Directi Corporate Blog

Update: Directi, Knujon and HostExploit have had a joint conversation addressing the issues raised in all previous posts concerning the matter. A joint statement with an accurate representation of facts, clearing any previous misconceptions and reaffirming their common goal to combat abuse on the Internet can be found here

From Bhavin Turakhia’s Desk:

There were some articles and reports published by Garth Bruen at Knujon and by Jart Armin and James Mcquad at Hostexploit, that linked Directi with groups that were involved in unethical activities on the Internet.

We had posted clarifications on our blog, which we have now substituted with a joint statement developed in collaboration with Knujon and HostExploit. This statement provides an accurate representation of facts, clearing any previous misconceptions. Knujon and HostExploit are in the process of rectifying their respective websites and removing all inaccuracies The joint statement is available here

A summary of the clarifications as discussed and confirmed between Directi, HostExploit and Knujon, and covered in this joint statement are as follows -

Directi is not hosting any of Atrivo’s websites. Atrivo runs its web infrastructure under the name of Hostfresh.com which is not affiliated with Directi in any manner.

* ESTDomains is not a Directi company, and Directi does not control the actions or clients of ESTDomains

* LogicBoxes is not sponsoring Internet abuse, and is not affiliated with Atrivo. LogicBoxes is simply a software provider to various ICANN Accredited Registrars.

* Privacyprotect.org is merely a privacy protection service used by many of Directi’s legitimate clients, not unlike the privacy protection services offered by other Registrars. Since Directi offers privacy protection free of cost, there are miscreants who use it to cloak their malicious activities. However Directi’s abuse team actively suspends privacy protection on any domain for which we receive a genuine complaint in less than 24 hours. In fact a few months ago, based on reports and data obtained from the antispam community, Directi ceased to offer its privacy protection services to all customers of ESTDomains and to tens of thousands of other domains obtained through the community. Privacy protection had also already been disabled on a large percentage of Atrivo’s domain names over a month ago. Currently over half a million genuine customers of Directi use privacy protection services to prevent their whois data from being harvested.

* The 48 Registrars belonging to Directi and its clients, referenced in these reports are not phantom registrars and are actually in existence as delaware incorporated legitimate companies with a valid ICANN Accreditation and accurate contact information.

* Directi is in no way supporting illicit online pharmacies. Directi has actively suspended the list of clients obtained from the community involved in illegal activities on the Internet.

* Directi is not a hosting provider to any of the websites in the Knujon and HostExploit report. Some of the websites have their domain names registered through Directi. However the hosting infrastructure that run these websites is not in Directi’s control

Today, Directi continues to be one of the most proactive Registrars in combating abuse and implementing strict AUPs. We have a significant investment in terms of manpower and processes to achieve just this. We do so, not because we’re contractually obligated, or to protect our own business interests, but because we sincerely believe in the ideology of making the internet a safer and more secure medium for conducting business.

Day 1: Visit to the Taj Mahal
It was an excellent experience meeting Michael Feathers. Sandeep and I had the privilege to accompany him to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was a 4 hour drive from Delhi to the Taj. We made most of that time talking about everything from philosophy to functional programming to jazz and several other things. We also realized that all three of us were wanna-be guitarists. The first look at the Taj Mahal was jaw-dropping as ever. We had hired a guide who gave us a lot of history and a few urban legends. After spending a couple of hours we decided to head back and retire for the day. The ride back was harrowing; lots of traffic and mostly involved people alternately power napping

Day 2: The workshop
Since it was a Sunday, the attendance was not that great but the session, nonetheless, was extremely interesting. Michael gave insights into dealing with legacy code and how to apply TDD principles to existing code. There were a few heated arguments (or should I say discussions) on the practicality of applying TDD to legacy stuff. To me the whole section on *Breaking Dependencies* was a revelation. There were discussions on dependency injection, mocking, design by contract, function programming and several other refactoring insights. I am definitely going to pick up a copy of Michael’s book. I believe it’s a must read for anyone dealing with legacy code. The session ended with a practical TDD demonstration.

On 25th July, we attended our first ever Software Design Boot Camp at Directi. For the uninitiated, the term “boot camp” refers to the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel in the United States Marine Corps. In this case, our objectives were to achieve a uniform level of understanding of basic software design principles among all the software developers working across different products, technologies and departments, and to share a common vocabulary as far as software design is concerned.

The boot camp was scheduled to be a one day event, attended by close to seventy software developers, and we decided to organize it at a nearby conference hall. The choice of an external venue was due to various reasons, not the least important of which was that typically when such a marathon session was conducted in house, we developers would end up invariably distracted by our day to day activities and would be unable to fully concentrate.

The agenda was an interesting one, starting off with a key note by Robert Martin on Object Orientation and Code Rot, and a Guest Demo by Joshua Kerievsky on Code Smells. While some of us might have thought that Robert and Joshua were coming down in person for the introductory sessions, we learned that we would be watching videos of their presentations instead! Though definitely not as exciting as being in a face to face discussion with them, the video presentations were watched with keen enthusiasm and interest.

This was followed by a session on Common Code Smells with several illustrative examples by our very own Naresh Jain, and then we had a series of short sessions briefly explaining each of the S.O.L.I.D principles of Object Oriented Design presented by the geek brotherhood at Directi (Sandeep, Jigar, Ajay and Carl). Most of us agreed with Jigar’s views that you can’t always have it all as far as design principles are concerned and many a time we have to make intelligent trade offs to achieve what we want. After a short lunch break, we continued with an interactive overview of Test Driven Development, again by Naresh. This session was a live demonstration of TDD with tests being written first to drive the development of a simple stack class from scratch. This session evoked a great deal of enthusiasm and participation from many of us in the audience, and the ideas brought forth were vigorously discussed and debated.

We then had a short retrospective on the boot camp, and the unanimous conclusion was that despite the lack of time, this event was very well organized, and all of us should participate and contribute to an event like this at least once a month. Looking forward to the next one!

Mary and Tom Poppendieck were the speakers at the second Techcamp event, organized by TechCamp and ASCI, on 28th July, 08. They are today the foremost proponents of Lean software development. They are also highly acclaimed speakers. Techcampers gathered together with a sense of anticipation at Hotel Sea Princess in Mumbai, at 2 pm.

It was an informative afternoon. We learnt how the Lean and Agile approaches to software development spring from similar motivations. The Poppendiecks emphasized that although Lean thinking originated in the manufacturing sector, its principles can be applied effectively to the process of software development.

The talk discussed ways and means to identify and eliminate waste. We first looked at the Lean approach to defining value. We then drilled down into what constitutes waste. Mary showed, with several examples, that conventional ideas of waste may not hold good in all circumstances.

They also explained how the Lean thinking looks to eliminate waste by continuous improvment of processes. They explained that it is important to critique the process that creates value for customers in it’s entirety, else, waste will continue to exist in unaddressed areas, adversely affecting the value of the end result.

They then went on to introduce to us the value stream map.

The second half was a practical session. We used value stream maps to critically analyse processes within our own companies.

This session was a good, insightful introduction to Lean thinking. We left the venue with valuable insights into Lean software development, and ideas for putting them to use. Techcamp kept it’s promise, and delivered a focused atmosphere for likeminded technologists to learn, grow and make friends.

Today was the first ever Techcamp event (co-organised by ASCI). Techcamp is an initiative taken by a bunch of Directians with the underlying thought of knowledge sharing and community building. The session was on Agile Development – How to approach Evolutionary Design by Dr. Venkat Subramanium – a very interesting speaker. It was an afternoon talk, held from 2 to 6. But there wasn’t a dull moment as he discussed the problems with the stereotypical approach to architecture and design, in contrast with the agile alternative. At Directi we are incorporating agile practices into our product development lifecycles. So we arrived at the venue with several questions.

Dr. Venkat made several interesting points. He stated that the design of a project must continue to evolve throughout it’s life. He spoke about how rapid prototyping and version control go hand in hand. He warned against the tendency to build extensible components without there being any present need for extensibility.

The only downside was the code session after tea. The Groovy code that he used contained concepts from dynamic languages which were not very common knowledge. As a result, not all of were able to follow the code very clearly, although we were able to catch the general import of his illustrations.

He had to catch a plane as soon as he concluded his talk. I wish that there had been some more time for interaction after the talk.