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RoadRunner Intercepting Domain Typos
shaunco writes "Sometime around midnight on February 26th (at least for the SoCal users), TimeWarner's RoadRunner service started intercepting failed DNS requests, redirecting them to RoadRunner's own search and advertising platform. To see if this has been enabled in your area, try visiting {some random string}.com in your Web browser. This feature subverts user preferences set within browsers, which allow the user to select which search engine receives their typos and invalid domains. RoadRunner users can disable this function — or they can just use OpenDNS. Here is an example RoadRunner results page.
Verizon DSL does this too. I don't see how this is a story.
I believe they've been doing this for a little while now in my area. I've seen it at my place any my g/f's place. I disabled it already where I am. I was pretty surprised to see it, but instantly looked for a way to turn it off. I'm actually impressed they gave a way to disable it at all though.
They just throttle my connection until it fails.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I noticed this happening a couple of weeks ago in the DFW area at a few clients houses and then my own. Obviously I disabled it immediately but it is still very annoying to say the least.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Don't most ISPs in the US do this?
Best Slashdot Co
http://ww23.rr.com/index.php?origURL=http://www.google.com
In case any Bright House RoadRunner customers were wondering -- this doesn't happen on Bright House (at least in the Tampa Bay area) (yet?). Can any other Bright House customers report?
My blog
I noticed that they were doing it. Was going to mention it to my local LUG, but /. beat me to it -- procrastination, what can I say.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Seems like I should be registering this and pointing it to my porn/phishing site right now.
I knew when I first saw a road runner branded "typo ad page" that they were doing it. In fact I actually thought "I'm gonna read about this one on slashdot!" First of all the date is all wrong. They've been doing it for over a week in Wisconsin. Secondly, I'll do you one better. Any time a combined bittorrent upload of mine exceeds 30 KBPS, my modem mysteriously jams up. And also I've done over 100 GB of torrent traffic up and down. Mostly Knoppix and other legal stuff but not all. And about 2 months ago my download speed became capped at about 1500 kbps instead of the new 8000 or whatever they just upped it to. If I use a multi-source downloader like leechget, I can get the full 850 kBps from a good server. Also even at like 2 AM it's the exact same limit so it's not just traffic. So they seem to be throttling me on purpose. That's right, I'm breaking that story right here right now. In fact I've been meaning to call them about it...brb
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
My local ISP (Insight in Evansville, Indiana) does the same thing. Even worse, when you 'opt-out' of their URL redirection, they instead redirect you to a fake IE error page. Slimy.
... if it were opt-in and not opt-out. I would like to think that the majority of Internet users who don't use Slashdot have no idea about what actually happens when you type in www.dlibert.com, for example.
Send an e-mail to your subscribers and let them enable the feature if they so desire, but don't force it on your userbase.
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
Roadrunner's not-found page seems roughly as useful as the default MSN Search page that IE puts up automatically if a page can't be found. Which is to say, not very.
But it's still nowhere near as worthwhile as the "what you want, when you want it" domain squatter pages where most of the links are porn and ads. Catch up, Roadrunner!!
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
They've been doing it for about a year. i always thought it was fairly shady, but they rationalized it by saying other ISPs were doing it as well.
How Jaded Are You?
Are there failed DNS requests any more? I'd thought every combination of characters had its own ad farm by now. If the last few unused ones now also direct to some random ads, I doubt I'd even notice.
Who clicks on those things, anyway? You land on ebaaaaaay.com when your 'a' key sticks and think "Yes, I do want a beautiful Russian bride!"?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Just tried it in West Hollywood area using lynx as the browser. Even then it is getting diverted to their page. Pretty sneaky.
What other people think of me is none of my business
SOMEONE REGISTER jkshdfkljh23sadf.com AND MAKE IT REDIRECT TO GOATSE
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-sitefinder-redux-verizon-tests-dns-redirect-service.html
I noticed this over a month ago in Western NY. At least I can turn it off now.
ISP DNS servers are notoriously sucky, or polluted with crap. Find an open one out there at a serious network provider and just use that.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
My DNS server queries root servers directly, so any poisoning by an ISP would not affect my home network.
The Site Finder stunt NetSol/Verisign pulled a few years ago, that was done on the root servers, wasn't it? That was a lot more disruptive than an ISP creating a catch-all DNS zone on their little DNS boxes.
Can someone explain why I should care? It seems wrong. But not enough to get worked up about. No redirection from the correct page (typo was my fault), just wasting my time waiting for the content to download so that I know I typed a address wrong. I'd rather they didn't do it, but this seems the least of my worries.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Wasn't there a registrar (I want to say Network Solutions) that was doing the same thing, only it was regardless of whatever connection you were using?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
I realize that Time Warner Cable is a Big Evil Corporation(TM), but what's the big deal here? So you type in a domain that does not exist and they give you search results based on that domain. "But they're serving ads, those money-grubbing evil-doers!" Guess what: search engines serve ads! It's true! But let's say you don't want your DNS server sending you ads. That's a reasonable request, since you're already paying for the service. I guess you can just turn them off like the post suggests!
I don't think that the sky is falling just yet on this one.
- Stealth Dave
Evil is as eval("does");
I use Cavalier Telephone DSL and they've been doing this for years. I called them about it and they suggested that I use alternate DNS servers. Nobody has complained, nobody even cares. IMHO, this is another network neutrality-type issue. Followed the protocols, provide access - don't reroute/intercept/redirect me. (FYI to anyone else using them - they monitor your BitTorrent downloads too.)
Don't attempt reaching domain names that don't exist. Who cares where they take you when you won't end up at your intended destination anyways?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I just switched over to openDNS.
I somehow cannot access any sites anymore,
that I suspected had very bad content!
( if I want to test my security, I have to switch back to comcast's unsecure DNSs )
Life with openDNS is great, and fast and secure.
Wish they would get on with having servers in more areas, but
they are connected right to the Level3 backbone.
and openDNSs search feature isnt half bad.
( I know, I used to hit a lot of squatters ).
Never noticed that before, what a PITA. dam
Useless sig.
How ironic... someone registered www.jkshdfkljh23sadf.com as a parked domain. Wow these ppl need help.
It's been like this in the Capital Region of NY for a month or so. Probably started beginning of january, but don't quote me on that.
http://www.alexfalkenberg.com/2008/02/20/history-of-the-reboot/ Poor guy's RR service rebooted on him constantly for nearly a YEAR last year, and now it's doing it again...
I never quite realized it until now though. Its been happening lately and now i know what it is.
As far as I can tell, it started in Los Angeles sometime in the last few weeks.
Microsoft delenda est!
If I have javascript** on and hit too many links too fast,(I am a news junky, not talking about porn either) setting up a set of tabs for reading, they won't "find" most of the URLs even though they are legitimate, they redirect you to their own stupid search page, tell you they "can't find" the URL, and I mean stupid stuff like they can't "find" drudge report? Stuff like that. Seriously bogus. And to make it worse, they *disable* the back button so you can't go back and do it again, and they add junk characters to the original URL, while removing most of the finer points of the addy at the same time, so you can't copy and paste the original URL you wanted to go to in the first place.
**javascript is just teh evile, hates it, but most websites out there seem to require it now, that and the fellow net demon from hell, *flash*. And leaving scripting on means your page downloads take 10 times longer, maybe not so noticeable with broadband, but on dialup (all I can get) I am seeing pages that never finish downloading after letting them run for actual multiple minutes. It's just getting terrible out there with web page bloat. And "no script" doesn't matter when you have to go ahead and whitelist most of the pages out there you want to see anyway, waste of time. And you have to have javascript ON to run flashblock! It never ends!
You know, any and all future network protocol RFCs should mandate the blacklisting of networks that choose not to comply.
Has been doing this for some time now too. It's bloody irritating because you don't get the chance to edit the typo in the URL once Verizon's wanky screen comes up.
As it is, I changed to openDNS when Verizon pulled this crap, also because Verizon wasn't returning some blog or whatever (can't remember)... but even OpenDNS' page bugs the hell out of me. Used to be firefox just returned Google's "I Feel Lucky" result, so you could type in just "slashdot" for example. Fucking Verizon (and OpenDNS) ruined that, I'm not sure how Verizon managed to stop Firefox from default to google, or if it was Verizon doing that.
This space available.
Somebody has already registered:
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: JKSHDFKLJH23SADF.COM
Created on: 26-Feb-08
Expires on: 26-Feb-09
Last Updated on: 26-Feb-08
I live in Illinois, and use Verizon wireless broadband. It doesn't happen to me. (Yet)
If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
I spent about half an hour on the phone with them to complain when I first noticed this last week. Nobody that they let us unimportant residential customers talk to even knew what a DNS server was, but the rep talked with me until she got enough down on paper that she could use to file a complaint to the higher-ups. Hopefully if enough people do this, they will stop.
Oh, wait, they have a government granted monopoly. My only alternatives are slow and really slow.
Call and complain to your elected representatives.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
powered by yahoo. that's a mistake right away. if they wanted a better suggestion, they should use google
OpenDNS is actually substantially worse. At least Roadrunner is obvious about the fact that you're visiting their servers. With OpenDNS, it seemed they were actually proxying requests for well-known search engines that were *not* typo'd in order to grab stats. Try setting your DNS resolvers to OpenDNS, then dig (or 'nslookup' for you Windows folks) www.google.com. Do a whois on the resulting IPs, and guess who they're registered to... Google? Nope, OpenDNS! At least, last I checked -- that was also the last time I used OpenDNS.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
This sums it up.
Verizon FiOS has been doing this for a while now.
When I type in a domain, I recognize if I made a typo and went to the wrong page or not. I recognize if it's one of those ad domains and then go back and type it right, or do a google search if in case I didn't know the proper spelling or simply didn't know the right address.
But what does the average user do? Do they properly question the website they are on? Do stop and go back and try another site? Not all of them. Many will start clicking on these links, waste time, and be led in circles. They might end up on the website that they want to go, but more likely they might end up on a website that will display too many ads, sell them something at an overpriced rate, or give them spyware or a virus. All of course in milking us in the name of making more money. These are not services that give consumers any kind of benefit. People who serve ads all know it's about bombarding the average user, giving them headaches, and hoping a few n00bs click on the links and buy something they shouldn't buy. It's complete bullshit and it has to stop.
Business used to mean giving the customer what they wanted. I don't want a headache!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
My ISP (Embarq DSL) does this too. But since I'm using DD-WRT on my router, I can bypass it. DD-WRT includes dnsmasq for DNS forwarding, and ever since Network Solutions tried the same scam on the entire .com TLD a while back, dnsmasq has included the option (bogus-nxdomain) to specify IP addresses that, when returned from upstream DNS, result in a "no such domain" error being returned to your computer.
The internet is really big. You can help their DNS servers by caching it all. while true; do host eatit$RANDOM$RANDOM.com& sleep 0.1; done
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
OK, what's the IP address of the ad site they send you to? Add that to block lists.
First they came for the news group users,
and I didn't speak up,
because I didn't use news groups.
Then they came for the torrenters,
and I didn't speak up,
because I didn't torrent.
Then they came for the bandwidth hogs,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't on Comcast.
Then they came for my dns,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
The central remedy to AT&T's abuse of its old telco monopoly was splitting long distance service from local service, and prohibiting one corp from bundling both to a single customer (the return of telco monopolies along with that bundling is case in point). That unbundling forced customers to exercise choice in telcos, and not leave choice just a theoretical construct. AT&T was also forced to let customers own their own phones, even the phone wiring in their house. Once the bundled advantage was lost to AT&T, it embraced that unbundling, because AT&T no longer had to lose money supporting that vulnerable equipment (within reach of the great unwashed masses). AT&T had abused the bundle to the point where it lost not just the bundle, but most of the market domination advantages of a monopoly.
Those same conditions now apply to ISPs. Already the FCC has barred cablecos from bundling cablemodems and set top boxes (though it's apparently not enforced yet), to force consumers to diversify away from a single dependency for our connection to the essential broadband resource. RoadRunner's DNS should be another unbundled service. It should be trivial for any user to switch to using someone else's DNS to get away from these abuses, even if they do choose to keep a bundled one. RoadRunner's DNS was already bad, just a slowdown in every connection, even before it was abusive and violating the standards to spam domain responses like this latest stunt. With luck, the abuse will force the unbundling in a showdown with these big ISPs. They should offer unbundled services only, and create a market for separate bundlers who compete with each other bundling services and selling them to consumers.
--
make install -not war
Hours? Are you a rhino?
jkshdfkljh23sadf.com is not a random domain but a registered and DomainsByProxy protected domain. Every "test" click shoots up the ads on that site...
well wowway ( wide open west) has been doing this sense day 1 after i gave Comcast the boot an example for a rand. address http://www5.search.wowway.net/search?qo=346ghty5.com&rn=Hvs4Wx6Env6cPfc and overrides Mozilla/SeaMonkey's setting for Google
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
They've been doing it in parts of Upstate NY since December, maybe earlier.
I noticed this the other day, and IIRC they also had Yahoo adverts in there with the Yahoo search links, seeing as how they're partnered with Yahoo. If that's what starts to become the norm, then I've got a problem with it. It's bad enough that people have to pay the fees that they do, but to then have the ISP shove advertisements -- or have an excellent outlet with which to shove advertisements -- to customers who are already paying (or in some cases, like Comcast, overpaying) for their Internet connectivity bothers me immensely.
... well, being in my natural state. :)
I know, I know, if I'd type the domain in properly I won't see the bad domain interception. Still, it's the principle, just like seeing advertising in full-priced games. Either don't give me advertising or lower my rates.
Then again, it's possible that I didn't see any advertising at all and I'm delusional due to
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I have a copy of bind9 running on my router box. It's firewalled away from the outside and was only an apt-get away.
It means that ISPs intercept server requests and redirect the user to a different server. In this particular case, you're right - whether I get Firefox to display a 404 message or a page from RR, Verizon or any DSL that essentially says "This site doesn't exist, but try searching through here" doesn't matter to me. I'll just type the address in again.
However, there is one instance where this issue matters right now: a lot of site monitoring still relies on pings or basic server lookups to figure out whether the server is up and running. This feature would immediately screw with that kind of monitoring. Basically, you cannot assume anymore that because a dns lookup or a ping returns a positive result that the server with that hostname is actually alive or in the DNS tables. Yes, there are ways around that, but it basically breaks one of the central tenets of the internet: the intelligence is on the edge of the network, and everything in between is just a packet forwarder.
More significantly though is that it redirects a user to a place that wasn't requested. Basically, it means that from a technological perspective, this no different than RR or Verizon taking my request to www.google.com and redirecting it to their own search page. See why this can easily become a very, very big deal? I can guarantee you that this is a trial balloon by the ISPs to see how users react to this. If this goes through, expect that at some point in the future, you will have to jump through hoops to get to the site you want, and not the site your ISP thinks you ought to want.
This is another problem that will most likely have to be enshrined in actual law: ISPs shall not take a request and redirect it elsewhere. The potential for and likelihood of abuse is just too large otherwise.
Welcome to the intelligent network. It'll be a nightmare.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
You've hit the nail right on the head. This BREAKS proper DNS workings and in my case causes me lots of headaches with a split tunnel VPN that depends on a DNE result to know if it should try the DNS servers for the VPN connection. If they really want to do this then build it into the web browsers and let it be an option. Don't try to force it in some attempt to be "Friendly" that is also an attempt for web ads.
-Xen
The user base is dumb.
One of the things most Internet Service Provider customers are paying for is... well, service. While I'm sure most of the Slashdot audience finds this service annoying, for MOST people on the internet, the resulting page is probably better for them than a blank error page.
And, opt-in is a lousy way to institute change. If you make the change, and let people opt out, everyone who the change helps will get it and everyone who doesn't like the change will opt-out, at the cost of the inconvenience of opting out once for the people who don't like the change. If the change is opt-in, then you have to communicate the change, and only some people are going to make it, even if it would be a good change for them, at the cost of everyone who wants to make the change having to specifically opt-in. Which is better - trying to get ignorant users to opt-in to something they don't understand, or allowing power users to opt-out of something they do understand?
The only exceptions to this is when the change is 'destructive', or you don't expect the change to be good for most people.
But if you're changing the default behavior (new users would have the new behavior) and the change is not destructive, there's nothing malicious about opt-out.
paintball
I leech off my geeky nerdy neighbor and his DNS Domain Typo page leads to
http://www.homestarrunner.com/404.html
He has the best ISP by a long shot!!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I use OpenDNS at home and work...at work, I've got the typo correction turned off. I don't get OpenDNS search results or redirects. At home, however, I use the content filters, which requires typo correction. Sometimes it sucks, but it is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL.
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
If he caches u you're THROUGH....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"This feature subverts user preferences set within browsers, which allow the user to select which search engine receives their typos and invalid domains."
when I mistype a url I don't get kicked to Google, which is my preferred search engine, I wind up at some random adult entertainment site. I just went through my preferences in about:config and did not see anything about dns or web addresses. Can anyone tell me what this quote is referring to?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
InsightBB has been doing this for several months. I noticed it when the typo 'cterm' in KDE's run dialog opened a web browser instead of erroring out. I spent an hour on the phone trying to explain why it was a problem to some InsightBB tech support geek who is probably more confused now than when I started. In the end he consulted his manager, who told him "thats the way its supposed to work". Useless frackers.
I "fixed" the problem by switching to a different DNS server.
Is this limited to cases where the second-level domain doesn't exist, or do they do it for all NX responses? Ie., if you try "http://www.source-victoria.com/" (a host which doesn't have an A record), does TW return an NX response or the address of their server?
I just switched from Road Runner to AT&T's DSL two days ago :D
im on commode runner in austin, and no such functionality is happening to me. i still get the same old firefox 'you screwed up' page. that's how i realized i let one of my domains die today... DOH!!
-.no
It's as if they're saying
"C'mon stupid luser, you should just know that you're here, and be happy with it!"
I believe the device intercepting the DNS is from a company called Paxfire.
So ... as I understand it (feel free to correct any part of this message that is incorrect) ...
... the result is that everything is now considered to be coming from a spamming host. If my spam software always blocks hosts that are on RBLs, then I get no email ...
Most RBLs for spam return NX domain when you lookup a host that isn't on the RBL list, in effect letting the mail server/antispam software know the host thats being checked isn't currently considered a spammer.
So now, my spam filter software is going to always return a name for host lookups
I for one thank TimeWarner for this service, I didn't really expect protocols and standards to be followed, I do run Windows after all.
FreeBSDFirewallWithItsOwnDNSServer: 1
NormalUsersWhoDon'tHaveSuchSetups: -1
To me, this qualifies as intercepting and modifing traffic in a malicious manner. The should be charged with unauthorized interception and modification of digital signals as I certainly did not authorize it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
>> To see if this has been enabled in your area, try visiting {some random string}.com in your Web browser. This feature subverts user preferences set within browsers, which allow the user to select which search engine receives their typos and invalid domains. RoadRunner users can disable this function -- or they can just use OpenDNS. Here is an example RoadRunner results page. jkshdfkljh23sadf.com is a real site. http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=jkshdfkljh23sadf.com
Thanks! Best laugh of the day!
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
Earthlink has been doing this for at least a year, if not more.
If you used the example link in the first message of this thread of course your going to get www.jkshdfkljh23sadf.com. Oddly enough, that is a registered site. It's not a DNS redirect.
Whois: http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=jkshdfkljh23sadf.com
This interception of mistyped domains has been happening in Austin, Texas and surrounding areas now since from what I can remember since January when I moved here.
Sigh, and for those who still don't get it: HTTP is what your web browser uses to get web pages.
All those who are spouting "it's useful" or "I don't understand what the fuss is" or "why can't they do it?"... you simply don't understand the issues and shouldn't be commenting.
Verizon's guide
.12 .14 on the end instead of .12
My guide:
1. Find your dns servers settings (71.252.0.12 and 68.237.161.12 for me). They should end in
2. Set them to the exact same ips with
I have a small utility that makes DNS calls to build up a picture of all 5-letter domains (which are actually bought domains). It then graphically shows this info and does some statistics on various letter combinations as being more or less likely to be in a domain. The 30 million possibles give a pretty good dataset. Now I throw my software in the garbage because some slimeballs wanted to make another 0.000001 cents per subscriber. I wanted to try the 6-letter domains (all 890 million), but now that dream is dead.
People frequently ask us how we can offer such a fantastic service without charging a dime.
OpenDNS makes money the same way Google and Yahoo do -- by showing relevant ads when we show you search results.
http://www.opendns.com/how/free/how-can-opendns-be-free/
Insight (In Kentucky, Indiana and a few other places that I know of) has been doing this for 9 months. But unfortunately their opt-out isn't by MAC address, it's handled by cookies. I use a mac, and safari, and this means if I browse in private mode (which I always do) I effectively can't opt-out. It'll opt out for the session, but I don't mistype a url every session, so it's pretty pointless to opt out each time. The thing that pisses me off about it is when I screwed up one letter, or reverse two letters. It use to be that I could just go to the address bar and fix the address, but can't do that now. Have to retype the whole address (I've yet to see the site I mistyped listed in the results page).
And I just tested it to see how opt-out worked, and it redirects you to a "standard" error page, changed the address in the address bar, so effective it still sucks after opting out.
I wrote them a letter saying this was unacceptable, and they told me to go an opt-out every time I opened my browser, or to turn cookies on.
Ryan Stultz
Invalid DNS Redirection
Recently I inadvertently entered a url and forgot one of the leading w's. I thought I'd get a browser error, instead I was opening a page with all sorts of ads and a "Did you mean:" with several suggested web sites. I know how DNS works so I brought up a network sniffer to see what was going on. To my astonishment my DNS server was returning a valid IP address for a dns entry that did not exist! When opened, this address did a http redirect to the web site with the ads and suggestions. I tried a simple test to see if the browser was involved. I used NSLOOKUP and entered an invalid address and sure enough a valid IP was being returned, I don't use a proxy server so the problem had to be in the DNS server. I have to use Hughes satellite services so I though it might be something being done by them, but in reading on the net many IPSs are doing the same thing. I investigated some more and found out that Hughes was using the services of a company called Paxfire who makes a living working with Internet ads. Other ISPs might be using another service. I noticed that the redirection was returning another url, wwh.found-not-help.com. If I put that name in the hosts file I then got a normal http error. That would suffice in most cases but on a satellite Internet link the round trip packet latency can make a connection look like dial-up.
I decided to look into this more. I had an idea. Several years ago I wrote 2 functions for a project I was on, AddDNSName, and DeleteDNSName. These would add secondary IP addresses to the network adapter and delete them programmatically. So I wrote a simple program using the old gethosybyname socket function. I would look up an invalid name and if a valid IP address was returned I added these addresses to my system. After that everything worked as it should. DNS returned the redirection IP addresses and a connection attempt would immediately fail because the address was now local.
The ISP's have a solution but it requires leaving a cookie on your system and you're still doing more network traffic.
This is not a new problem and I found this reference http://www.itmweb.com/f092403.htm about Verisign having the problem in late 2003! I find it amazing that IPSs would change Internet standards just to receive more ad revenue. Seeing that there was no recourse in standards committees I decided to write this and the code for the problem. The code could easily be polished to make it stronger, I just wrote a prototype program (which I use). There is an article on codegugu.com, http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/i-n/network/winsocksolutions/article.php/c6165/ that has the C++ code for add and delete ip addresses(ipadddel.c ipadddel.h). Here is the code I wrote for this problem. It can be easily modified for adjustments. It's a hack job but it seems to work.
It seems I can't post the code, I get a "too many junk characters" error. If you want it I'll send it to you.
Just a few notes on this. IP addresses added are transient, which go away after a reboot or delete. The chance of these DNS IP addresses are in your address space is extremely small and not possible if you are using DHCP. The ISP's could change the redirection IP address but it would still be found every time the code is run on the workstation. The code is setup for 2 redirection addresses but could easily be changed for more.
The ISP's have a solution but it requires leaving a cookie on your system and you're still doing more network traffic. What they didn't consider also is that Browsers are NOT the only internet application that uses DNS.
Bill
"Intercept" suggests that you tried to connect to someone's DNS server, and your ISP served the request instead. But what really happened, is that you (quite deliberately and knowingly) connected to the ISP's DNS server, looked something up, and it gave the wrong answer.
This is a server issue, not a network issue. Their server, their rules. Ok, whoa whoa whoa, I know I pissed a lot of people off with that last sentence, and it makes me sound like their apologist or something. No, that's not what happened. I'm just being pedantic and amoral. ;-) I agree they shouldn't do it. I agree that it's some sort of betrayal and lowers the value of them as an ISP. I'm just putting into perspective; it's not like they did a MitM.
It is a server defect, not an interception.
This happened sometime before the date and time specified. The first time I noticed it was when Wikileaks was taken out of the DNS record the day before it was posted on /.
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
The last time I asked about google doing dns I was told by a vp there "they aren't ready for that yet".
This is probably more political than anything else. Think about it. If google says "use us for dns" and they gave the fastest most reliable answer within a couple of months most of the world would be using it. Do you know what happens when you have most of the world using you as dns? They see what you say they see is the answer. If google were to slip in a
Right now, the "root zone file" that holds the list of TLD servers is under the control of the United States government - specifically the department of Commerce, which has in the past rejected ICANN's suggestions of modification for the root zone allegedly in return for a Bush staffer's political favour.
There are things both Microsoft and Google - but probably nobody else except possibly OpenDNS - could do in the next little while that would put them in a position of this sort of control.
When there's a monopoly of dns services, and I'd say more than 50%, then that entity gets to say what the root zone is, and experience has shown people can be convinced of the sense of any new plan when it comes to adding new tlds as long as new tlds actually get added. You'll notice the decade old process from ICANN has done SFA here.
At some point the internet community will get sick of somebody else saying they're in charge and deciding what domain names can or can not be published in a system we all ourselves run and provide the infrastructure for!
So, what I would do is use my own dns servers. And you should use your own dns servers. Or maybe you and your friends could se up your own root server network. One of you grab the root zone from ftp://internic.net declare yourself primary for ".", have the other guys slave the "." zone from you and stick each others ip's in your root cache file. Poof, you're a root server network.
You're still going to have the problem that port 80 (and 443) service has, or will soon have a "trasparent web proxy" - these intercept web requests then do the dns lookup on the domain name so they're sure to only cache web content their dns thinks is valid. You need to use a web proxy on the other side of this device to get unfiltered internet. And your own DNS.
Anything else and you're letting somebody else decide what you see. Log in to internic.net with ftp and cd to "domain" to get the root zone file you need to primary the "." zone for yourself.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Preference Update Failure
The preferences server is misconfigured or is experiencing momentary downtime. Please try your request again later.
At any point, you can always revisit the preferences page to update your preferences.
You're right. I didn't say anything at all. But I did change the DNS addresses on my machines so they ended in .42 instead of .12 like the help page said to do. </quote>
.12 to for proper DNS results" way more then 6*9.
I like "what do you change the
However the original question does have 6 and 9 in it.
we have a conundrum
Some one registerd JKSHDFKLJH23SADF.COM.
lol
Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: JKSHDFKLJH23SADF.COM
Created on: 26-Feb-08
Expires on: 26-Feb-09
Last Updated on: 26-Feb-08
Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration JKSHDFKLJH23SADF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599
Technical Contact:
Private, Registration JKSHDFKLJH23SADF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1-DURGA.WEBSERVERSYSTEMS.COM
NS2-DURGA.WEBSERVERSYSTEMS.COM
"The preferences server is either misconfigured or down."
The captcha for this post is "molests". How appropriate. Now I have to explain to my wife and children about DNS wildcards and how asshats use them to make money.
I don't know about your area of the country, but here in Western New York, Time Warner clearly states in their television commercials that their Road Runner service is "commercial-free". Does DNS poisoning constitute advertising?
"Trusting every aspect of our lives to a giant computer was the smartest thing we ever did.." Homer Simpson
it's what you need, when you need it!
We should be grateful.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Must not be any Opera users posting. Opera has this nice feature, if you type "roadrunner" it'll automatically add the "www." and ".com", or if you provide several suffixes "com org net edu" it'll run through the list in order to see which works - and of course accept whichever comes back first. Any of these "search" things break that feature by causing the first combination to always work. Needless to say, I told woh.rr.com to turn it off ...
Would the solution to all this be some sort of wiki approach to DNS? Suppose it's the DNS anyone can [alter]. Now, "the command (wo)man" can agree on a given DNS. Given enough eyeballs...
Just to add that crowning touch, I got their stupid ad page on a saved bookmark. The url was completely valid, the site was up...just some sort of DNS timeout (how convenient) that invoked their ad page.
A few clicks later and I opted out (gee, can I?) and got to the site I was originally after.
Just think of it...RR is essentially putting up click-through ad pages based on what URL I enter, or what links I follow. Golly, just what I was hoping for.
What are you smoking? Unless you paid for a static IP address the only way to actually opt-out is by the MAC address of the actual hardware, since Cable modem IPs are dynamic and will change every day or every modem reset.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
What will the ISP gain??(in the long run).
Just look at the response to this kind of tactics. What do "we" do, we don't use the search page provided nor do we click on any link, "we" instead search for the "opt-out" button and opt-out.
So advertisers should get smart, and realise that "forced" advertising is not going to sell their products.
But I am sure that there might be a category of people who might click on these links. Will those clicks be enough to get advertisers.
If this post gets famous then many people will choose to opt out of it.
Maybe if there is movement of "awareness" then they might stop using this.
And isnt there a rule on such DNS activities(ethically speaking).
No-one should be redirected unless they ask for and not the other way around.
I'm from China, lot of cities the ISP (China Telecom,ChinaNetcom,etc) hijacked our browser since a long time ago. Somtimes I entered google.com, they gave me a page said that " You should renew you broadband account asap ( if you've done this, please ignore this page ) ". How on earth can I ignore that? And ChinaTelecom sometimes even tried to force all users use there own dial up software ( like an IM software with a lots of advertisements on the screen .....).
Companies make money where they can. Cable is not the only one moving this way. Centurytel is moving to implement NebuAd onto it's DSL network soon. Frontier Communications also testing out a "DNS redirect service".
Embarq DSL has been doing this for a while (at least in Virginia). It's fairly lame and obnoxious, as I'd rather see a "server not found" error than be given the runaround.
I (have to) use rr in cincinnati, and I kept finding myself in situations where my internet access was just fine, but their DNS was down and out. I got so tired of it, I had to switch to OpenDNS. I have no idea if rr ever got their act together on DNS, but I won't be finding out on my own.
You're too late! Someone already replied saying that.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
Has anyone had valid domains intercepted by this new service? Since about a week or two ago I have been redirected to Time Warner's landing page pretty much randomly - even when there is NO TYPO in the URL. I have screenshots of this - I swear, no typos!
I think that the server connection might be timing out and then handle it like a mistyped domain. I've since turned the redirection feature off but there still seems to be something wrong with the domain handling. For instance, I might try to load http://www.youtube.com/ but it won't load. Before turning it off, I would be redirected to RR's new landing page. Now I just get a server not found message. The really weird thing is that if I remove the http://www/ from the address (type in youtube.com), it'll work. It'll also work by typing in the IP address instead of the URL. This happened while RR was out here and while on the phone with them. After a day on the phone with their support service (5 separate phone calls to be exact!), and 3 different tech people coming out to look at the problem, we still haven't fixed this. Most of the people at TW I talked to don't even know they are redirecting domains!
One of the guys said I looks like a DNS problem, but they won't look into that until more people from my area call in with the same problem. Any suggestion on how to fix this? Or whether it's related to their domain interception system.
I should mention I have a wireless router (non TW), and a brand new cable modem (replaced today) - TW agrees it's not the equipment.