Monumental Network Solutions Error

Briefly, Network Solutions have set up a new Hotmail-type email service. Unfortunately, they have gone ahead and created accounts for a great many of their domain name customers. So far so good, the big foul up is that they have used

Username: domainname Password: domainnamensi

for all the accounts.

The account itself does not give anyone access to your NSI account information or anything, but people will be able to get into the mail service, change the password and lock you out.

Currently the link provided from Slashdot is not working, but if you wish to protect your account, use this link instead http://mail.dotcomnow.com/ which is working at the time of writing.

If you try your domain name and find it does not let you in using the combination above, do not panic! Not all domain names have been set up with accounts. However, you should probably try and ask NSI what has happened.

A word of warning also - do NOT be tempted to go in and change accounts you have no right to. You will almsot certainly end up in trouble for doing this sort of thing.

My guess is that NSI will eventually remove the site and hopefully rebuild it in a secure fashion. One can at least hope so! Will anyone ever have any faith in NSI again though? Will this, in combination with NSI's other recent public gaffes, lead to an increased interest in alternative naming authorities?

One thing is for certain - this is possibly the biggest mistake I have ever heard of a company making on the web.