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New Jersey's Cablevision Hijacks DNS Error Pages

Posted by timothy on from the fine-line-between-service-and-serviced dept.

Selikoff writes "I just noticed Cablevision's Optimum Online service has begun hijacking DNS Error pages with, you guessed it, ad-supported results. Aside from hurting the underlying stability of the Internet, there have been instances where hackers have used such tools against customers. I know Road Runner customers have had to deal with this for a couple months now, although at least they have an outlet to turn it off." Update: 09/30 13:18 GMT by T : Note, as several readers have pointed out, this hijacking is of DNS errors rather than 404 errors as originally presented.

5 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Give me a break... by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even on slashdot, we have people who don't know a DNS error (and yes, TFA gets it right) from a 404 (which can't be hijacked without modifying the stream itself)

    1. Re:Give me a break... by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Site finder was slightly different from this, in its scope. I doubt ICANN will get involved

      Verisign abused it's stewardship of the DNS Root servers (i.e. the Nameserver's nameservers, those servers that every(?) nameserver contacts to find out who to query...etc...).

      In other words, if your ISP is doing something douchy like this, you can use another nameserver/run your own. That was not really an option with sitefinder

  2. The submitter confuses DNS and HTTP errors by thetorpedodog · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Cablevision and Road Runner services both only hijack DNS no-such-domain errors, not HTTP 404s. Neither is a good thing, but hijacking DNS is much less insidious than the deep-packet inspection or mandatory proxying required to hijack 404 errors.

    --
    This sig is certified free of self-referential humour!
  3. No, they didn't by schon · · Score: 5, Informative

    New Jersey's Cablevision Hijacks 404 Error Pages

    No, they didn't.

    If the submitter had read the summary, they would know that it's DNS errors that are being hijacked, not 404s.

    It's an important difference - 404 means that they are transparently proxying your connections, which can cause problems with various sites (and that they are recording every URL you visit.)

    For example: http://slashdot.org/akasjdflkasdjfl;kajsdl;aksdjfkdjkfdjlkjsdf would not be affected by this, whereas http://sslashhdot.org/ would.

    Is it *too* much to ask that a technical news site present technical articles correctly?

  4. I love /. by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I love it when an editor or story writer makes a technical error on /. You can actually hear the simultaneous erections of a thousand anal-retentive techies, each typing as fast as they can without even bothering to check if their fellow anal-retentives hadn't already pointed the same thing out in dozens of posts. It's the best sexual gratification most of them are going to get all day.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.