No Such Weblog

Verisign has set up a Technical Review Panel that is chartered to look at implementation issues, to determine what enhancements could be made to improve the service, and to report the observed implementation issues to VeriSign along with any data supporting such issues. The committee is chaired by GNSO chair and SecSAC member Bruce Tonkin (Melbourne IT; conflict of interest statement; Melbourne IT letter to ICANN).

This committee looks like another attempt by Verisign to distract people into discussions about implementation details of the Sitefinder service (there's certainly room for improvement), in order to avoid the architectural concerns (which can only be addressed by dropping the service entirely).

See also: Ross Rader's take of the issue.

Andersenccenture puts Verisign in charge of electronic voting, and everyone around has the same association.

Wendy Seltzer: What's next, ballot-box wildcards?
Ross Rader: The great thing is that if voters type in the wrong vote, Verisign has the technology to point them in the right direction.
Martin Schwimmer: VeriSign announces VoteFinder Service.

Seems like I missed most of the final showdown of Episode I of the wildcard wars today. Here's the wrap-up.

In a letter to Verisign (advisory here), ICANN has demanded that Verisign shut down sitefinder by 6 pm PDT tomorrow, until open technical issues are resolved. At the same time, the GNSO is requested to work out a procedure for the introduction of new registry-level services by 15 January 2004.

See also: Commentary by Chris Ambler; discussion at ICANNwatch; discussion at Slashdot; reactions at CircleID.

In response, Verisign has announced that it will temporarily shut down sitefinder (it seems like this step has not yet been implemented, though). It's remarkable that Verisign spokesman Tom Galvin is now quoted characterizing Sitefinder as a non-registry service.

See also: More ICANNwatch discussion; Chris Ambler; Verisign press release.