Slashdot Mirror
Nominum Calls Open Source DNS "a Recipe For Problems"
Raindeer writes "Commercial DNS software provider Nominum, in an effort to promote its new cloud-based DNS service, SKYE, has slandered all open source/freeware DNS packages. It said: 'Given all the nasty things that have happened this year, freeware is a recipe for problems, and it's just going to get worse. ... So, whether it's Eircom in Ireland or a Brazilian ISP that was attacked earlier this year, all of them were using some variant of freeware. Freeware is not akin to malware, but is opening up those customers to problems.' This has the DNS community fuming. Especially when you consider that Nominum was one of the companies affected by the DNS cache poisoning problem of last year, something PowerDNS, MaraDNS and DJBDNS (all open source) weren't vulnerable to."
I hope he doesn't run any Linux distributions in his company, at all. That would make him a hypocrite.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Linux seems to be fine for them to run their web server.
sig: sauer
Yeah, because the poster child of closed source - Windows - is *so* secure...
I resent that, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Windows is the most secure system in the entire world as long as you leave the system unplugged from the network and inside of a Faraday cage. With the USB ports disabled and no CD-ROM/Floppy drive. And armed guards at the door.
It's a feasible option for any business.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I'll sum up their argument: We use security through obscurity, and that makes us better. You should pay us for that. Also, when we say "cloud-based," we really just mean "in our data centers." They're really abusing the definition of cloud computing, just because it's the current profit-generating buzzword.
SIG: HUP
I resent that, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Windows is the most secure system in the entire world as long as you leave the system unplugged from the network and inside of a Faraday cage. With the USB ports disabled and no CD-ROM/Floppy drive. And armed guards at the door. It's a feasible option for any business.
Until you turn it on...
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I resent that, Mr. Anonymous Coward. Windows is the most secure system in the entire world as long as you leave the system unplugged from the network and inside of a Faraday cage. With the USB ports disabled and no CD-ROM/Floppy drive. And armed guards at the door.
It's a feasible option for any business.
Until you turn it on...
I NEVER TOLD YOU TO DO THAT! YOU'VE DOOMED US ALL!
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I don't know about you, but any company that feels the only way they can sell their product is to basically slander their competitors isn't likely to get my attention. As it is, and as much of a pain in the ass as Bind can be, I have yet to encounter anything quite as powerful as Bind9. It's certainly not without flaws, but after having had to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft's DNS, anyone who comes up to me and says "Oh yeah, those open source DNS servers are the lesser products" is either a liar or a moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
... how can you trust these guys to write your DNS software? They're the very guys who were contracted to write Bind9, the foremost open source domain name server, which they're now complaining about.
And, from TFA:
Reconcile THAT little gem with support for closed source software.
...proprietary software company says you should buy their product instead of using something else.
I'm shocked, I tell you. Just shocked.
"But it is opening up these customers to problems." Nice, textbook FUD/propaganda. Put the thought out there. Deflect attention from your own failings. Lump all 'freeware' DNS into the same basket. Call it 'freeware' instead of Open Source to link it to badly written DOS/Windows programs. Wow, this company is sleazy. It would be such poetic justice for some grey hat hackers to take these goons down.
Open source DNS is tried and true, everyone uses it. No one was ever fired for installing BIND. This new flash in the pan company has been hacked before, how long until they are hacked again? Why trust your DNS to some untested startup using inappropriate buzzwords like 'cloud computing?' Why pay for what you can get for free? Why outsource your DNS to someone who may or may not be here tomorrow? Heh. We can play at the FUD game, too.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I have some familiarity with SRD/IPRD and I have to say that I'm not very impressed with Nominum.
Single-user root admin in our deployment and a hideous java/windows front end for end-users... One which is so crappy we don't deploy.
Their training is USAstyle puppy mill powerpoint demos running on virtual machines.
Couple that with the fact that they were subject to the same DNS exploits as some of the "vendors" they are trashing in the article and I just think...
Man, what a bunch of ass hats spinning market droid fluff. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
(The views expressed in this post are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.)
You really do need to look under the hood and kick the tyres. Maybe it's a Ferrari on the outside, but it could be an Austin Maxi on the inside.
He contradicts himself, he tells you to kick the tyres and look under the hood, and then touts his product which he explicitly states won't let you look under the hood...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The summary says " Nominum was one of the companies affected by the DNS cache poisoning problem of last year".
But in the interview, I just read this:
See? The summary can't be right.
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
1970 called: they want their "Security Thru Obscurity" argument back.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Have you ever even used Bind9? Yes, it's got a few hangovers from the olden days, but it is was damned powerful piece of software. Bind9 views are pretty much the most powerful networking server software component I've ever used. When I was the network admin for a small ISP, we had three separate WiFi networks that, because of the idiosyncrasies of the proprietary technology, each needed customized zones, as well as a Server 2000 AD network, and I was able to run all of them on a single set of Bind9 servers, as well as our public DNS servers for the domains we hosted. It took a bit of work to get it there (though not that much, like anything, it's more just getting used to the nomenclature).
As I recall, you can even plug an RDBMS like MySQL into it if that's how you want to manage your zones, though to be honest, I never much saw the point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I have the same problem with using local butchers. They buy their meat on the open market, and it is possible to track that meat down to the farm where the cow came from. Those cows are kept outdoors, where anyone can see them. Lord knows what toxins people might be injecting into those cows.
That's why I only eat meat from MeatCorp. All of MeatCorp's meat is made behind closed doors, in a giant, guarded metal building. Nobody knows what happens inside, and that makes me feel safe when I eat MeatCorp brand Meat Circles.
Yo Nominum, im really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but microsoft is one of the best trolls of all time!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Isn't Nominum that company that was formed about ten years ago for the purpose of developing the open source BIND and DHCP for ISC?
Yeah, these guys.
And now they're turning around and saying "Don't use that open source BIND because it's crap. We should know, we wrote it!"
We have heard that tired, old argument before, a few idiot CIOs will swallow it, happy to pay top dollar for something that the free s/ware does better. Let them, as long as Nominum sticks to the RFCs and doesn't fork the spec - we don't care.
Do not fume about it. Do not rage on a forum about it. Do not send you buddy and e-mail pointing out the stupidity of their comments. Make a press release containing the facts and release it.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
If you've ever had the pleasure of actually seeing a quote from Nominum, you'll see why they're so down on 'freeware'.
Nominum's DNS software is extremely (and I mean VERY) expensive. For anyone. And I don't just mean it's hundreds or thousands of dollars. It's HUNDREDS _OF_ THOUSANDS of dollars for even a few licenses.
I suspect sales are down (in these uncertain economic times *cough*) so slandering the competition (errrmmm... how do you compete with free?) is apparently the current marketing strategy.
Happily, this interview/article makes me dislike them and their products even more than I already did.
Nothing too serious, probably a prank from some bored employees at the time. We asked some of the Nominum people what they were up to, since we'd been receiving packets that caused PowerDNS to crash from Nominum IP space.
I seem to recall one of their (ex-)employees eventually even told us which bug they had been triggering.
I don't for a moment believe this was a Nominum-sanctioned activity.
But this is all way back in the mists of time, the beginning of 2002.
Bert
(PowerDNS)
security by obscurity = automatic EPIC FAIL.
I won't be using nominum services, even if there's a free version. That's a confession of incompetence.
Tech Public Policy stuff