 --> 10:47.360 the domain now. Yeah, the actual domain. Yes, that's definitely one of the next 10:47.860 --> 10:51.680 steps. And of course to make it easier for you, the industry has 10:51.760 --> 10:55.160 established that there's different standards between all cctlds 10:55.660 --> 10:59.680 like the country level domains and like de BE 10:59.760 --> 11:04.310 and so on. DK and versus 11:04.810 --> 11:08.230 the I can regulated generic top level 11:08.730 --> 11:11.990 domains. Is that a fair term? Yeah, I guess so. Not close enough. I'll allow 11:12.490 --> 11:15.910 it. Okay. Yeah, so everybody has their own standard for 11:16.410 --> 11:18.670 your pleasure. And of course, 11:20.590 --> 11:26.070 like Jack was already saying, you can kind of expect 11:26.570 --> 11:31.290 different expiries for the various codes. And there's a difference between transferring 11:31.790 --> 11:35.450 the domain to another registrar and transferring. Or there can be a difference between transferring 11:35.950 --> 11:38.890 a domain to another registrar and transferring the ownership of the domain. 11:39.290 --> 11:42.810 In the ICANN world, that's kind of two different procedures. Of course. 11:43.210 --> 11:46.169 And in cctlds they just do their own shit. 11:47.370 --> 11:50.650 Well, because you can or maybe make up their own shit. Yes, 11:51.130 --> 11:54.490 I don't think we have to send any faxes in most countries nowadays anymore. 11:55.620 --> 11:59.380 It doesn't do faxes anymore, I think. But yeah, I was, I was 12:01.300 --> 12:04.980 yesterday evening I was discussing with some other IT 12:05.480 --> 12:08.980 folks and we were still like. Because you mentioned faxes, we were actually 12:09.620 --> 12:12.740 discussing TLX over ip. Oh, wow. Yes. 12:12.900 --> 12:16.420 So. So, you know, sending effects is pretty modern. 12:16.500 --> 12:20.500 I forgot about telex. As, as long as you're not doing telex anymore 12:21.000 --> 12:24.430 to, to some, to some far away place 12:24.930 --> 12:28.590 that still has it switched on because you 12:29.090 --> 12:32.030 have gateways now I think if you really, really, really want to send a telex. 12:32.530 --> 12:35.670 But the telex networks have been shut down in our part of the, 12:36.170 --> 12:40.150 of the, of the planet, so. But yeah, well, if you want confirmation 12:40.650 --> 12:43.590 faxes even, even that would be a challenge because like, you know, like, you know, 12:44.230 --> 12:47.830 if you live in a country that has stopped using faxes, 12:48.390 --> 12:49.110 you have a problem. 12:54.470 --> 12:58.110 Like what you hear. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 12:58.610 --> 13:02.630 YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Every like follow and review helps 13:03.130 --> 13:06.390 us grow. Check out more at IThorrorStories EU 13:06.710 --> 13:11.030 and drop us a message anytime at HelloThorrorStories. 13:11.110 --> 13:13.110 EU. We'd love to connect. 13:16.120 --> 13:19.280 This podcast features Jack Smith and guests. We say 13:19.780 --> 13:23.680 thank you to our demoscene friends who helped making this podcast possible. Commander Homer 13:24.180 --> 13:27.600 for editing, Danko for music and audio advice. Ned Poet for 13:28.100 --> 13:28.840 additional voiceovers. 13:31.960 --> 13:34.440 We now return to our episode of today. 13:53.940 --> 13:57.060 So despite all of that, let's say you, you initiated the. 13:57.540 --> 14:00.980 The transfer, you likely need to approve it from all the outdated 14:01.480 --> 14:05.460 email addresses that are on the listed on the domain someplace which will. Which will 14:05.960 --> 14:09.340 lead to point to mailboxes which are no longer read. Email addresses which no 14:09.840 --> 14:13.020 longer exist. And that's not a problem because somebody else already registered the domain for 14:13.520 --> 14:16.980 you in order to. In an attempt to steal your domain. So true. 14:17.480 --> 14:21.460 Yeah, so that's half the work done. They may have even read about your buying 14:21.960 --> 14:24.780 this company and maybe targeting you specifically. 14:26.220 --> 14:31.060 Yeah, because usually my 14:31.560 --> 14:34.860 team usually comes in after Megacorp has made the announcement 14:35.740 --> 14:38.380 that things were going to be taken over. 14:38.940 --> 14:42.140 So then yes, you made yourself a target already. So you 14:42.640 --> 14:46.540 are, you are a target. And security wise 14:47.040 --> 14:50.260 that's a completely different episode. But that is certainly one. So why not get everybody's 14:50.760 --> 14:54.580 help in transferring your domain someplace, at least someplace that you control 14:54.740 --> 14:56.820 and not to, you know, 14:58.420 --> 15:02.740 a little small business software developer 15:02.820 --> 15:06.340 Inc. That happens to, you know, resell some, 15:06.840 --> 15:10.860 some domain names left and right. Indeed. Yeah. But seriously, make sure like 15:11.360 --> 15:14.940 your admin email address and the ones of the companies that you buy like that 15:15.440 --> 15:18.980 you control all of those domains, email boxes that relate to that because 15:19.060 --> 15:21.380 if you don't, somebody else will take advantage of it. 15:22.500 --> 15:26.500 Yeah, it is really easy if there's 15:26.740 --> 15:30.260 some strange email address and then it's bye bye domain name. 15:30.900 --> 15:34.940 That's right. Also, there may be some value in the domains 15:35.440 --> 15:39.140 that are in the other companies that you acquire. It's not unusual 15:39.640 --> 15:43.540 or not unknown that some of them may forget a domain 15:44.040 --> 15:46.700 name that was part of their assets and may just try to sell it elsewhere 15:48.060 --> 15:51.180 like something that is from an older business that they bought or something 15:51.680 --> 15:55.100 like that. There's a bunch of big companies that tend to collect domain names and 15:55.340 --> 15:58.780 having them collect dust in the corner until somebody needs 15:59.280 --> 16:02.620 them and they may have maybe some value in there as well that 16:03.120 --> 16:06.180 if you're buying a company, why not if you can sell one of the, 16:06.330 --> 16:09.650 the domains that you include a couple 16:10.150 --> 16:13.330 of million generic, generic brand names. And there 16:13.830 --> 16:17.610 was a project once for a 16:18.110 --> 16:21.490 paint mixer and they would have every, every brand of 16:21.990 --> 16:25.370 paint mixer they would have registered and strong paint, 16:25.870 --> 16:28.970 green paint, white paint, road paint dot, a couple TLD. 16:29.130 --> 16:33.450 So we ended up with 40, 50 domain 16:33.950 --> 16:37.450 names and of course green was registered on the left 16:37.950 --> 16:41.830 and on the right because some guy in marketing said we need those as well. 16:42.330 --> 16:46.390 And then you end up with contact email addresses, 16:46.890 --> 16:50.110 going to random Gmail and Hotmail stuff because that's the 16:50.610 --> 16:54.309 default that they had of course. I mean there's 16:54.809 --> 17:00.710 lots of fun you can have with domains. I remember in the mid-1990s 17:01.210 --> 17:04.390 there was a company that was in the, 17:06.280 --> 17:09.960 in the baking sector or something like that, you could say, or like supplies 17:10.460 --> 17:13.240 for baking. And they had like 90 different domains. 17:13.720 --> 17:17.880 And one of my acquaintances around this time thought it would be funny 17:18.380 --> 17:21.080 to set up a system where you can set up your own email forwards. 17:21.580 --> 17:25.800 So you would have subdomains with dots in between. So you could say none 17:26.300 --> 17:29.560 of them was in English. I'm trying to think of a good example, but I 17:30.060 --> 17:33.640 don't Know, maybe I'll leave that because I might also need to be 17:34.140 --> 17:37.090 able to figure out which company that was. I have a, I have a good 17:37.590 --> 17:41.570 one for domain names which are, which are stuck and it's a, it's a public 17:42.070 --> 17:44.130 thing. That's if it's out on the Internet. 17:45.090 --> 17:48.450 Our, our online shop of everything. 17:49.170 --> 17:52.690 Amazon, they have the, the. The dot com, 17:53.190 --> 17:56.490 the fr. The de. The co. UK Nl they have them 17:56.990 --> 18:01.210 all except one which is dot BE oh, 18:01.710 --> 18:04.770 of course, yes. And it's not because of the Belgians. 18:07.790 --> 18:11.150 Mr. Bezos started his online bookstore. There was 18:11.630 --> 18:15.390 an insurance company from Volvo that named 18:15.630 --> 18:18.790 their insurance company after one 18:19.290 --> 18:22.270 of the models, the Volvo Amazon, which was a model they sold in the 70s. 18:22.830 --> 18:26.270 So they had the copyright on the name back then in, 18:26.770 --> 18:30.310 in the 90s and in a different class. And they, and, 18:30.810 --> 18:33.920 and they registered Amazon Be perfectly 18:34.420 --> 18:38.000 legal. Perfectly legal. There was like 18:38.500 --> 18:41.800 the Internet didn't really exist all that much. There was no online bookstore. 18:42.040 --> 18:45.560 There certainly was no, no thing selling you online 18:46.060 --> 18:50.160 cloud services. And then of course big Amazon 18:50.660 --> 18:54.200 would like, hi, we would like to buy this domain name from you. And they 18:54.700 --> 18:58.040 said nah, we'll keep it. And they've, they've been offered 18:59.330 --> 19:02.210 large number of zeros. It's like, no we don't. 19:02.530 --> 19:05.010 And I think even today. 19:06.050 --> 19:09.330 So the webshop did launch in Belgium. Yeah. 19:09.830 --> 19:12.770 But they're using Amazon.com be so they, 19:13.490 --> 19:16.570 they acquire.com.com.be or they're using it 19:17.070 --> 19:20.754 or whatever. And now it's Amazon.com 19:20.866 --> 19:25.490 be where everywhere else it is.de.fr.es.com 19:25.880 --> 19:30.680 I guess I didn't go high enough in the offer then. Well, potentially it's 19:31.180 --> 19:35.160 like, yeah, or they don't, don't know. But if you, if you go, if you 19:37.080 --> 19:41.160 take the financing and the insurance from, 19:41.240 --> 19:44.600 from Volvo in, in Belgium. Your insurance paper is 19:45.100 --> 19:48.320 from Amazon Belgium, the insurance company that has the domain name. 19:48.820 --> 19:51.640 So I guess I need to keep it for that purpose too just yet. 19:52.710 --> 19:56.190 You know, if I could 19:56.690 --> 19:59.190 get away with annoying big Amazon for a reason, 20:00.790 --> 20:04.350 of course I think we would all do it. I mean you had a similar 20:04.850 --> 20:08.630 chance recently when Elon Musk bought back Twitter 20:09.190 --> 20:12.710 now as it's called X, he actually decided to drop all the 20:13.210 --> 20:16.030 country level domains. Twitter.de dropped Twitter CA. Okay, 20:16.530 --> 20:19.670 some people re registered those. Yeah, I'm sure they're getting some decent traffic, you know, 20:20.170 --> 20:23.690 to monetize. Of course, yeah. But he just felt it wasn't important enough. Even though 20:24.190 --> 20:27.490 he kind of does understand domains. X.com is a great domain there aren't 20:27.990 --> 20:30.610 very many single letter.com domains. True. So you kind of, 20:31.810 --> 20:35.010 you can see that he understands some of it. But obviously he didn't see any 20:35.510 --> 20:39.490 value in the local presence variants of Twitter. For some weird 20:39.990 --> 20:42.930 point. I mean it was funny to see them pop up throughout all the countries 20:43.430 --> 20:47.330 when they were deleting. Because if you let one go in the process of transferring 20:47.830 --> 20:51.530 your domains, for example, you can be sure if there's traffic or potential 20:52.030 --> 20:55.150 to sell the domain, somebody will try to pick it up and they will likely 20:55.650 --> 20:59.310 be. Or they're more likely to be successful, more successful than you because 20:59.810 --> 21:03.830 they know how to do it. Because Fair enough. Because the process is complicated. 21:04.330 --> 21:08.110 Different from top level domain to top level domain and especially in 21:08.190 --> 21:11.750 country levels, there's specific services that can help you 21:12.250 --> 21:15.750 acquire them. But if you're not in this industry, you're lost. You don't know how 21:16.250 --> 21:19.630 that works because timing is weird and everybody has their own. 21:20.590 --> 21:23.910 I'm just the user that is trying to move some domain names 21:24.410 --> 21:27.890 and you really cross your fingers that it, it goes, everybody gets the 21:28.390 --> 21:31.610 email, everybody replies in time and that your, 21:31.930 --> 21:35.650 your transfer code, your DNS sec, that it all comes together and 21:36.150 --> 21:39.890 you know, even you even go and you know, sacrifice a goat somewhere 21:40.390 --> 21:43.210 just to make very sure that it, it just goes over. 21:43.450 --> 21:46.450 Right? And then the rest is easy. You just need to change the IP addresses 21:46.950 --> 21:51.050 to your new servers that's re established dnssec. 21:51.940 --> 21:55.820 Make sure your SPF records and DMARC records 21:56.320 --> 21:59.820 are set up correctly. Everybody always forgets the 22:00.320 --> 22:04.820 SPF records until the email doesn't get delivered. Unless like. Yeah, because everybody 22:05.320 --> 22:09.700 is using now cloud based accounting 22:10.200 --> 22:13.980 software which is sending your invoices through your email address and 22:14.480 --> 22:17.620 then suddenly these no longer arrive. And then like, why not? Oh, it's the, 22:18.020 --> 22:21.620 oh yeah, you, you moved over the system and you broke everything. And of course 22:22.120 --> 22:25.380 the, the feedback you get is our email doesn't work. 22:25.860 --> 22:29.380 Right, that's, that's easy. No, that's easy to diagnose. It's easy 22:29.880 --> 22:32.940 to diagnose. Email doesn't work. And then like, well, I, I sent you an email. 22:33.440 --> 22:37.060 It's clearly email. Does it mean your email bounces? Does it mean you're 22:37.560 --> 22:40.700 getting timeout when you're trying? Yes, it doesn't work. But you always get very 22:41.200 --> 22:46.010 qualified reports of issues like that. Yes, of course, because it's 22:46.510 --> 22:49.730 from, you know, people that are not used to diagnosing and they 22:50.230 --> 22:53.930 had their local support company when they were independent, 22:54.430 --> 22:56.930 but now that they're part of Mega Corp, they have to call the service desk 22:57.430 --> 23:01.050 and then it's like yeah, the email doesn't work and the service desk person says 23:01.550 --> 23:04.890 email doesn't work equals P1. And then 23:05.390 --> 23:09.170 next five minutes later you're in a cert meeting 23:09.670 --> 23:13.170 that at the new acquired company the email doesn't work. And it 23:13.670 --> 23:17.010 does work. And when you dig, oh yeah, they can't send invoices anymore. 23:17.510 --> 23:22.210 And then from experience you come to the txts 23:22.710 --> 23:26.410 and the DMARCS and the SPF records like hey, did we transfer 23:26.910 --> 23:30.050 those? Because you know, we didn't get a zone file and we might not have 23:30.550 --> 23:34.090 copied them over. Well, you should capture them as part of the transfer 23:34.590 --> 23:37.770 process. But likely in your transition you're also going to change your email 23:38.270 --> 23:41.370 providers. I think you will. We're not talking about migrating email here. 23:41.870 --> 23:44.550 That's always fun too. I think it doesn't. 23:45.110 --> 23:49.230 Well first of all you do a DNS migration 23:49.730 --> 23:53.510 so that you have control over the DNS records and then 23:53.830 --> 23:57.990 the next step will include moving over the mailboxes from 23:58.710 --> 24:03.870 365 tenant to tenant or Google mail to heaven 24:04.370 --> 24:08.070 forbid on prem. But who knows if you're into that. 24:08.570 --> 24:11.790 Yeah, no, not so much. Email is kind of support intense 24:12.290 --> 24:15.630 and failure rich to say 24:16.130 --> 24:19.270 the least. And it's very much generalized to not work. 24:21.350 --> 24:25.069 We choose not to have any subscription, model nor sponsoring in order 24:25.569 --> 24:29.070 to keep our stories accessible for each and everyone to support us. 24:29.570 --> 24:33.750 Please check our merchandise@shop.it horror stories.eu or 24:34.250 --> 24:41.480 buy us a coffee@co dashee.com IThorrorStore we 24:41.980 --> 24:43.680 now return to our episode of today. 24:52.960 --> 24:56.480 Yes, for sure. What are the other scenarios? 24:57.120 --> 25:00.560 I mean your registrar could screw you over or something like that. I mean there 25:01.060 --> 25:04.490 used to be we were talking about taking ownership of the domain. There was a 25:04.990 --> 25:07.890 story that most people in the industry kind of would know where. 25:08.390 --> 25:12.050 RegisterFly was a very company that was selling domains very 25:12.550 --> 25:15.970 cheap. They were reseller initially. They managed to become an 25:16.470 --> 25:19.850 ICANN accredited registrar. So on the accurate level I don't 25:20.350 --> 25:24.570 know how they managed that part. And since they disappeared 25:25.070 --> 25:31.020 and without having all of the correct customer data on file it 25:31.520 --> 25:35.740 was really hard like so when I can did have a process for a 25:36.240 --> 25:39.380 registrar going out of business and there's also something called registrar data 25:39.880 --> 25:43.780 escrow which kind of means you store the information 25:44.180 --> 25:47.460 that is in the that 25:47.960 --> 25:50.860 is the who is information kind of the ownership information of the domain and what 25:51.360 --> 25:55.030 is used to manage it in a backup database. Used to be 25:55.260 --> 25:59.860 mostly with Iron Mountain. Most of them are now with DNIC which 26:00.360 --> 26:05.260 is also German registry operator in any case. So now 26:05.760 --> 26:08.980 the obligation is to store the underlying data. Like as you know, most registrars 26:09.480 --> 26:13.220 have whois privacy to hide your information for protracting to 26:13.720 --> 26:17.500 comply with gdpr. If you do a whois of a domain, 26:17.580 --> 26:20.820 you get nothing back. Yeah, basically you can't really find the owner 26:21.320 --> 26:25.130 or contact the owner anymore, which makes a domain selling and buying domain names 26:25.630 --> 26:29.170 a bit more complicated too. But in any case, so the registrar 26:29.670 --> 26:33.570 itself in the ICANN world is kind of obliged to store the WHOIS 26:34.070 --> 26:36.650 information once a week or once a day, depending on your size. 26:37.370 --> 26:40.570 And at that point there was no obligation to 26:41.070 --> 26:44.810 store the underlying WHOIS information, meaning if it's private, that you 26:45.310 --> 26:49.040 have the actual ownership of the domain. So for registerfly, and I also think they 26:49.540 --> 26:53.600 failed to submit their deposits in general, so for them this 26:54.100 --> 26:57.640 information was missing. So you have like 1000-002000-00300,000 26:58.140 --> 27:01.480 domains and you don't actually know who owns them. Maybe they 27:01.980 --> 27:06.120 can prove by like the original receipt or something like that. It's a big mess 27:06.620 --> 27:11.120 to track something like that down. So those rules have improved slightly and 27:11.200 --> 27:14.770 potentially you're more likely to be safe in a scenario 27:15.270 --> 27:18.610 like this. But it does happen on occasion that somebody goes out of business or 27:19.110 --> 27:22.170 disappears. Usually they don't pay their ICANN fees anymore and that's how they. 27:22.670 --> 27:25.930 And then they just get dropped, start get kicked out after a while and ICANN 27:26.430 --> 27:30.290 offers to transfer the domains to somebody else, tries to find somebody, another registrar 27:30.790 --> 27:33.570 that will take kind of aligns with the offering and the region where the customers 27:34.070 --> 27:38.450 were. That's often a mess too though still to 27:38.950 --> 27:42.290 mention that afterwards because everybody has to coordinate together 27:42.790 --> 27:46.300 to collect the data, make sure the data is right, import the customers and so 27:46.800 --> 27:49.620 on. Not an easy process either. Usually on the registrar side. 27:50.340 --> 27:54.140 Yeah, so I don't know, you got your domain transferred and your 27:54.640 --> 27:58.260 DMARC and then you're basically good to go for your next step which 27:58.760 --> 28:01.460 would be then migrate any web hosting services, 28:02.660 --> 28:07.820 do your email and any 28:08.320 --> 28:12.220 crazy application on a subdomain that some company built in for you that there's 28:12.720 --> 28:16.220 like configuration tools for paint color to automate 28:17.100 --> 28:20.500 any quote requests. Yes, your web UI 28:21.000 --> 28:24.140 design guide is probably on the subdomain, maybe a wiki, an internal wiki or something. 28:24.860 --> 28:29.220 Well, let's just hope that they 28:29.720 --> 28:33.180 didn't name their internal active directory to an external domain 28:33.680 --> 28:37.740 name. Yes, because that has happened as well and 28:39.910 --> 28:43.790 that's. Well, now you have an ad migration to go with it 28:44.290 --> 28:44.550 at the same time. 28:55.750 --> 28:58.950 I mean actually there's a process at icancel when 28:59.270 --> 29:02.750 there's an upcoming round for applying for 29:03.250 --> 29:06.720 new top level domains and there's a collision in the evaluation of new 29:07.220 --> 29:10.680 applications as a collision part of the process where basically I can 29:11.180 --> 29:15.240 turn on the made up TLD that doesn't exist at that point temporarily 29:15.800 --> 29:19.000 and checks if there's any queries for it 29:19.080 --> 29:22.600 like dot internal or something like that. Commonly used 29:22.840 --> 29:26.240 internal local. Yeah. And so they wouldn't allow you 29:26.740 --> 29:30.120 to register that or create that as a top level domain. But it's an interesting 29:30.620 --> 29:34.720 measurement. I mean even at one point VeriSign, 29:35.220 --> 29:38.440 the dot com registry decided that they should try what happens if 29:38.940 --> 29:42.080 they let all.com domains resolve no matter if they were registered or not? 29:42.480 --> 29:45.720 Because I figured it was a good opportunity to 29:46.220 --> 29:48.320 display advertising on it and earn some extra cash. 29:50.000 --> 29:53.360 Which actually resulted in a lawsuit between VeriSign and 29:53.860 --> 29:56.920 ICANN because ICANN kind of said no, you can't do this. And then Verisign said 29:57.420 --> 30:01.120 who are you to tell us? And the rest is kind of settled out of 30:01.620 --> 30:04.940 court. So I'm not extravagant. Exactly. Happened. But to me the result of that 30:05.260 --> 30:08.900 seems to be that VeriSign can increase their prices almost every year by 30:09.400 --> 30:11.900 up to. What is the percentage? I don't know, 7 to 10% or something like 30:12.400 --> 30:15.620 that. But they can't do this for the next two years because the Department of 30:16.120 --> 30:18.620 Commerce got involved at one point and set some limits on the price increase. 30:19.120 --> 30:22.580 Oh wow. Okay. This is kind of what brought registries in general, domain registries 30:23.080 --> 30:26.620 like the ones that own the top level domain, the ability 30:27.120 --> 30:30.220 to increase prices at will, especially in the new top level domains. 30:30.570 --> 30:34.090 They just need to tell you ahead of time and then your registrar needs to 30:34.590 --> 30:38.490 tell you too because they forget often. That's not in the ICAN rules, that part. 30:38.990 --> 30:42.490 But yeah, it's just like you're going to be paying as of next 30:42.990 --> 30:45.050 year, you're going to be paying for your domains. You're going to pay, you paid 30:45.550 --> 30:48.170 a $10 so far. Next year it's going to be a thousand dollars a year. 30:48.810 --> 30:52.010 It's not unheard of. So I'm not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 30:52.510 --> 30:55.690 yeah. Some of those TLDs, they will, they will, they will say oh yeah, 30:56.190 --> 30:59.630 we give you a good deal initially and then after a few years it just 31:00.130 --> 31:03.350 like skyrockets. So yeah, that's on the registry side, but sometimes it's on the, 31:03.430 --> 31:06.870 on the registrar side usually, but also on the registry side. I mean 31:07.270 --> 31:10.710 registrars are known for, I mean registrars actually don't make much money 31:11.210 --> 31:14.510 on the, on the domains. They have very low margins and that's why they will 31:15.010 --> 31:17.190 say oh, we will give you the first year for $1 but for the second 31:17.690 --> 31:20.630 year you pay the normal price double instead. 31:20.950 --> 31:24.410 So we add that all into your cart together and now you paying 31:24.910 --> 31:27.450 more than at other registrars. But it looked cheaper before. 31:28.730 --> 31:32.250 Well, it sells. Many people 31:32.750 --> 31:36.850 just forget about the domain names. The renewal invoice comes in and they just 31:37.350 --> 31:41.530 paid because yeah, it's a domain name. We must use it if it's actually online 31:42.030 --> 31:44.770 for something but they just get the invoice and it's paid. And if you forget 31:45.270 --> 31:49.610 this for three, four years, it's basically free money. Well, there's also the Domain Registry 31:50.110 --> 31:53.900 of Europe and Domain Registry of America and Domain Registry of Canada which 31:54.400 --> 31:57.740 is a fake. Well, it's a registrar but they will send you renewal 31:58.240 --> 32:01.700 reminders for the domains that you have registered elsewhere when 32:02.200 --> 32:04.700 they can still access your postal address. That is because they actually did come in 32:05.200 --> 32:08.620 the mail those letters and they will incent you to renew their 32:09.120 --> 32:12.700 domain with them. And if you look in the fine printed transfer of the 32:13.200 --> 32:16.420 domain. I haven't seen those letters in quite a while. Well that's 32:16.920 --> 32:20.100 because of who is being probably kind of fixed 32:20.600 --> 32:24.400 this. Don't worry, the next EU regulation is coming soon where will 32:24.900 --> 32:28.120 have to provide more data to register domains. Oh lovely. Because you're a kernel by 32:28.620 --> 32:31.480 default and we need to make sure that we have all your information when you're. 32:33.640 --> 32:39.240 I had some customers trying to register domains 32:39.740 --> 32:43.480 randomly in some countries and now like no, you need a valid phone number suddenly. 32:44.040 --> 32:48.080 So some are asking more than others and 32:48.580 --> 32:52.000 if you just type in an obviously fake phone number it, it won't take. 32:52.240 --> 32:55.920 Yeah. So there's. They do a check, there's KYC requirements know 32:56.420 --> 32:59.120 your customer kind of that are going almost to a level. 32:59.360 --> 33:03.360 Yeah. Where banks are now a bit and it's 33:03.860 --> 33:06.720 painful for a registrar too because you spend a lot of money on enforcing these 33:07.119 --> 33:10.880 and getting info and validating it and 33:11.360 --> 33:14.640 it is like making everybody a criminal by default. The whole. 33:15.520 --> 33:19.020 The latest directive that is coming up and is ready or 33:19.520 --> 33:24.180 proposed for implementation in the EU countries is NIS 2 and 33:24.260 --> 33:28.260 that's kind of. It's basically like a KYC regulation for domain 33:28.420 --> 33:31.700 and hosting domain companies. It's everywhere as 33:32.100 --> 33:35.860 many, many Online things have NAS2 requirements 33:36.360 --> 33:40.380 coming and had some banks already implementing 33:40.880 --> 33:44.580 it and they're, they're just 33:45.080 --> 33:47.470 not, not, not prepared to handle all of that, let alone to ask it, 33:47.970 --> 33:50.470 let alone than to verify it. So yeah, if you're not also going to do 33:50.970 --> 33:54.030 that to domains, then you will, you know, 33:54.590 --> 33:58.190 the next, the next requirement will be your shoe size. Yeah, of course, 33:58.690 --> 34:01.870 shoe size, blood type, you know, the usual stuff. 34:02.370 --> 34:05.510 Well, some countries have that on the driver's license already, so it's. 34:06.010 --> 34:10.110 Yeah, well, that's for other purposes. Hopefully for other purposes. But yeah. 34:10.610 --> 34:14.060 So I think, I mean there are some requirements already for validation, 34:14.560 --> 34:18.140 like kind of ICANN requires the address to be in a 34:18.640 --> 34:22.100 valid format. It doesn't mean that needs to be a real address, but. And you 34:22.600 --> 34:25.180 need to verify at least the email address. I mean, phone number is an option 34:25.420 --> 34:29.500 there and some registrars may already do that and NIS2 34:30.000 --> 34:32.940 is kind of depending on how the individual countries in Europe are going to implement 34:33.440 --> 34:37.020 it. It's going to make some of those requirements worse, 34:37.879 --> 34:41.199 however, I don't think, I mean, I guess I don't really have to say it, 34:41.699 --> 34:44.679 but this doesn't prevent any crime because if you are a criminal, 34:44.759 --> 34:48.239 you can come up with a valid address and phone number. And that is 34:48.739 --> 34:51.999 not to you. It's not. There are certain corners 34:52.499 --> 34:54.999 of the Internet where you can just buy those lists. It's not that hard. 34:55.319 --> 34:59.039 And of course it creates more 34:59.539 --> 35:03.039 data of all of us that is out there, usually with some other external provider 35:03.539 --> 35:07.290 because the registrars don't implement this themselves. It's actually. Yeah, it's creating business. 35:07.790 --> 35:11.050 So let's not forget that part. Just look at how many people can provide 35:11.550 --> 35:14.650 your cookie consent policies for your. For your website 35:15.150 --> 35:19.210 nowadays since gdpr, it's fairly regulated, so you 35:19.370 --> 35:22.810 usually outsource that too because it's too hard to keep track of all the individual 35:23.310 --> 35:26.970 rules. And we'll have the same here. There's actually already 35:27.470 --> 35:31.650 some new address validation companies that are coming out of nowhere and competing 35:32.150 --> 35:34.530 over price. So. So we'll see where that goes. 35:35.490 --> 35:38.650 We're gonna keep that for a 35:39.150 --> 35:42.770 different episode. Yes, I think here we've explained 35:43.270 --> 35:46.770 fun with domain names. We have touched fun with the. 35:46.850 --> 35:50.530 There's more fun to be had. But wait, there's more. 35:51.090 --> 35:54.770 There's more. But that's gonna be in a different episode. That's fine. 35:55.490 --> 35:59.130 Thank you, Jack. No, Chris, thanks for joining. 35:59.630 --> 36:03.690 Appreciate your input and your history in the 36:04.190 --> 36:07.530 field. I hope everybody listening picked something 36:07.770 --> 36:10.890 new up, had some, had some good laughs and as always, 36:11.610 --> 36:14.850 thanks for tuning in. And as our 36:15.350 --> 36:18.530 messages will tell you, follow us on all the socials 36:19.030 --> 36:22.210 with likes, the subscribes, the thumbs up. Don't forget the 36:22.710 --> 36:25.850 notification bell. Oh yes, the notification bell if you're on that platform. 36:27.210 --> 36:30.910 Because otherwise you might not see it. Yeah, because otherwise the 36:31.410 --> 36:35.270 artificial intelligence is working against us. Alright everybody, 36:35.770 --> 36:37.550 thanks a lot for tuning in. See you next time. Cheers. 36:42.910 --> 36:46.430 The content of this podcast is intended for entertainment purposes 36:46.930 --> 36:50.910 only and is meant to humorously explore various tech related situations. 36:51.150 --> 36:53.710 Any resemblance to actual events or real person, 36:54.250 --> 36:57.690 living or dead, is purely coincidental. We ridicule 36:58.190 --> 37:01.770 situations, never individuals or groups. Listener discretion 37:02.270 --> 37:05.530 is advised and we encourage everyone to approach technology with a 37:06.030 --> 37:07.370 sense of humor and an open mind.