Microsoft has returned 23 domain names that it confiscated from No-IP.com, beginning a process that will restore millions of connections that were severed due to the company's controversial move.
No-IP.com, run by Vitalwerks, is a free dynamic domain hosting service that updates DNS entries for a computer-hosted domain that is assigned changing IP addresses by an Internet service provider. No-IP.com assigns a subdomain to a customer, with the DNS record updating as the IP address of the computer changes.
Microsoft confiscated the No-IP domains on June 30 in a controversial legal action that did not give No-IP.com a chance to formally challenge the motion in court. The ex parte request of Microsoft was part of a legal action that was designed to eliminate two networks of infected Windows computers that were taking advantage of No-IP as the networks tried to escape being taken down.
Lawyers for Microsoft partially justified the confiscation by arguing that No-IP did not follow best practices in security for their services. However, Microsoft did not accuse No-IP of any wrongdoing, only claiming that the seized domains were used for malware distribution.
Microsoft looked to utilize its Azure cloud platform to block harmful No-IP subdomains involved in the court action, while at the same time permitting the connection of legitimate subdomains. Microsoft's action severed 4 million connections in the process, according to figures stated by No-IP.
"Had Microsoft contacted us, we could and would have taken immediate action. Microsoft now claims that it just wants to get us to clean up our act, but its draconian actions have affected millions of innocent Internet users," wrote No-IP spokeswoman Natalie Goguen in the official blog of the company on June 30.
The blog post also listed five domain names that users can try to utilize in lieu of the domains that Microsoft seized.
"We apologize for this outage. At this point it is completely out of our hands, but please understand that we are fighting for you," the blog post added.
No-IP has recovered 18 of the 23 confiscated domains, with the 5 more domains being processed for re-acquisition from Public Interest Registry, which is the registry that handles Internet address that end in the .org handle.
Users that use No-IP subdomains that don't end in .org should already have their service back online, if their DNS server has been updated for the transfer. If connectivity problems persist, No-IP recommends that users try utilizing DNS services from Google or OpenDNS, as both have already incorporated the updates for the transfers.
While Microsoft's actions were carried out legally, many critics and users are taken aback by the company's heavy-handed move against the much smaller No-IP, spawning the #FreeNoIP hashtag in social networks.
