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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."
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.
"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
The argument will be that since they run Redhat it's not considered open source or freeware, even though it is a Linux distribution that is proprietary.
It is easy enough to prove that Red Hat is open source, the problem is that the "repeat the press release" standard of journalism of the article that accepts any assertion made by an interviewee or a press release as fact.
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!
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!"
That's why we have bloggers, right? Journalists are paid to copy-paste from press released, while bloggers derive their satisfaction from actually reading between the lines / further than the press release (that is, of course, generally speaking; there is at least some good investigative journalism left).
I just had a great example of this in my mailbox. A press release from a storage company announcing a new trade-in program; it's amazing how many websites just copy-pasted the cheerful announcement without mentioning they are facing a delisting from the NASDAQ or any other useful background info. Examples like this keep popping up, it makes you wonder about Murdoch's plans to charge for that "premium" content...
Because that's the job of a reporter -- to investigate, analyse, interpret and explain the information. Otherwise, the reporter is adding no value and simple economic theory would suggest that his/her job should disappear.
And newspaper owners wonder why they are losing business?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
That answer just pisses me off.
If I have a secret way of blocking a hacker...
Right. That sounds like an awesome idea. How useful is that "secret" if the customer knows about it? It needs to be documented in that case, which means everyone knows about it, which means it's another attack surface. Plus, there must be a way of turning that feature back off.
If the customer doesn't know about it. It's only a matter of time before said hacker finds out about it, cause it will get out there. It also means that anyone who works (and worked for) said vendor can exploit that feature for their own purposes. The customer who paid for the software is just left out in the cold. Good job there. Sounds like an excellent reason to not use open code.
Well done Nominum...
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.
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