Categories
DNS Perl Raspberry Pi

Domain Services: does Backorder work?

Intro

This is a memoir of my personal experience with trying to obtain a DNS domain that was registered by another person and about to expire. Plus some technical discussion of how whois on linux probably works.

The details

I’ve been watching a particular domain for years now. It’s always been registered at auction sites, and has changed hands at least once, maybe even twice. So i was excited this year when it was about to expire at the end of September. I kept checking via linux whois – figuring, or really more like hoping, that a direct query to the authoritative whois server would not tip off the owner if it were done outside of a web page. The linux command is whois -h whois.epik.com drjohnss.com (ok, that is not the real domain, just using it for the sake of preserving anonymitiy).

So about 10 days after it “expired” – at which point I believe it is very easy for the owner to still renew it – I wanted to increase my chances so I decided to make a bid for it, figuring, the owner would face either my offer or the prospect of getting nothing for the domain or shelling out for the renewal. So I offered $150 which is what it’s worth to me.

To my surprise I got a return email:

Hello John,
Thanks for the inquiry.
This seller will not sell for less than $10K. What is your budget?

Christina

Wow, right? Then I thought for a few minutes? I’ve seen this before – at work. There was this no-name domain which matched something the marketing folks were planning, so we made an offer through a third-party service. The response was to the effect, The seller is not interested in selling, but for $47,000 you could buy it. WTF. You can’t make this stuff up. I don’t have a lot of respect for domainers because frankly, almost all my interactions have been negative. Consider the evidence. At work I constantly get unsolicited offers for company_name.nz. The emails always come from different email addresses to avoid spam filters. That is cyber-squatting. Deplorable. I once got an unsolicited offer for a domain similar to one we owned (without the “s”). I checked it and found it wasn’t even registered! So that con artist was trying to take advantage of our naivete. Scum. Then a month ago I was offered some $ for any GoDaddy account which had been registered years ago and so had access to its API auction service, which you apparently cannot get any longer. Sounds like an invitation to violate the terms of service to me – another dodgy tactic.

So I thought about that statement and decided, that’s just a negotiating tactic to make me cower and think unless I raised my offer to, say, $1000, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I decided not to cave. I am the world’s worst negotiator but here I felt I had somewhat a position of strength given my tepid feelings about the domain and the fact that it had officially expired. My – somewhat flip – response:

Hi Christina,
Thanks for the response. Well, I am content to see it expire so the seller gets $0. I know it’s been doing nothing for years now. I am a private person with no commercial interest in development of the domain. My budget is $200.

Christina’s response:

Thanks John.
I hear you.
I advise you to get the refundable exclusive backorder.
Just buy it and then don’t check it.
Regards,
Christina

So now this Christina lady sounds like she’s on my side seeing I wasn’t a big bucks buyer. At some point it’s a matter of trust. So I plunk down $200 for their backorder service and wait and don’t check.

Christina sends me this encouraging note:

John,
If you cancel the backorder, the fee is refunded.
And checking WHOIS is data we collect and which the registrant can see.
So, best to wait patiently.
Regards,
Christina

She encourages me to be super patient and asks what my plans are for it. My response:

Hi Christina,
Bragging rights at family gatherings, etc.
Then I’ll think about more ambitious things like a private social media site, but I doubt I’ll go there.
Thanks,John

So how did it end up?

Not so good. I eventually broke down and did a single whois check after a couple weeks and found the domain had been renewed. Foiled once again, and out the $200 backorder fee.*

*Technically not out since Christina also said it was refundable. I’m just going to sit on it until next year, and the year after that, …

What is that business model?

I had plenty of days to think about it, and I was trying to square two irreconcilable facts. 1) The seller was going to hold out for big money for a worthless domain, thereby losing money. 2) Yet, presumably, the seller is overall making money. Hmm. So I came up with this hypothesis.

Although to an outsider like myself the seller’s approach is irrational, I have a hypothesis for a business model which could justify it.
My hypothesis for a business model that supports such behavior is that some domainers own hundreds or even thousands of seemingly low-value domains – a domain farm – which they patiently cultivate. In the Internet there is commonly seen the long-tail phenomenon. Chris Anderson described it in a book. So instead of following a normal distribution around the nominal value of an unlikely-sounding domain, the actual value distribution has a long tail on the upside. So, if one owns enough domains, although any one may never get the big offer, it only takes a few big ones a year to hit, make up for all the losers and create positive cash flow. After all a domain is really worth what a buyer is willing to pay, not what the algorithms judge them to be worth. Some people will be willing to pay big.

An industry insider I contacted demurred when asked for confirmation or denial of my hypothesis, but insteadpointed me to this link: https://domaingraduate.com/ . If I understand it correctly, chapter 7, The domain Name Aftermarket, addresses this scenario. But it says it basically doesn’t work the way that I hypothesized. And that plus the other chapters in total present a much, much more complex story. There are business models, of course, but, well, just read it for yourself. I don’t care. I still like my domain farm plus long valuation tail concept.

About whois on linux

I need to investigate further what goes on when a simple whois lookup is done. Like everything, there’s a lot of history and it’s not so straightforward. This somewhat outdated article seems to cover it really well: https://securitytrails.com/blog/whois-lookup . I’m still digesting it myself. I’ve done a trace on port 43 for a whois lookup of drjohnstechtalk.com and see somewhat confounding results – it’s talking to two whois servers, a Verisign one (whois.verisign.com or similar), which provides some minimal information, and one which refuses to provide any information – whois.godaddy.com (GoDaddy is the registrar for this domain). My tenuous conclusion is that whois to Verisign does a static lookup and Verisign has a database which covers all of the .com domains with basic information. More detailed information can be provided by the actual registrar for that domain. But GoDaddy refuses to do that. However, it appears other registrars do accept these requests for details! In particular the registrars which are used by domainers to park their domains. Hence it is entirely possible, even from packet analysis, that a registrar gets tipped off by a linux command-line whois lookup (and therefore could provide metrics back to the registrant about these occurrences.)

Double however

I did still more research on whois, i.e., RTFM type stuff. It looks like there are switches which should turn off lookups on other server, like -r or -R, but when you try them they don’t actually work. But, I enabled verbose mode which shows you the whois servers being queried – no need to do a laborious packet trace – and I discovered that if you run the command this way:

$ whois –verbose -h whois.verisign-grs.com <domain_name>

then the query stays with Verisign’s whois server and there is no data leakage or data sharing with the actual registrar! So, mission accomplished. Note that the Verisign whois server probably only covers .com and .net gTLDs. For others like .io, .us, .info you have to figure out the principal whois server for yourself. Or ask for help in the comments section.

drjwhois makes it easier

I decided to write my own wrapper for whois to make this easier for anyone going down this path. Just bear in mind its limited applicability. It’s aimed at people interested in a domain, probably one on the after market, where they want to know if it’s about to expire or has actually expired, without tipping off the seller. As I said I call it drjwhois.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# DrJ's wrapper for whois - prevents data leakage
# Drj 11/20
$DEBUG = 0;
$domain = lc $ARGV[0];
# These are just the TLDs I consider the most important. Obviously there are thousands. Many do not have a resale market.
#to find the whois server just run whois --verbose
$BIZ = "whois.nic.biz";
$BR = "whois.registro.br";
$CA = "whois.cira.ca";
$CO = "whois.nic.io";
$DE = "whois.denic.de"; # de but whois server does not reveal anything! Must use their web site.
$ENOM = "whois.enom.com"; # biz
$IE = "whois.iedr.ie";
$IN = "whois.registry.in";
$INFO = "whois.afilias.net";
$IO = "whois.nic.io";
$ME = "whois.nic.me";
$ORG = "whois.pir.org";
$RU = "whois.tcinet.ru";
$US = "whois.nic.us";
$Verisign = "whois.verisign-grs.com"; # com, net, edu
%TLDs = ('biz',$BIZ,'br',$BR,'ca',$CA,'com',$Verisign,'me',$ME,'net',$Verisign,'edu',$Verisign,'ie',$IE,'io',$IO,'co',$CO,
'in',$IN,'info',$INFO,'org',$ORG,'ru',$RU,'tv',$ENOM,'us',$US);
if ($DEBUG) {
  foreach $key (keys %TLDs) {
    print $key . " " . $TLDs{"$key"} . "\n";
  }
}
$_ = $domain;
($tld) = /.([^.]+)$/;
print qq(Domain:\t\t$domain
TLD:\t\t$tld
WHOIS server:\t$TLDs{$tld}\n\n);
#$result = whois -h $TLDs{$tld} $domain;
#print $result;
unless ($TLDs{$tld}) {
  print "drjwhois has no information about this TLD. Instead use whois $domain\n";
  exit;
}
open(WHOIS,"whois -h $TLDs{$tld} $domain|") || die "Cannot launch whois -h $TLDs{$tld} $domain!!\n";
while(<WHOIS>) {
  if (/(whois|expir|paid|renewal)/i) {
    print ;
    $exists = 1;
  }
}
print "Domain $domain appears to be unregistered!\n" unless $exists;
print qq(\n\ndrjwhois is designed to only show information about the expiration
date of a domain, and if it has become unregistered, all without
leaking the query to aftermarket sellers such as Sedo, Epik, enom, etc.
If you want full information just use whois $domain
);

Example usage

$ drjwhois johnstechtalk.com

Domain: johnstechtalk.com
TLD:    com
WHOIS server: whois.verisign-grs.com

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registry Expiry Date: 2021-04-23T00:54:17Z
NOTICE: The expiration date displayed in this record is the date the
currently set to expire. This date does not necessarily reflect the expiration
view the registrar's reported date of expiration for this registration.

drjwhois is designed to only show information about the expiration
date of a domain, and if it has become unregistered, all without
leaking the query to aftermarket sellers such as Sedo, Epik, enom, etc.
If you want full information just use whois johnstechtalk.com

Anyway, I say the write-up is outdated because it’s a lot harder than it was a few years ago to get the registrant information. ICANN was chastened I believe by GDPR (data privacy) concerns and so most of the registrant’s personal details has been yanked, generally speaking. But there are left a few valuable nuggets of information.

How about all those nice web interfaces to whois?

I would personally avoid all the web interfaces registrars offer to whois – they seem to be run by the sales and marketing departments without exception. They almost guarantee data sharing with the registrant in addition to selling you services you don’t want.

Conclusion

My guess is that backorders rarely work out. Mine certainly didn’t. But if you like gambling it has a certain thrill to it since you never know…

If you want to play with the big boys and girls and make some money from buying and selling domains, my impression is that Epik is an honest broker, and that’s important to have when so many are not above coloring outside the lines in this business.

linux whois does indeed provide a way to avoid having your interest in a domain leak out to the owner. Use whois -h whois.verisign-grs.com <domain_name> and you are not giving yourself away.

References and related

An old blog post of mine which describes writing a program to GoDaddy’s api for buying a domain as soon as it becomes available.

Whois – what goes on behind the scenes during a whois lookup: https://securitytrails.com/blog/whois-lookup

Best resource I am aware of which covers the strange virtual world of buying and selling domains for a living.: https://domaingraduate.com/

If you’re dying to try out whois on linux but don’t have access to linux, you could either get a Raspberry Pi, though there is some set up and cost involved there, or install Cygwin on Windows 10, though there is some setup involved in getting the package setup, but at least there’s no cost.

On Centos linux, Raspbian (used by Raspberry Pi) and Cygwin, whois is its own package. On my Centos 8 server it is whois-5.5.1-2.

Categories
DNS Linux Network Technologies Raspberry Pi Security

Whois information without the pushy hard sell tactics

Intro
Did you ever want to learn about a domain registration but were put off by the hard sell tactics that basically all web-based whois searches subject you to? Me, too. Here’s what you can do.

The details
Linux – so that includes you, Raspberry Pi owners – has a little utility called whois which you can use to get the registrant information of a domain, e.g.,

$ whois johnstechtalk.com

   Domain Name: JOHNSTECHTALK.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 1795918838_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
   Updated Date: 2017-03-27T00:52:51Z
   Creation Date: 2013-04-23T00:54:17Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2019-04-23T00:54:17Z
   Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
   Registrar IANA ID: 146
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 480-624-2505
   Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
   Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
   Name Server: NS45.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   Name Server: NS46.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   DNSSEC: unsigned
   URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of whois database: 2018-04-19T19:59:35Z <<<
...

Admittedly that did not tell us much, but it points us to another whois server we can try, whois.godaddy.com. So try that:

$ whois ‐h whois.godaddy.com johnstechtalk.com

Domain Name: JOHNSTECHTALK.COM
Registry Domain ID: 1795918838_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2017-03-27T00:52:50Z
Creation Date: 2013-04-23T00:54:17Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2019-04-23T00:54:17Z
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrar IANA ID: 146
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry
Registrant Name: ******** ******** (see Notes section below on how to view unmasked data)
Registrant Organization:
Registrant Street: ***** ****
Registrant City: Newton
Registrant State/Province: New Jersey
Registrant Postal Code: 078**
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +*.**********
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax:
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: ********@*****.***
Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry
Admin Name: ******** ******** (see Notes section below on how to view unmasked data)
...

So now we’re getting somewhere. So GoDaddy tries to force you to their web page an sell you stuff in any case. Not at all surprising for anyone who’s ever been a GoDaddy customer (includes yours truly). Because that’s what they do. But not all registrars do that.

Here’s a real-life example which made me decide this technique should be more broadly disseminated. I searched for information on a domain in Argentina:

$ whois buenosaires.com.ar

This TLD has no whois server, but you can access the whois database at
http://www.nic.ar/

Now if you actually try their suggested whois server, it doesn’t even work:

$ whois ‐h www.nic.ar buenosaires.com.ar

Timeout.

What you can do to find the correct whois server is use iana – Internet Assigned Numbers Authority – namely, this page:

https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db

So for Argentina I clicked on .ar (I expected to find a separate listing for .com.ar but that was not the case), leading to the page:

See it? At the bottom it shows Whois server: whois.nic.ar. So I try that and voila, meaningful information is returned, no ads accompanying:

$ whois ‐h whois.nic.ar buenosaires.com.ar

% La información a la que estás accediendo se provee exclusivamente para
% fines relacionados con operaciones sobre nombres de dominios y DNS,
% quedando absolutamente prohibido su uso para otros fines.
%
% La DIRECCIÓN NACIONAL DEL REGISTRO DE DOMINIOS DE INTERNET es depositaria
% de la información que los usuarios declaran con la sola finalidad de
% registrar nombres de dominio en ‘.ar’, para ser publicada en el sitio web
% de NIC Argentina.
%
% La información personal que consta en la base de datos generada a partir
% del sistema de registro de nombres de dominios se encuentra amparada por
% la Ley N° 25326 “Protección de Datos Personales” y el Decreto
% Reglamentario 1558/01.
 
domain:         buenosaires.com.ar
registrant:     50030338720
registrar:      nicar
registered:     2012-07-05 00:00:00
changed:        2017-06-27 17:42:45.944889
expire:         2018-07-05 00:00:00
 
contact:        50030338720
name:           TRAVEL RESERVATIONS SRL
registrar:      nicar
created:        2013-09-05 00:00:00
changed:        2018-04-17 13:14:55.331068
 
nserver:        ns-1588.awsdns-06.co.uk ()
nserver:        ns-925.awsdns-51.net ()
nserver:        ns-1385.awsdns-45.org ()
nserver:        ns-239.awsdns-29.com ()
registrar:      nicar
created:        2016-07-01 00:02:28.608837

2nd example: goto.jobs
I actually needed this one! So I learned of a domain goto.jobs and I wanted to get some background. So here goes…
$ whois goto.jobs

getaddrinfo(jobswhois.verisign-grs.com): Name or service not known

So off to a bad start, right? So we hit up the .jobs link on iana, https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/jobs.html, and we spy a reference to their whois server:

Registry Information
This domain is managed under ICANN's registrar system. You may register domains in .JOBS through an ICANN accredited registrar. The official list of ICANN accredited registrars is available on ICANN's website.
URL for registration services: http://www.goto.jobs
WHOIS Server: whois.nic.jobs

So we try that:
$ whois ‐h whois.nic.jobs goto.jobs

   Domain Name: GOTO.JOBS
   Registry Domain ID: 91478530_DOMAIN_JOBS-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois-all.nameshare.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.nameshare.com
   Updated Date: 2018-03-29T20:08:46Z
   Creation Date: 2010-02-04T23:54:33Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2019-02-04T23:54:33Z
   Registrar: Name Share, Inc
   Registrar IANA ID: 667
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Name Server: KATE.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
   Name Server: MARK.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
   Name Server: NS1.REGISTRY.JOBS
   Name Server: NS2.REGISTRY.JOBS
   DNSSEC: unsigned
   URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: https://www.icann.org/wicf/
>>> Last update of WHOIS database: 2018-04-23T18:54:31Z <<<

Better, but it seems to merely point to a registrar and its whois server:

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois-all.nameshare.com

So let’s try that:

$ whois ‐h whois-all.nameshare.com goto.jobs

Domain Name: GOTO.JOBS
Registry Domain ID: 91478530_DOMAIN_JOBS-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois-jobs.nameshare.com
Registrar URL: http://www.nameshare.com
Updated Date: 2018-03-29T20:08:46Z
Creation Date: 2010-02-04T23:54:33Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-02-04T23:54:33Z
Registrar: NameShare, Inc.
Registrar IANA ID: 667
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.7809429975
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Registry Registrant ID:
Registrant Name: DNS Administrator
Registrant Organization: Employ Media LLC
Registrant Street: 3029 Prospect Avenue
Registrant City: Cleveland
Registrant State/Province: OH
Registrant Postal Code: 44115
Registrant Country: United States
Registrant Phone: +1.2064261500
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +1.1111111111
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email: [email protected]
Registry Admin ID:
Admin Name: DNS Administrator
Admin Organization: Employ Media LLC
Admin Street: 3029 Prospect Avenue
...

Bingo! We have hit pay dirt. We have meaningful information about the registrant – an address, phone number and email address – and received no obnoxious ads in return. For me it’s worth the extra steps.

ICANN: another alternative
Most registrar’s whois sites are rate-limited. ICANN’s is not. And they also do not sic ads on you. It is

https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=

ICANN, for the record, it the body that decides what goes on in DNS namespace, for instance, what new gTLDS should be added. You can use its whois tool for all gTLDs, but not in general for ccTLDs.

whois is undergoing changes due to GDPR. Especially the “social” information of the contacts: registrant, admin and technical contacts will be masked, except for perhaps state and country, in the future. But whois is slowly dying and a new standard called RDAP will take its place.

References and related
This page has some great tips. Wish I had seen it first! https://superuser.com/questions/758647/how-to-whois-new-tlds

Here’s that iana root zone database link again: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db

ICANN’s whois: https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=