One person catching a lot...

[looks]

If that successful, why stop?

Nominet puts a stop to these things

 

[Retired_Member42]

Seems odd to change things to avoid one pattern and replace it with another. Surely if someone found out your random wasn't random they'd change it completely, not just replace it with another algo.

 

[Jamie101]

Have to be honest, I don't know much about drop catching but thought I'd throw this in.

As someone studying software development at the moment all I can say is that it'd be embarrassing if Nominet weren't actually using random drop times. It's not exactly hard to make things happen randomly when it comes to programming.

 

[looks]

Denys obviously has an amazing system, has for many years. Maybe he isn't getting better, maybe the competition is getting worse?

 

[foz]

Nominet puts a stop to these things

Thanks.

 

[Retired_Member42]

I think we should put all this amazing system, good programming nonsense to bed. The fact is, Denys can catch at any time of the day, on a single tag/quota and be ridiculously consistent. I don't care how good your script is, maths and the law of averages do not allow for such consistency.

I think there is a pattern and people should be looking to find it.

As a result of decorated.co.uk and deductible.co.uk dropping so close to each other I ran a test on 7 domains starting with the same letter, dropping on the same day, reg'd in the same year and on the same tag but I couldn't see any immediate pattern.

I would like to see if there is any correlation between when a domain becomes suspended (the rough time) and the drop time. Does anyone have data like that? Perhaps the randomness is generated from the suspension time and the drop time is simply X days / hours from that time.

Of course it could also be drops within a certain portion of the second which even knowing which half of the second a domain drops in would double your daily quota. Unfortunately again I don't have time data as each catch on my system can be +/- 200ms out or 60ms if I'm bursting. Not to mention network delay and time drift between my server and Nominets which has lost about 4 seconds over 2 days.

I think the pattern is there but it's going to take a lot more data analysis. I don't think trying to make your script faster is going to make any difference with so many other people attempting it. In reality, I've had more catches running my script slower and simply throwing my hat in the ring than trying to be faster than everyone else and only catching the odd domain.

 

[foz]

I got the impression some time back that Nominet maybe releasing domains between the real and delayed DACs. So if someone is solely concentrating on the real DAC they're bound to lose out statistically in the success rate.

 

[grantw]

Seems odd to change things to avoid one pattern and replace it with another. Surely if someone found out your random wasn't random they'd change it completely, not just replace it with another algo.

The one probably being spoken about was the 303 second thing. IIRC domains were dropping randomly but in batches every 303 seconds (Nominet admitted a mathematical miscalculation). I believe it was tagnames that cleaned up with that one, took ages for anyone else to find it.

In my opinion, drops are totally random these days.

Grant

 

[Retired_Member42]

I guess time delays between drops could be a possibility as Nominet do say the drop time is dependent on how many domains are scheduled to drop but again you'd need to know how many domains are dropping on a given day to even begin to calculate that and a few getting renewed or not dropping at all would throw your calculations out massively.

I'd like to believe that all drops are random but at the same time I can't see how a single tag has enough quota to run all day and still catch the cream of the crop over with so many others going after the same names. Pretty much everyone loads the 3L's, you need to be so fast to beat everyone else and I'm not sure how that sort of speed can be sustained for the full 24 hours.

 

[Retired_member41]

Wow you would be mad not to take Denys's offer up of using his system.

Shame its just exclusive to domainview customers as there would be lots of takers.

Good job he never offered 16 places as he would possibly take all his customers.

 

[Retired_Member42]

I only just noticed the domainview thing. Seems a bit harsh to only offer it to customers of somewhere else.

 

[tifosi]

Wow you would be mad not to take Denys's offer up of using his system.

Shame its just exclusive to domainview customers as there would be lots of takers.

Good job he never offered 16 places as he would possibly take all his customers.

Won't be using his system though. As I surmised previously he's not letting his clients use 'his' system, just a standard one.

His offer is more the equivalent of a single finger in someone's direction.

 

[Retired_Member42]

Proper handbags at dawn this domain industry isn't it

 

[Retired_member41]

Domainview is a really good site so it would make sense to win their customers rather than any joe bloggs?

 

[Skinner]

I'm kinda thinking this could be a good thing, maybe take a month out to actual dev names and see if it is a glitch.

I have a dev pile a mile high, so maybe a thank you card to Denys is due

 

[Retired_Member42]

Is drop catching really that time consuming for you? I spend about 10 minutes on a sunday night loading the weeks interests.

 

[Retired_member41]

Won't be using his system though. As I surmised previously he's not letting his clients use 'his' system, just a standard one.

His offer is more the equivalent of a single finger in someone's direction.

Ah ok, still I bet it can't be bad.

 

[DaveLeeds]

Do you mean DomainCatch Caz not DomainView?

Wow you would be mad not to take Denys's offer up of using his system.

Shame its just exclusive to domainview customers as there would be lots of takers.

Good job he never offered 16 places as he would possibly take all his customers.

 

[Retired_Member42]

Which one of you guys has domain suspension timestamps for me?

 

[Edwin]

Has anyone thought of trying to cosy up to one of the big registrars that doesn't do drop catching in the UK market (if such an animal exists) to use their delayed DAC quota? Just throwing random late-Friday-afternoon ideas out...