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Earthlink Offers Alternate DNS Without "Dead DNS"

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the just-resolve-my-names dept.

Joshua Flory writes, "In response to the story about Earthlink and their version of 'Site Finder', I learned today that Earthlink has provided alternate DNS servers that will remain outside of their 'dead DNS' service. However, this is a completely unsupported service, which begs the question, WHY? Everyone can gain access to public DNS servers, or create their own. The point is that people wanted DNS servers supported by EL that do not include this dead DNS service." Sounds like it's time for Earthlink users to check out OpenDNS.com... they make it easy to turn off the bad-URL behavior.

5 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Islamic Clerics declare Fatwa against BLOCKQUOTE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    MUDRAGISTAN (Reuters) - Islamic Clerics announced today that due to the incapacity of the islamic mind to understand the difference between an opinion and a quotation, henceforth all use of the BLOCKQUOTE tag in HTML shall be met with unyielding and divine retribution.

    The BLOCKQUOTE tag, as introduced with the HTML 2.0 specification in 1994, has been used on websites throughout the world to signify that the text contained within is a quotation from an external source. However, due to an inability for islamics to grow the fuck up and understand basic communicative syntax, they now believe it is their holy right to murder anyone they want to just because one person quoted someone else within context.

    This antithesis of freedom is a common theme running throughout all islamic interaction with civilised society. Rampaging islamic mobs worldwide have burned effigies of Dave Raggett, creator of HTML, alongside effigies of President Bush and Pope Benedict XVI. Police measures are now in place to put everyone who ever had a Myspace page or Geocities account into hiding.

    Inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, was unavailable for comment. Which is probably just as well as we don't want to get bombed by the raghead fuckwits just for quoting him.

  2. But wait! by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought Earthlink Engineers were so amazingly intelligent that they said that their Dead DNS would only affect Web traffic.

    Oh wait, no they're not. They *still* dont get what's wrong with what they're doing.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:But wait! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of the engineers didn't know this was being done until it was far too late, and they aren't happy about it. And even if they had, it's doubtful it would have made a difference to the folks looking to make some money. So as an engineer distressed by this whole idea, you have two choices:

      1. Make a fuss and become a potential target.
      2. Complain amongst friends, and pray for a PR disaster that gets it shut down.

      I think the bulk have opted for door #2.

  3. OpenDNS is no better by sidb · · Score: 4, Informative

    OpenDNS is not a solution to this problem those with dynamic IPs, which includes most Earthlink customers (like me). By default, they do exactly the same thing Earthlink does: from their webpage: "...when we can't fix your typo we take you to a page with a set of search results." They do allow you to turn that behavior off on their prefs page, but only if you have a static IP. And I somehow doubt that there isn't a speed hit going off your ISPs own network for all your DNS queries, anyway.

    The correct solution, of course, is to ditch Earthlink. Or in my case, not renew with them the next time I change my service -- unfortunately, changing now would be expensive. Until then, I'm going with Earthlink's secret, unbroken servers over OpenDNS.

  4. Re:umm by theodicey · · Score: 4, Informative

    I do, as an alternative to supporting AT&T's illegal wiretapping and internet traffic monitoring.

    They cost about $2 more a month for DSL + phone + long distance. The cost difference isn't really their fault, the FCC allowed AT&T and the phone monopolies to charge whatever they wanted for line access. But they make it up in other ways, like with 500 minutes of free long distance

    Also, Earthlink's DSL service (provided by Covad) is faster than AT&T's was.