Bell Starts Hijacking NX Domain Queries

inject_hotmail.com writes "Bell Canada started hijacking non-existent domains (in the same manner as Rogers), redirecting NX-response queries to themselves, of course. Before opting-out, you get their wonderfully self-promoting and self-serving search page. When you 'opt-out,' your browser receives a cookie (isn't that nice) that tells them that you don't want the search page. It will still use their broken DNS server's non-NX response, but it will show a 'Domain Not Found' mock-up page that they (I surmise) tailor to your browser-agent string. During the opt-out process, they claim to be interested in feedback, but provide no method on that page (or any other page within the 'domainnotfound.ca' site) to contact them with complaints. They note that opting-in is 'recommended' (!), and that 'In order for opt-out to work properly, you need to accept a "cookie" indicating that you have opted out of this service. If you use a program that removes cookies, you will have to repeat this opt-out process when the cookie is deleted. The cookie placed on your computer will contain the site name: "www.domainnotfound.ca."' Unfortunately most Bell Internet users won't understand the difference between their true NX domain response, and Bell's injected NX response."

Comments

At least their search page suggest s a solution

[Man Eating Duck]

The first hit for me is the wonderful errornerd.com, which can fix these errors if you download their registry utility.
They can even fix a host of other errors, even 404s and errornerd.com is a fraud errors.

Re:From a typical web surfer's point of view

[shinmai]

A really douchy, I mean helpful, move by Bell would be to have every conceivable service running on the machine these DNS queries are redirected to, that would be configured to somehow convey the fact that the queried server doesn't exist, and possibly to display some ads. Like if a person tries to check for their email from IMAP the server would blindly accept any login credentials and return a mailbox with one mail with the subject "Invalid domain" and some adverts as contents. An SMB share would have folders named "Invalid" and "Domain". The possibilities are endless. Think of how convenient and helpful this would be.