[Updates to this file take the form of appended text, rather than edits
to the existing text.]

Why have I switched from using rodents.montreal.qc.ca to
rodents-montreal.org?  That takes a little explanation.

CIRA, the body that administers the .CA domain, has chosen to make an
SSL-capable Web browser a requirement for .CA domain holders.  (They
shied away from putting it that baldly, but when I spoke with their
customer-service rep, all the suggestions she offered were alternative
ways for me to find an SSL-capable Web browser, not ways to avoid using
one.  Quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck....)  They probably
actually did this quite some time ago and this just happens to be the
first time I ran up against it.  At any rate, I consider that
requirement unreasonable and unacceptable.

They have also chosen to break their WHOIS interface, not returning
contact information for .CA domains registered by individuals.  While
individual domain holders are allowed to reverse this bustification for
their own domain(s), doing so requires (you guessed it) an SSL-capable
Web browser.

While I don't yet have the code written to do so, I will soon be
rejecting all mail from .CA domains for which the WHOIS information is
thus broken.  And, if I do this, I cannot in good conscience continue
to use my own domain - which is similarly afflicted and which CIRA
demands I use an specific protocol I neither have nor want support for
to fix, even though there are numerous other equally technically
suitable alternatives available.

I managed to find a .org registrar who was willing to not require I use
a Web interface (well, as far as my own border is concerned; it looks
to me as though there is something Web backing it, but the Web part is
entirely within their systems; the interface at my border is ssh).

I'm not actively breaking rodents.montreal.qc.ca, in the interests of a
non-disruptive transition.  However, until the above issues are fixed,
I will not be using it (at least not once I complete the switch to
rodents-montreal.org - possibly except for occasional testing).

					der Mouse

			formerly mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
			now using mouse@rodents-montreal.org

The above text was written June 2008.  It is now January 2010.  The
mailer code mentioned above works and has been live in my mailer for
some little while now.

Update, 2011-12-11: rodents.montreal.qc.ca is now unbroken, though not
through my actions, at least not directly; I mentioned it to my
registrar, and he apparently got it fixed.  (I decided to renew, even
though it constitutes support of a broken system, both in the hope .ca
will wise up and because my ssh implementation uses lots of
@rodents.montreal.qc.ca private extensions, so if the cost isn't too
high I'd kinda like to keep the domain even if I don't use it for
anything else.)  It's actually possible CIRA reversed their stance,
though I consider that unlikely enough I haven't gone looking for an
individual-registrant domain of someone else's to check.  If you think
they have, please let me know!
