Michael's musings

Mon, 08 Aug 2011

Domain Squatter Avoidance tool

Here is a nice use for a distributed hash table, backed by the new IETF REPUTE work.

I just typed "antipope.net" rather than antipope.org to get to Charlies Stross' web site. A squatter offered to sell me the domain. Some of the squatters do it solely for ad revenue, and I'd rather not arrange for them to get a dime.

I want a button for my browser (Chromium) which logs that name into a reputation database indicating that these guys are squatters, and letting me (once I know the correct name) enter the proper name. The same plugin will consult that database if I type something wrong, and suggest an alternative.