The Five Levels of ISP Evil

schwit1 writes "Recently a number of ISPs have been caught improperly redirecting end-user traffic in order to generate affiliate payments, using a system from Paxfire. A class action lawsuit has been filed against Paxfire and one of the ISPs. This is a serious allegation, but it's the tip of the iceberg. I'm not sure if everyone understands the levels of sneakiness that service providers can engage in."

Comments

Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[DoofusOfDeath]

If so, where do I sign on to the lawsuit for fraud?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[greenbird]

If so, where do I sign on to the lawsuit for fraud?

Too late. The "Open Government" Obama administration has already granted them immunity, including retroactive immunity, for any illegal spying. The one big thing I was hoping for from Obama was to roll back some of the grosser programs put in place in violation of 1st and 4th amendments by the Bush administration. Instead his administration has taken them WAY farther. It's getting to the point of approaching gross violations of the Constitution by Lincoln during the American Civil War. But at least Lincoln had the excuse of a civil war to contend with. Obama and the morons in Congress are doing primarily to line there pockets with money from corporate interest.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[medcalf]

Verizon FIOS (residential, at least) redirects to Paxfire on mistyped domains.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[turkeyfeathers]

Sorry, all Verizon customers have agreed to binding arbitration. No lawsuits for you, sucker.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's immunity from charges that they cooperated with government spying without a warrant.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with "redirecting end-user traffic in order to generate affiliate payments". The government is not involved in that, did not ask the ISPs to do that, and offers no immunity to prosecution from that.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I've read that binding-arbitration contracts can sometimes be successfully challenged in cases of fraud.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm curious what it would take to lead to another revolution. Are the same people who get pissed off about corporate control of government, the same people who would take up arms to stop it? And would a revolution even change anything, if most citizens' eyes just glaze over on any topic like this?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[jhoegl]

Cox has its own redirection.

Easily fixed by putting in 4.4.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 into your DNS servers.

However, this seems more invasive and abusive.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Ironchew]

I'm curious what it would take to lead to another revolution. Are the same people who get pissed off about corporate control of government, the same people who would take up arms to stop it? And would a revolution even change anything, if most citizens' eyes just glaze over on any topic like this?

Count me out of an armed revolt. Too much bloodshed, and it creates more problems than it solves.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[allo]

8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are the google dns servers

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[The Grim Reefer2]

I'm curious what it would take to lead to another revolution. Are the same people who get pissed off about corporate control of government, the same people who would take up arms to stop it? And would a revolution even change anything, if most citizens' eyes just glaze over on any topic like this?

I've often wondered the same thing, especially as of late. Sadly, I think as long as the majority has 200 channels of shit to watch on television, they will remain placated. Besides, all you have to do is turn on any of the dozen or so "news" channels to understand how wrong you are. Only crazy ass militia types would talk like that. ;-)

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Dunbal]

Count me out of an armed revolt. Too much bloodshed, and it creates more problems than it solves.

Only because you're still in the comfort zone created by the bread and circuses. But that's ok they are going to erode a little more of your rights every year, until finally you won't care about shedding blood anymore. Revolution happens when the people would rather be dead than live under such conditions. Today people are still willing to live under these conditions - indeed the US is still much better than "those other places". However there are those of us that still remember that it was much better than it is today. It's only a matter of time.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Ironchew]

Armed revolt is messy, indiscriminate, and has a pitifully high probability of installing authoritarian regimes. I am under no illusion that it would lead to a "better" way of living if I manage to survive it. Contrary to what fearmongers would have you think, the United States still has a bit of democracy left, and it is easier to make the public politically active than it is to fight a civil war with no end in sight.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

Looking at known history of mankind, I think it's pretty safe to bet at least 100:1 against you. Sadly.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[del_diablo]

Does there exist other quality public DNS servers somewhere?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Samantha Wright]

Everybody loves OpenDNS?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[circletimessquare]

a random troll's knowledge of history isn't much of a bet

the system is compromised, but it's still better to work through the remaining portions of the system than embrace light headed fantasies of armed revolt, which is WAY worse than anything currently happening to the usa

looking forward to violence shows someone to be just as bad or worse than the forces currently hurting american institutions

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[muindaur]

Or in cases where the contract is one sided, such as most service contracts with corporations. It just takes a good business lawyer to make that right argument to get binding arbitration voided based on precedent.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[SomePgmr]

However there are those of us that still remember that it was much better than it is today. It's only a matter of time.

Oh I dunno. I'm no historian, but I see plenty of examples of domestic spying, nasty foreign politics, corporate greed, etc. from well before I was born that make today's US look like a hippie love-in. Not that I'm complaining.

I'd say we're getting better all the time, just like most every other place. We're just more likely to be pissed about current events... so we perceive things as worse, even when they're not.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[asdf7890]

Doesn't OpenDNS return bogus results for what should be NXDOMAIN responses? http://www.opendns.com/home/basic/ suggests so with "The customizable OpenDNS Guide page appears when you try to access a non-existent website and displays relevant search results to help you get where you want to go" and no hint that it can be turned off (at least on the basic account).

I've been using Google's DNS service (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) since a little problem with my last ISP's servers one day last year, and they honour NXDOMAIN correctly.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

Open ANY history book that looks at more then a few years of history. Start reading. You'll find that regardless of the focus of said book, one thing will always be a constant: the never ending cycle of concentrating power in fewer and fewer hands, followed by bloody revolution that redistributes power into much larger amount of hands, following by once again concentrating the power in the hands of a few.

This is a constant for human society from tribal ages. We're talking tens of thousands years at LEAST. The form that power takes has been changing over time, but the way it works, the way it's used and the way it's distributed has not. To break this cycle, you'd need a completely new sociological approach - something humanity has not been able to develop throughout its history, and not for a lack of trying. I think 100:1 for status quo is a very safe bet here, and even something in realm of 10000:1 would still be pretty safe seeing just how little we have progressed in terms of actual sociological basis for our thinking from stone age. Bloodless wealth redistribution revolutions largely do not work simply because those in power will be willing to shed blood to keep the power.

Essentially your only real claim is that we're simply not at the point where it would benefit enough people to revolt, and here we will easily agree - the real argument here would be that we've passed the crossroads where we could try something new instead of the cycle as there is now enough power in few enough hands to render further concentration of power unstoppable in practice.

Your claim doesn't really address the cycle of concentration of power, nor the inevitable bloody redistribution once the critical point is passed. It only claims that we're not beyond the point where revolution becomes easily visible. In this regard, USA is no different then hundreds of other empires that existed throughout the history.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[quaero_notitia]

For a U.S. citizen it's jail time. This is what the Hutaree militia will get for conspiring to commit rebellion against the government. Remain content that the information your ISP provides you is accurate and chosen to fit your interest profile.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/crime/hutaree-militia-trial-may-be-delayed-until-2012/

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[del_diablo]

1. What is the DNS adress for openDNS?
2. Their site is filled with "learn more" and "registrate", don't it seem like another money grabbing spam site to you?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could do a movie about pessimistic zombies. That would be great.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[nweaver]

Verizon does NOT use Paxfire to redirect search requests through proxies.

The full list of ISPs we've observed doing this proxying is Here.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[AwesomeMcgee]

Count me out of an armed revolt. Too much bloodshed, and it creates more problems than it solves.

Only because you're still in the comfort zone created by the bread and circuses. But that's ok they are going to erode a little more of your rights every year, until finally you won't care about shedding blood anymore. Revolution happens when the people would rather be dead than live under such conditions. Today people are still willing to live under these conditions - indeed the US is still much better than "those other places". However there are those of us that still remember that it was much better than it is today. It's only a matter of time.

Comfort zone perhaps, I think the real step back from violence happens when you have children though. I remember entertaining fanciful ideas of saying eff it back in the day, but I have responsibilities now. Let them erode my rights untill the crazy buggers like you take up arms, I'll have my wife and child on the first boat out and hope y'all make something worth coming back to.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Samantha Wright]

1. In the footer of every page: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. You don't need to register or anything like that to actually use it.
2. It is a little weird that way, and as asdf7890 noted, they even do NXDOMAIN redirects. But I think their benefits (here) have to be weighed against that. Being up-front about their business model can't be ignored, either.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Samantha Wright]

While it is ironic that I'd suggest a company that would earn 5 evil points if they were an ISP, I think it's a lot more tolerable when an independent company does it, and makes it clear that the ad revenue on search pages is their main source of income. Also, they have typo-correction stuff in place (in which case you'd never see an ad!), which I think has to be considered as well. If I had to pick a DNS service that toyed with data, I'd probably pick OpenDNS. *shrug* It's just the second-best I could think of.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[neo8750]

I was willing to listen to your side till you made that post in that format. Like really how the hell am i to follow that screwed up format? there is a preview button use it and make your post readable and ill read it...

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[nog_lorp]

Who is the troll now? Jesus man, at the very least address some of his claims amidst your ad homina and straw man "you are just a hopeless pessimist" bullshit.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[nog_lorp]

Bullshit! Domestic spying worse than data mining central internet hubs, before there was an internet?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[circletimessquare]

if you

don't want

to read

my words

i don't

fucking care

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[circletimessquare]

i did address his claims: i denied he has a grasp on the subject matter he chooses to comment on

if you involve yourself in commenting on history, and you don't see that progress is real (but obviously difficult), then whether through blindness, agenda, prejudice, bias, or simple lack of intellectual capacity, your comments are invalid

well, in that respect, you are right: i didn't address his claims

i rejected his entire understanding of the subject matter

pessimism is essentially helplessness. plenty of people live their lives in learned helplessness: that classic psychological test where they kept zapping dogs at random whether or not they successfully jumped to the other side of the cage. pretty soon, the dog just laid down and accepted his shocks: learned helplessness

you see this basic pessimism and learned helplessness in tons of people, not the just guy i am responding to. it is the mentality of the slave. an acceptance that nothing gets better, everything is stasis. "the master always wins. history teaches us nothing gets better"

bullshit! not because i say so, but because the historical record is clear: voting rights, the rise of the middle class, equal rights for women, abolition of slavery, etc: progress is real

but beyond all of that, i don't see how agreeing with the mentality of a slave is supposed to help us in our fight against corrupting forces in our democracy. and the guy am i responding to, by seeing nothing but stasis

1. doesn't understand history
2. is a pessimist. whose thought processes therefore only accepts the status of being beaten. no, unacceptable

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[RobNich]

4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
(These are Level 3's.)

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Sadly, I think as long as the majority has 200 channels of shit to watch on television, they will remain placated.

Are you one of the placated?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Gorshkov]

J Edgar Hoover. 'nuff said.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

You forgot the extremely obvious #3: A realist with solid grasp on history and no illusions in line with "humanity is great force for good, and democracy is the best ruling system ever!".

Humans certainly have a great degree of control of how they live their own lives. By extension all but very few on top have any control over how world works, just like a grand machine doesn't really get a major impact if one of atoms that form it's structure suddenly dies to radioactive decay.
I'm not certain how you can "reject my understanding of subject matter" when your entire argument is essentially summed in these words: "I _believe_ it will be different this time".
You have NOTHING to base this belief on except belief itself. I have several thousands of years of DOCUMENTED history to back mine, and several tens of thousands of assumed history based on significant amount of evidence and not really countered by any decent historian.

Let me give you a great example, based on your claims of our "major achievements" on just how ridiculous your beliefs are in light of history: "women can vote. slavery is abolished. the middle class has risen to take power".

Yet we have:
1. Constant reports of legitimized slavery in Western countries by UN which has taken forms of everything from prostitution to working for essentially no wages (also look at 3.). Even more outside Western countries. Religious communities which have essentially slaves under different names. Etc.

2. Women voting rights (and rights in general) are still far below those of men in vast majority of the world (read: everywhere, but the gap differs based on location). In the west, any improvements of right of women are massively fleeting and directly linked to financial superiority over other regions. In has been systemically observed that when crises hit, women are the first to get laid off to stay home with children. In many countries, including but not limited to Germany, France and Japan women are culturally EXPECTED to leave work to have children and then stay home with them if their husband makes enough money. It is also observed that empowered women have significantly lower birth rate, essentially getting squeezed out over generations by those in more "traditional" circumstances who have much better birth rate. There is a very good example of this in modern Israel, high birth rate of orthodox jews in comparison to general populace has taken their marginal political power and turned them into a powerhouse - they now have a foreign minister who is a member of their party, and somewhere between 15 and 20% of soldiers drafted into army are now treating the Palestine conflict as a "holy war" rather then "war for survival".
As a result, any advanced made in this field can be maintained only as long as financial superiority holds. When reset happens (looking at many African countries with their constant revolutions is a great example) women are very quickly pushed back into traditional roles.

3. Middle class rise to power is absolutely nothing new. For example that's how Rome was built. In this regard, it also makes a great example on how Rome collapsed: middle class was slowly pushed out of power by slaves on working front from below, and squeezed dry by rich class from above. We have essentially the same socioeconomic situation brewing in the West as we speak, with cheap gastarbeiters working slave wages and hours destroying middle class from below, while rich class continues the financial squeeze from above shrinking the middle class. Just like it happened in Rome. And when middle class finally cannot take the strain and shrinks too far, modern West will likely join Rome in the history books as yet another empire that got killed not by outside forces, but simply rot from inside and collapsed on itself.

On the last note: our argument is likely pointless. You have very little facts available to support your hypothesis of "optimistic outcome" of modern Western empire(s) - the likelihood of me missing any historic evidence on th

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[shentino]

OpenDNS is opt in.

Which means that if they suck you don't have to do business with them.

I avoid them because I prefer pure DNS, but I don't despise them because they don't force you to use them.

Your ISP on the other hand is the gatekeeper between your computer and the rest of the internet. They have omnipotent power to fuck with your traffic as they damn please. MY ISP, charter, interferes with NXDOMAIN responses, so I use google's DNS. Fortunately, they don't also block outbound DNS like my college's wireless does.

In theory competition would make them think twice about it but thanks to the monopoly infested internet access market they have no incentive to be reasonable.

Hell, Monticello even tried to be nice and make it a public utility that multiple ISPs could compete for service over.

TDS sued them and got the construction bonds locked up in escrow, and even more sinister, while they had the city hogtied in court they went out and built the network themselves, using the lawsuit as nothing more than a stalling tactic while they went out and hogged the market for themselves.

The city wound up winning the lawsuit but thanks to being hogtied at the starting gate they never had a chance to even win the race.

It's akin to the tortoise winning the race by accusing the hare of using steroids, and while the hare's being detained by the referees getting a blood test the tortoise is already on the track plodding along. By the time the hare finally gets to run the track the tortoise has already crossed the finish line.

I wonder how many evil points you get for abusing legal process to stifle competition?

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[causality]

Cox has its own redirection. Easily fixed by putting in 4.4.4.4 and 8.8.8.8 into your DNS servers. However, this seems more invasive and abusive.

Running your own caching resolver is really not difficult. Personally I use Unbound but there is no shortage of choices.

I do need my ISP to provide me with a pipe and an IP address. That's inherent in the arrangement. But everywhere I have a choice in the matter, I see no good reason to depend on them to do the right thing. They obviously have multiple temptations to do otherwise.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[causality]

2. It is a little weird that way, and as asdf7890 noted, they even do NXDOMAIN redirects. But I think their benefits (here) have to be weighed against that. Being up-front about their business model can't be ignored, either.

What's a little weird is that someone who wants parental controls and anti-phishing features really believes that DNS is the very best way to accomplish that. Those sound like features you'd roll out on your household/instutional LAN without breaking RFC on relatively basic protocols like DNS.

All I want DNS to do is return the IP address for a given hostname, or an NXDOMAIN if that hostname does not exist. You know, just those things it was designed and intended to do. Anything else is beyond the scope of DNS.

If you are worried about phishing, the solution is to stop giving your account information to every unverifiable random stranger who asks for it. Seriously if you can't understand why that's a bad idea, and really have no clue/savvy/street-wisdom about these matters, you have far bigger problems than a new DNS service is going to solve. If you are worried about parental controls, the solution is to be involved in your childrens' lives and teach them what is and is not acceptable, and perhaps if you think it is appropriate to install software designed for this purpose that manages to accomplish its tasks without usurping DNS (if they can defeat those, they can also change the default DNS server so no, OpenDNS is not a magic substitute for being a parent either).

I mean if you think OpenDNS is greater than sliced bread by all means use it. Your decision to use it meets the minimum standard for decency in that it does not affect my experience against my will. Nor am I trying to tell you that you shouldn't use OpenDNS. It's just that the whole "managed experience" deal never appealed to me, no matter what the subject is, no matter who does the managing. It most strongly appeals to those who want someone else to worry about what are really their own problems and are willing to cede to third parties the tremendous level of trust/influence this type of solution requires.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[SomePgmr]

You don't want to use OpenDNS. They don't function like proper DNS (which they ARE honest about). It causes a number of problems besides just hijacking bad browser requests. If you're concerned about the Google addresses above (which do work properly) you can search for a list of public dns servers. There are lots.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[rtb61]

The armed revolt does not start overnight, generally it springs from a rising death toll at peaceful protest. You read those mass media news reports, were some arse hat commenter reports, that riots resulted in the deaths of ten people. Of course that all those ten people were unarmed and kill by the police, some shot and others beaten to death, gets buried on the back pages. As soon as the numbers get high enough and enough families join the mourners, those that are doing the killing become targets for revenge. So it is just escalation of violence, rather than engagement and trying to solve the problems.

A natural result of narcissistic politicians. They are the leader, a perfect leader, how dare anybody disobey them. So when they issue orders to control the protesters, who then become rioters rioters in the politicians head is a loud voice screaming "how dare they disobey me, kill them, kill them all" over and over again. So any orders or directives they issue, regardless of the lies of corrupted mass media are all about re-establishing the power of corrupted politicians not about re-establishing peace and prosperity.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[greenbird]

Might as well be a new meme for the crazies such as yourself who just toss the name around and don't even know what you're whining about.

Yeah, I know. Crazies like me never know what they're talking about.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Runaway1956]

And would a revolution even change anything, if most citizens' eyes just glaze over on any topic like this?

That is the question I've asked myself many times. Look around the world, where revolutions have taken place. I like Latin America and the Banana Republics, as an example. They have a revolution, then two years later, another, then 5 years later, yet another. No one learns, no one cares, and nothing changes, nothing improves. Injustices are never addressed, no wrongs are ever righted.

Would I take up arms? As a veteran, I can most definitely say that "Yes, I would bear arms in defense of my country, and my constitution!" But, I look around, and ask, "Why?" The sheep are content, after all. They seem to be happy with the parasites.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

Actually bloody revolution has almost always been a part of it, and in the past has been relatively more bloody due to people being much more accustomed to death. Especially back when medicine was in it's infancy, and predators still ate people in significant numbers. The thing with modern West, is that it'll far more likely go down the route of Rome, with slow, rotting collapse on itself. The bloody part will then come when division has been clear enough and people will start fighting each other for scraps, or when outsiders simply come and pillage/extract revenge on it, just like it happened in Rome.

Honestly though, I don't understand why people look at this as a purely bad thing. The cycle of death and rebirth is essentially a part of nature itself, as old must die to make way for new. USA wouldn't have been born if not for a bloody war against colonial masters. USA and modern West wouldn't have a French Revolution-style constitution without bloody French Revolution and it's revolutionaries. From the ashes of old, new empire always rises, and in many cases it brings humanity forward in the process.

The only people who can view this cycle as "pessimistic" are ones who know that they are on the "winning" side now and are very likely to be on "losing side" when wealth re-balancing will happen. It's worth noting that in general when such re-balancing happens, vast majority of people benefit from it in the long run, and losers are in a very small minority due to concentration of wealth and power.

Which is why I agree with the argument that we're still very far from the critical point in the cycle. We're fairly clearly headed there, but we're still likely decades away at least.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[asdf7890]

OpenDNS is opt in.
Which means that if they suck you don't have to do business with them.

Which is fair point for the most part. The features they add to the breaking of NXDOMAIN (typo correction and such) might be useful to some people, which is worth considering. Though that doesn't alter the fact that not passing on the NXDOMAIN response is RFC ignorant and may break other things while fixing your typos, so users opting in should be informed to limit tech support problems elsewhere.

Also I believe some small ISPs use them as the default for their users to avoid a little bit of infrastructure cost running their own caching resolver, which means for those users it is not opt-in (though opting out is easy enough if the ISP doesn't block or redirect DNS requests to other hosts).

I avoid them because I prefer pure DNS, but I don't despise them because they don't force you to use them.

I avoid them because I prefer correct DNS, tohugh I inderstand that some people will find the features they add by breaking the system useful and may never experience the breakage possible as a consequence. One of these days I'll have to take a browse of their documentation to see if they have any info on diagnosing problems that could be caused by an NXDOMAIN being translated into something else.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[kermidge]

Um, guys, interesting 'discussion.' I like ping pong and all. Can't help but see a tad much either-or stuff going on, tho. Are there other possibles? For that matter, what of scope? The Singularity, or whathaveyou? Where and what and who will our species be or become, should we prosper, in 10k years? 100k?

I suppose if there's one constant in the thread it's that people will try to be free of irksome constraints.

Buckminster Fuller once mused that if indeed there was some purpose for intelligence in Universe that it might be to counteract entropy. He didn't claim it to be so, but thought it interesting enough to be going on with.

Cheers.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[neo8750]

key thing is i was willing to listen to your senseless dribble on the topic you just lack the skill to make it so i want to....

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Aighearach]

If you don't want to read my suggestion that you utilize capitalization and punctuation, I don't care.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Aighearach]

Hear ye, hear ye!

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Aighearach]

Tada! It is almost like magic, the way a few electro-chemical reactions churn out a logic observation!

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Aighearach]

Only because you're still in the comfort zone created by the bread and circuses.

How does being a zone make it any less comfortable?

Earth is a comfort zone, too.

As is the Sun.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Aighearach]

slight typo, missing an "in" but the way I actually wrote it still works.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[youngone]

That sounds more like a Civil War than a Revolution. I would imagine that there would be armed opposition to any attempt at an overthrow of the government. Might even wind up worse that the last one, if it turned into state v state again.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[kermidge]

Yup. I guess that's my point, tho: there are possibles we can surmise, those we can imagine, and those we haven't concepts for to be put into words - in some fashion it's wide open.

Question remains, of course: will we (whoever we may be) be free? Of what? From whom? To do or be what?

I can easily dig a fair degree of cynicism and mordancy - at 64, some of the current crap, just like even the little historic crap I've lived through, is wearing. OTOH, there are many interesting and good people doing interesting and good things. [cf. Shaw's def of a cynic, perhaps by way of Ambrose Bierce]

I've been involved here and there with similar discussions; they bring to mind a graffito I first saw in a stall in a second-floor men's room at MSU library circa '68:

To be is to do.
      - Socrates

To do is to be.
      - Descartes

Do be do be do.
      - Sinatra

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

You should open one of those history books before you slander them like that. Wars themselves, while interesting, tend to be far less interesting then events leading to them, and events following them.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

Prior to antibiotics, more people died from wound infection and various diseases in wars then from actual trauma of the wounds - this has to do with effectiveness of weapons of that time and massive lack of even rudimentary understanding of proper medicine (back then leeches cured EVERYTHING). That said, wars tended to be a whole lot more cruel as well, because "killing all men and enslaving all women (and sometimes salting the land)" was pretty much a norm when conquering. Hell, Nuremburg showed that most military officers in WW2 time still viewed atrocities committed by all sides as "normal acts of war" (yes, including death camps and Nanjing). It's the civilian part of the court and politicians as well as soldiers who weren't high up in hierarchy who were horrified and/or who saw that material as useful propaganda tool that insisted on that being "inhuman", and that certainly ended up being a good thing (for us) in the end.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[mjwx]

Looking at known history of mankind, I think it's pretty safe to bet at least 100:1 against you. Sadly.

Armed rebellion removed the French monarch and installed...

Armed rebellion removed the Russian Czar and installed...

The list goes on but you get the point. Taking a cursory look at history, we'll find more harm then good has come from armed rebellion. More often then not, you remove one tyrant to replace him with another.

Add to this the long term destructive issues. What the glorified history books you've read dont say is how economies are destroyed during rebellions. Do you think once you've managed to hang a few politicians everything goes back to normal? Lenin had this problem as they killed most of the decision makers, Napoleon had a navy of fail because he killed most of the captains (They were monarchists) and both had no-one to take over. Even the US had a heap of problems in it's early years.

Armed rebellions fail more often then not as well, what would be happening in Libya if the Europeans hadn't intervened. The Northern alliance fought for years against the Taliban and got nowhere.

Rebellion is an absolute last resort. The only people who treat it otherwise are people with an agenda, I.E. future tin pot dictators.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[mjwx]

However there are those of us that still remember that it was much better than it is today. It's only a matter of time.

Oh I dunno. I'm no historian, but I see plenty of examples of domestic spying, nasty foreign politics, corporate greed, etc. from well before I was born that make today's US look like a hippie love-in.

Indeed, you dont have a McCarthy at the moment, as hard as some might be trying.

Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it?

[Luckyo]

It's worth noting that in both examples you site, the result was FAR better for nation as a whole then cause. In case of French revolution, "let them eat cake", in case of Russian it removed a czar that essentially wasn't ruling the country, and it was literally being eaten alive by nobles fighting each other.

French revolution gave us modern democracy and bill of rights, Russian revolution spawned an empire that was #2 in the world during industrial age from ashes of a broken, poor rural country.

Had a chance at First Post

[ZephyrQ]

But decided that I had nothing really pertinent to say--ISPs doing evil? That ranks up there with Banks collecting money and M$ collecting technology--happens every day but no one really cares unless it hurts them directly... ...huh, guess I did have something to say...

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[darrylo]

Are people somehow missing the point??? The article was written by the CEO of an ISP that is NOT doing those things (they're also not doing usage caps, which people would discover if they read the other blog posts -- see Mar 23).

(Disclaimer: they're also my ISP. They're amazingly clueful, and will even give their subscribers a limited shell account, although you do have to ask for it. It's great for an ssh web proxy, to help prevent hijackings at public wifi access points. )

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[RubberChainsaw]

Concur. Sonic.net is a great ISP. It is one of the few remaining ISPs that don't screw the customer. I was very sad when I had to give up their service due to relocation.

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[darrylo]

Yeah, I've always been impressed that their MOTD is on their main page.

(Yow, just noticed that they have a graph showing support call wait times on their contact page. If that doesn't say something about their customer support, I don't know what does.)

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[Alex Zepeda]

I was going to mention something along the lines of "well MY ISP sent me an e-mail referring me to an EFF article about privacy," and then I read your post (who reads TFA anymore?). Yeah, Sonic's pretty damn not-evil (for now?) and their support is about the best of any company in any industry I've had to deal with. I don't even bother looking at the call wait because the longest I've ever been on hold has been about 10 minutes. Not that I've been in a position to call them terribly often.

BTW you don't need a shell account to prevent hijackings because you get free Cisco VPN access with Sonic too. And you don't need to ask for it either.

Crap. Am I gushing? I guess I'm just that glad I don't have to deal with either AT&T or Comcast on any level for phone service or internet access. I do miss two things from AT&T though: 311 access and per-call outgoing caller ID blocking (*67/*82).

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[GNious]

I doubt that the ISP I use (Belgacom) is doing Evil Stuff(tm) - They are simply too incompetent to manage basic things, let alone Evil Things.

Re:Had a chance at First Post

[lee1]

They're obviously a class act. Which means they don't deserve to be baldy plagiarised, which was done by the story submitter and Slashdot.

Quick summary:

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your ISP is, should it be in their financial interest, the 'man in the middle'. Every attack that involves one of those could involve them. Game over.

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya - fuck you too! how easy is it to find an alternate ISP you moron

Charter definitelly does something like that

[aeoo]

I'm on Charter and I've most definitely been randomly redirected to Charter's internal search page for no good reason. The last example of this I definitely remember is when I tried to visit www.gimp.org and instead I was sent to Charter's search page. Charter's search then displayed www.gimp.org as one of the search results. When I clicked on the search result I was sent to www.gimp.org without any further issues. This tells me there is no technical difficulty at all, it's just a corrupt tactic being used by Charter to try to milk their customers (as if they need even more profits, as being being a one of the companies in a duopoly is just not good enough for them).

Fuck everything about this practice.

Re:Charter definitelly does something like that

[realityimpaired]

There's a more permanent fix... set your router to use Google's open DNS servers... Google is helping to redefine evil, but at least their DNS servers actually conform to standards and don't engage in these kinds of shenanigans.

Re:Charter definitelly does something like that

[shentino]

If Charter ever starts blocking my outbound DNS and tries to FORCE me to use their servers for lookups I'm cutting off my internet access.

Forced gatekeeping of DNS is not only abusive, but it is only a short step away from censorship. Your ISP being the only way to look up domain names makes it very convenient for the government to enforce censorship.

At first it would probably just be "zomg think of the children" but I'm not holding my breath for it to stay at that level.

Re:Charter definitelly does something like that

[CBravo]

That is why I use https searches on Google...

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[aeoo]

Most markets in USA have either an effective monopoly or a duopoly when it comes to ISPs. Or otherwise we have options that cost 3-5 times over the fair market rates which do not even try to compete for the residential dollar.

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Two-ISPs-In-A-Market-Does-Not-Mean-Theres-Competition-107517

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ah, the familiar stench of somebody who doesn't even know what conditions 'free market' implies; but attempts to passionately defend them...

Re:And it continues...

[Heed00]

You do realize the article is external and not "written by Slashdot", right?

You do understand the "evils" listed go beyond just "involving money" to serious issues concerning privacy, the integrity of web systems, etc., right?

You do realize you don't ever have to read Slashdot if it angers you so, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

A better system than points: Jail Terms

[Anonymous Coward]

How about, instead of something nebulous like points, we describe an ISP's level of evil by the number of years in prison an individual hacker would get if they got caught doing the things these corporations do to traffic passing through systems they control.

Re:A better system than points: Jail Terms

[MacGyver2210]

All you have to do is buy one of the servers the traffic naturally passes through on its merry way. Then, any modification you make is 'legal' since it is an authorized system for your use, and no 'hacking' is taking place.

Re:A better system than points: Jail Terms

[shentino]

It's fraud if you lie about it.

There's also a potential tort of intentional interference with contractual relations.

Re:A better system than points: Jail Terms

[AmiMoJo]

You can still be violating various wire-tapping and privacy laws. Phorm and BT were guilty on both counts but no-one bothered to prosecute them. but none the less what they did during their secret trials was unquestionably illegal.

Comcast Business

[beadfulthings]

I have it, and they have solemnly informed me that there is no way their business customers can opt out of the evil Domain "Helper" Service. That came all the way from some vice president's office in Philadelphia after I spent two weeks on the phone with them about a year ago. Since they were kind enough to send their apologies via SnailMail, I wrote back and solemnly informed them that I would never, ever click on one of their sponsored links, and that if I ever saw that page, I would shut the browser window immediately. It wasn't much--the equivalent of throwing a spit wad, but they know how pissed off I am. I know I can make other DNS arrangements. It's about 87th on my list of crap to worry about.

Re:Comcast Business

[threephaseboy]

I'm in CA and I have Comcast Business, and I have never had any kind of domain helper or traffic hijacking (DNS or otherwise).
I use their anycast servers (75.75.75.75 and 75.75.76.76) and they both return NXDOMAIN for nonexistant domains.
The previous servers that they recommended (68.87.76.178 and 66.240.48.9) didn't either.

They forgot a bunch

[Anonymous Coward]

• Using a NAT, so customers don't get a real IP address
• Using a firewall, blocking all incoming TCP connections
• Slowing down or blocking certain services, based on port numbers or DPI (bonus points if the ISP operates a competing service)
• Slowing down or blocking packets from certain hosts
• Doing any of the above, and then denying it when customers ask about it
• Disconnecting customers for alleged copyright infringement, without a court order

Re:They forgot a bunch

[Yamioni]

Blocking 25 is a dick move, but doesn't blocking port 80 defeat the purpose of an internet connection? You know... Accessing the internet...

Re:Disagree on the order

[SuricouRaven]

Where does the money the ISP makes come from? In the example, Amazon. Affiliate pumping is essentially a way to steal from online retailers, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was in some way a form of actual fraud. It does hurt you indirectly, when those retailers have to raise prices to compensate.

slippery slope

[Iamthecheese]

The stupidest thing you can possibly say to this story is "everyone is doing it." Do not lend legitimacy to evil.

Re:slippery slope

[martas]

I don't think that was his point, I think he was saying "we're all fucked because we're all apathetic and jaded and only lift a finger when it directly benefits us."

Re:And it continues...

[erroneus]

The motivation for all 5 is money. That's not what makes it evil. What makes them evil is that they are interfering with the way the internet works. If it were a phone call, they would have been jailed. But for some reason, traffic on the internet is not yet considered private use of a communications network the way the phone network is.

Proposals?

[SuricouRaven]

For us geeks, there is HTTPS Everywhere. Now how do we get my grandmother using it, or some similar form of technology to prevent tampering? Remember that it doesn't have to be some really secure encryption - even something like unsigned HTTPS is better than nothing, as the cost of performing a stateful MITM attack renders being evil far more expensive than manipulating cleartext packets.

Re:Proposals?

[Dahamma]

Doesn't help for DNS NXDOMAIN handling issues, though. Helps a bit for tracking and privacy, but they can still track the sites you go to and your IP. Will definitely help with ad replacement.

Unfortunately all it really does is try to make it easier to use sites' existing HTTPS support, and so is pretty limited right now. Calling it "HTTPS Everywhere" was a pretty huge exaggeration. Still better than nothing, though...

Re:Proposals?

[SuricouRaven]

So there is a problem, and a potential way to fix it: Pressure sites, both major and minor, into supporting HTTPS. I already made sure my personal website has it running. I notice Slashdot does not, though.

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[sycodon]

I have more than once ended up on some stupid survey page after entering common urls...like www.slashdot.org.

AT&T

Surreptitious Subpoenas

[xkr]

I would like to make it clear that NO ORGANIZATION need respond to a subpoena without a fight. There are a thousand ways that a public or private entity can get a subpoena issued for your private information. Basically, a party simply asks the court to issue one, and the court does. The receiver or other "affected parties" have every right to object to the subpoena and demand a hearing. For example, an ISP could insist on a suitable delay in order to inform the user of the subpoena and give the user the time and information necessary to fight the subpoena. If, after a hearing, the court finds the subpoena valid, it will issue a "court order," that had better be followed, or the recipient can be charged with contempt of court.

ISPs, banks, and other organization regularly roll over when issued subpoenas, coughing up all the customer's information without giving the customer the opportunity to respond and object. The underlying issue might be a nasty divorce, an evil contractor, a whiny neighbor, or a gov't employee fishing for glory. Most large organizations have some small print in their terms of use or account contract that says that the customer gives up the right to question subpoenas and that the organization will obey subpoenas no matter who they are from without first warning the customer.

I know personally of one organization that holds private customer data and simply ignores all subpoenas. They have received hundreds over the years, but not a single court order. So those lawyer types and account PR people who say they "have to" obey subpoenas are not telling the (whole) truth.

Note that attorneys and medical provides have "special rules" protecting client information. Funny how that works, huh?

For people who care about privacy, many of us would pay a bit extra for service from an organization that promises to put our interests first.

Disclaimers: (1) IANAL, so by definition, "this is not legal advice." Consult your attorney. (2) Some subpoenas require secrecy, and there are homeland defense subpoenas that are different, but these types are actually rare.

Re:Surreptitious Subpoenas

[sribe]

Some subpoenas require secrecy, and there are homeland defense subpoenas that are different, but these types are actually rare.

Even when you can't notify the target of the subpoena, or disclose it publicly, you can still hire an attorney and fight it. This precedent has been established--story was here on /. some time ago--DHS tried to tell the ISP owner that it would be against the law for him to hire a lawyer and "disclose" the subpoena to the lawyer. He said "bullshit" and went to court--and prevailed. Of course, there's also always the chance that the super-secret anti-terrorist subpoena will be legitimate and will be upheld by the judge, but you have the right to force them to defend it.

Underestimates the problem of NXDOMAIN hijacking

[vadim_t]

It's not just that it shows ads, it breaks lots of internet services.

People seem to forget that the web isn't just HTTP, and there are quite a few other things that do DNS lookups. And weird stuff happens when a name that doesn't exist resolves, and the connection is directed to an ad server.

Nope

[Chad Charran]

"What you do online is private!" If only. If only.

Re:Underestimates the problem of NXDOMAIN hijackin

[Spad]

It's hardly surprising, most people don't know that the web isn't just Facebook and that "Goggle" page you type Facebook into to login.

Re:Disagree on the order

[Dahamma]

Ad swapping likewise doesn't hurt me and benefits my ISP, so the traffic manipulation is why it's bad and that's it. I filter ads anyway. It's #4 to me.

This does hurt the user, eventually. If the sites you use rely on ad revenue to stay in business, and your ISP replaces their ads with their own to steal their revenue stream, those sites lose money even though they served you their content, and eventually may go out of business because of it. Unless you prefer ads for male enhancement pills to the content you were originally trying to view. You could even argue it's illegal and/or violating the TOS of the original website for modifying and hosting their copyrighted content...

Also, Improper DNS NXDOMAIN handling is the basis for Affiliate Program Pumping, just a more insidious version that basically steals a cut of revenue from a retailer without your or their permission or knowledge. It's a superset, so how can it be less of an issue?

Is that comparable to Phorm fiasco in the UK?

[Tasha26]

I remember when news broke of a user tracking software (Phorm) built right into the ISP's servers (BT). No BT broadband customers were informed of such online tracking and there was no opt out (later on, a cookie opt out and then trials ended). UK law officials/regulators did nothing to punish BT: CPS: We won't prosecute over BT/Phorm secret trials!

Re:Is that comparable to Phorm fiasco in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

BT,Talktalk, Tiscali & Virginmedia (90% of the ISP market in the UK) all continue to hijack DNS and you have to specifically opt out.

https://my.virginmedia.com/advancederrorsearch/settings

http://preferences.webaddresshelp.bt.com/selfcare/preferences.cgi

Evil

[whisper_jeff]

People keep using the word "evil" in reference to corporations and it sickens me. It weakens the meaning of the word because, in a vast majority of cases, the corporation in question isn't "evil". They may be dicks or nasty or mean or "not right"but "evil" is a powerful word that applies to very specific situations. In almost every case where I see someone describing a corporation as "evil", I immediately ignore everything else the person has to say - if they can't understand how to properly use the word "evil" then they clearly can't form an opinion worth listening to.

You may not like ISPs dicking with your service in the quest of profits but that is far, far, far from evil.

Please, if you're going to use the word "evil", make sure that you're actually describing something that is evil.

Re:Evil

[pcjunky]

I am not sure what else to call companies that do anything they can to make a buck.

How about slamming? That evil?

Personally I think evil is a very good description.

Re:Evil

[Rob the Bold]

Please, if you're going to use the word "evil", make sure that you're actually describing something that is evil.

The use of "evil" in this sense is well within accepted definitions of the term: "morally reprehensible", "causing harm" or just "harmful" or "injurious". It is nothing new to use "evil" as a synonym for "bad". Etymologically, the word comes from a root meaning "over" or "above" what is acceptable or right. Perhaps you figure that it means something rather stronger and more emphatic than "bad", but I'd say that's just because "bad" has overtaken "evil" in common use, leading one to think evil is "mwuh, hah, hah" bad.

Re:Evil

[cheekyjohnson]

Since "evil" is (in my opinion) subjective to begin with, corporations can indeed seem "evil" to certain people. And they're not necessarily wrong.

Re:Evil

[shentino]

They are willfully harming others in the process of helping themselves, and doing so when they have a choice not to.

I'd call that evil.

Re:Evil

[KZigurs]

They don't have a choice really. Their duty is towards the shareholders; your pension might be invested in them. Share price has to go up.

Re:Evil

[Yamioni]

How's that old saying go? Something about flies, honey, and vinegar?

Increase share prices by making your customers happy. Not by fucking them up the ass.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Internet Death Penalty were still dealt these days, I'd agree with you. In practice there is no way to punish ISPs for misbehavior of that sort, because in many places there's hardly any competition and other networks can't really decide to cut off a big ISP in case "rough consensus" is no longer adhered to. This is the prototypical situation where regulation is required to keep things working.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[tnnn]

/Minor moderation fix/ Sorry, miss-clicked an option in my mod drop-down - just cleaning it.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[obarthelemy]

"screen" has "src" in it ?

Re:Disagree on the order

[Lonewolf666]

I probably wouldn't care too much as an end user. And not being hurt directly, it might be difficult to make a lawsuit out of it even if I cared. What damages to claim?
Amazon, however, might have reason to take this to court. They also have much more resources to fight out a lawsuit. Which does, unfortunately, make a difference.
Maybe some state attorney who has a clue about the internet might also be interested, but don't hold your breath for that.

Sonic.net

[skam240]

... And yet another reason why I am so glad I use sonic.net as my ISP. I've been with them since the 90's when they were a small county wide internet service provider and they've always been great. Sure I could spend 5 dollars less a month (or maybe even more) with comcast or AT and T but it's worth it to me that my money goes to a company that treats its customers so well and actually gives a rats ass about my privacy rights. About once a quarter I get an email from these guys discussing proposed legislation that threatens my data privacy rights along with suggestions as to what I can do about it. Absolute love it.

If you live in Northern California you'd do well to look into them for your service.

Re:Sonic.net

[darrylo]

IIRC, their service area is "California and Arizona", subject to landline and DSL availability in the area. (Strangely enough, I can't find anything in their website that mentions their service area.)

Re:Sonic.net

[Alex Zepeda]

I searched for "LATA", but I don't know how up to date this is:

http://sonic.net/sales/maps/

strange rating

[allo]

NXDOMAIN problems are less evil than swapping ads? a intelligent person will block ads anyway.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[allo]

scr. Like the screensaver extension on some operation systems.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[Lonewolf666]

The problem with that approach is that the network (at least the "last mile" leading to customers' residences) is a natural monopoly. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly for a definition. For a competitor, it is usually not worthwhile to build a parallel network if he can reach only a few customers. Result: The incumbent ISP can like a fuckhead and get away with it.

A way to solve that would be a public network where the customer can choose his provider and the provider can then rent the wire from the customer's house to the next telephone exchange. Germany got that one halfway right:
When the telecommunications branch of the former Deutsche Post (public mail and telecom authority) was privatized, the new company "Deutsche Telekom" also got the network - under the condition that they rent out the "last mile" to competitors if the customer wants to go with one of those. A new regulation authority controls the price for that rent.
As a result, Germany actually has DSL competition in most places. Of course, there is still a lot of bickering between Deutsche Telekom and the competition about how much rent is fair, and the regulation authority is needed to keep the Deutsche Telekom from charging excessive rates. But by and large it works.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[DanTheStone]

"no way to opt out"? It's easy to change your DNS servers. How do you expect to "opt out" of their DNS besides changing the setting yourself? It's not like there's a default DNS server that's not at your ISP that they started overriding.

Re:How about 404 hijacking? Mediacom

[Rob the Bold]

Mediacom do *404 hijacking*. They redirect some 404s (aka page not found) to the same junk page they redirect NXDOMAINs. I thought several sites had dropped off the face of the earth (at least the DNS failed), when it turned out they had just reorgranized the sites and Mediacom had hijacked the 404 responses. As a bonus, the opt-out page (which is at least the kind that affects the whole connection and not the broken "oh we'll set a cookie" type) does not work for 404 hijacking. Within the last week, I did see 404 hijacks stop, so I don't know if the "opt out" started working or if the threats of lawsuits from site owners persuaded Mediacom they cannot pull people away from valid sites, or if the hijacks are simply intermittent.

They also generate the 404 errors themselves by having frequent DNS "problems". I've been logging DNS downtime on a half-hour basis since January, and it seems to be around 20-25%.

How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[Lazy Jones]

=> route through Tor using a local DNS proxy (TorDNS, Privoxy) possible on all major OS even without routing all traffic through Tor which e.g. makes it hard to use Google)
However, I know nothing about the DNS hijacking popular Tor exit nodes might be subject to.
Any better suggestions?

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[vlueboy]

Since getting moderation for helping is not guaranteed, Slashdotters do not generally care about our personal problems,

Your question might be better suited for the likes of superuser.com. It's not kosher, but I just went ahead and asked it for you (after a slight cleanup... those guys are good geeks but their standards are a little on the Wikipedian side.)

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[Lazy Jones]

Just using Google's or other DNS servers won't help if your ISP intercepts UDP port 53
See this old slashdot thread

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[KiltedKnight]

DNSSEC will help you avoid the NXDOMAIN hijacking. Use a DNS server that has it enabled.

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[Lazy Jones]

DNSSEC

Doesn't that require the domain owner whose site you want to access to have/use DNSSEC records? Most don't and probably never will ...

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[KiltedKnight]

But the software that hijacks the NXDOMAIN traffic can't do anything about DNSSEC-enabled requests. If they hijack the response, then the receiving program will know whether or not something intercepted it because the NXDOMAIN stuff is actually issued by the root DNS servers and those were signed for many TLDs. Whether or not the actual response is signed is irrelevant. They have to skip requests that have DNSSEC turned on or they won't be invisible to the end user.

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[Lazy Jones]

They have to skip requests that have DNSSEC turned on or they won't be invisible to the end user.

Do any resolvers (or BIND) actually generate errors when DNSSEC-enabled requests aren't answered, or do they just fall back to plain DNS? How do resolvers detect whether a TLD has been signed without being able to query root servers (or a non-evil nameserver) directly?

Re:How to get around DNS hijacking by ISPs

[asdf7890]

Not a suggestion that is free, but you could rent a small VPS, run OpenVPN on that, connect your local network to that OpenVPN instance, and send your DNS traffic through that link to Google's servers or some others that don't hijack NXDOMAIN responses. This would not be free, but you can grab a suitable small VPS for something like three dollars a month, and you could share that between a few affected users if that is still too much for you. You don't need much bandwidth as you would only be sending DNS traffic that way. Latency would be higher than normal for DNS requests of course, but no as much higher as it would be if using Tor.

Actually there is a way it could be done free: if you have a friend who uses an ISP which gives static IP addresses and allows server serivces to be hosted on the line and has a server running 24/7 anyway, or if you or a friend already has a VPS or dedicated server you could run the little VPN on. Running an instance if OpenVPN and adding a couple of iptables rules to route the traffic appropriately (and block none DNS traffic to avoid other users, should you allow them, to use more bandwidth than just DNS requests) adds practically zero load (CPU, RAM, I/O or bandwidth load) unless you are making it available to many users or plan to route traffic other than DNS requests through it.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[couchslug]

This is Slashdot and you didn't bother to Google how to change your DNS?

Re:And it continues...

[Jeremy Erwin]

Would you go so far as to say that the "leftards" are EVIL?

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[mark-t]

Some ISP's might not pass through DNS queries that aren't directed at the server that they specify.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[Anonymous Coward]

The [free] market always sorts these things out..

Great. Another religious idiot ignoring history, reality, and common sense by insisting that free markets never fail, and always lead to optimal outcomes. Do you also believe in the tooth fairy?

Re:And it continues...

[cheekyjohnson]

Evil is whatever I say it is. Anyone who claims that it is something other than what I claim it is is factually incorrect (some magical being whose opinions override everyone else's for some reason told me that my morals are correct)!

Re:Disagree on the order

[cheekyjohnson]

I'd say it's more of a potential loss of potential profit than anything else.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[asdf7890]

OpenDNS does nothing with 404 responses. It will give bogus addresses in what should be NXDOMAIN responses, but any edited 404's if you are in fact seeing that will be your ISPs doing directly.

Until opt- in is a law

[Stan92057]

Until opt- in is a law, nothing will change. It just that simple. There is nothing to force them do even ask our permission so they will continue until forced otherwise. How many more lessons do we need? The telemarketers are still in business and they went down screaming and kicking they would all die off. Now say after me laws can be a good thing too.

5 Levels of ISP EVIL -- OPEN VPN

[charliemerritt]

Anyone care to pay for a GOOD Open VPN? There are sneaky SOBs that offer free trials on pptp account (requires you run their binaries) (HA- HA-HA) and THEN there are openvpn accounts. They cost a little, and the good ones change your DNS - so your ISP has no IDEA what you are up to. You connect via IP number, and the rest is hidden - all of it. ...cm

Re:5 Levels of ISP EVIL -- OPEN VPN

[utkonos]

OpenVPN is very nice. I use it all the time, but I pay for a vpn service through hidemyass.com. They are definitely a professional organization. The problem is that like you said there are many sites that offer free trials and such, but they don't seem very professional. Basically they seem to me to be one step above a scam. The other option is to run your own OpenVPN server somewhere, but again, that's not going to be free. I've decided that paying a small amount each month to a professional service is the best option.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[e9th]

That's what concerns me. If my ISP ever blocks (or redirects) access to the root servers, there goes djbdns and unbound.

I got caught up in this myself (#2 on the list),

[Trax3001BBS]

I even apologized to the site I posted it to. This was about
a week ago.
----

Start of groveling
"The link I provided had a prefix that changed each time it was
used, I apologize for that. It wasn't intentional and it wasn't the
fault of http://www.tinyurl.com/ apparently I picked the link from ??
(no clue) I used Tinyurl as the link split in my editor.
http://hijackthis.de/en says everything's fine on my end.

Peerblock stopped these prefix's and how I found it out
http://send.onenetworkdirect.net/z/30811/CD133407/wpfvns76cw7p&lnkurl=
http://affiliates.digitalriver.com/z/30811/CD133407/wpfvns76cw7p&lnkurl=
http://affiliates.digitalriver.com/z/30811/CD133407/1anre0fx5ksq&lnkurl=
End of groveling

After reading the article, it would appear I must of missed a letter or
two in the original link.

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[flappinbooger]

Client of mine was having bad internet problems on Comcast. Investigated and solved by putting openDNS into the router config and making sure all machines were on DHCP. It wasn't redirecting search results, at least not that I saw, the comcast DNS were just unresponsive.

Step #1 to have good internet is not to use the ISP's dns servers. EVER. Just sayin.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[jonwil]

Expect US ISPs to start blocking access to alternative DNS options more and more and using the new "we have to block pirate sites specified by the DHS" rules as the reason they are doing it.

Go after those ISPs who do ad replacement

[jonwil]

What I want to know is why owners of web sites who's ads are being replaced by ISPs dont sue those ISPs for copyright violation (IANAL but it seems like its a clear case of copyright violation to me)

For example, Google should sue any ISP where there is proof that said ISP is replacing Google ads with ISP ads. If enough companies sue enough ISPs over ad-replacement practices, ISPs will have no choice but to stop if they dont want to be sued.

Don't Use Your ISP's DNS Servers!

[WidgetGuy]

Screw your ISP's DNS servers. Just do not use them . Join OpenDNS. It's free. Then, use their DNS servers (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220) instead.

Granted, this won't stop weird stuff happening if you mistype a domain name in a URL. But, AFAIK, OpenDNS doesn't serve up a page of affiliate links (they do serve up a list of links, but the spellings are obviously close to what you misspelled/mistyped -- once you switch to OpenDNS, try going to this site to see what I mean). And they definitely do not change links or banners in Web pages.

To somewhat get around the misspelling issue, use your hosts file. If you consistently misspell/mistype a domain name, enter that misspelling into your hosts file mapped to the correct IP address. Indeed, you could enter a whole group of likely misspellings for a domain name and map them all to the correct IP address. You're address bar will start to act like Google's search bar. Better yet, proofread what you've typed into the address bar before hitting or clicking Enter. Wait, this is /. Never mind... ;-)

If you use a hosts file like the one provided by winhelp2002, you will also be protected from a large number of malware/tracker sites. The hosts file you can download from winhelp2002 maps the domain names of known malware/tracker sites to 127.0.0.1. And, they update the downloadable hosts file regularly. Again, a free service.

Re:Don't Use Your ISP's DNS Servers!

[KiltedKnight]

You are aware that the same venture capitalist who helped get Paxfire off the ground is the same venture capitalist who helped get OpenDNS going. http://web.archive.org/web/20100517145950/http://minorventures.com/

Re:Much better.

[jensend]

Almost every time there's a rival good- a finite resource which has to be allocated- setting a price on it is the fairest feasible solution. People who really need the resource will be willing to pay for it; those who don't need it as much will consume less of it than they would if it were free.

Bandwidth is such a resource. Just because you paid some third party like Netflix for the privilege of requesting their data over the 'net doesn't make it any easier on all the other people who want to use the same infrastructure for their communications. If the same network infrastructure can service either 100,000 business users or 1,000 Netflix users, you'd better believe the Netflix users should be paying the ISP 100x as much as the business users for access. Nothing else is remotely close to fair.

When you're broadcasting a TV signal on some part of the EM spectrum, as soon as you're actually transmitting using that frequency it makes no difference whether one person tunes in or everybody within reception range tunes in. It is a nonrival good. So paying by the minute for that doesn't make much sense.

Which ISP's

[genner]

The article doesn't say which ISP's are being accused of this?
Anyone have a list?

Defeating Evil #5

[DERoss]

Evil #5 includes domain name servers (DNSs) that redirect you to a commercial site when you have requested a non-existent domain. My ISP is Road Runner, whose DNSs do this.

I use GRC's DNS Benchmark to find publicly-accessible DNSs that do not do this, that have quick responses, and that have low error rates. I then change my Internet settings to use those DNSs. I rerun DNS Benchmark about once or twice each month, updating which DNSs I use. These reruns are necessary because the quality of DNSs -- timing and error rates -- is not constant; it varies with time.

See DNS Benchmark at http://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm.

Re:Defeating Evil #5

[thejynxed]

That was an interesting tool, especially to note which DNS servers were known by it to pull dirty tricks, and which ones just refused to respond to DNS queries.

Re:The free market exist for a reason

[shentino]

How about ISPs that start lawsuits against cities wanting to build their own municipal fiber network, then keeping them tied up in court while they build their own network?

Customers aren't the only ones filing "stupid" lawsuits.

Re:Cheap ISPs can be evil too

[shentino]

Indeed.

404 errors come from web servers, not DNS servers.

If a DNS lookup fails you don't even get as far as a 404.

A 404 is knocking on the door and nobody being home.

NXDOMAIN is not even finding the house.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[shentino]

it's such a good idea that ISPs will sue to stop it. (TDS v. Monticello I think)

When a greedy corporation starts putting legal shells in its shotguns, you know you're onto something.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[shentino]

One should also remember that a free market isn't free anymore if government power is subverted.

We have a word for government dictation of markets. Communism.

And I would say that a market that is state dominated on paper is every bit as communist as one where the government has been taken over by corporate interests.

Smart move...

[helios17]

The second amendment only had relevance when The People had access to the same weaponry the government had. Sure The People could rise up with their hand weapons and rifles... Only to be put down by hellfire missiles and State of the Art armored vehicles. Yeah...you can count me out too.

Re:Smart move...

[CtownNighrider]

Let's say it's ten years from now and there's a drought, nobody has any money, people are starving, so 100 guys decide to take their hunting rifles and march on the steps of congress demanding relief. Obviously the National guard is going to be called to maintain order. If the situation gets messy and the armed protestors start shooting windows of Congress (note they are not shooting at the National Guard) and some commander tells the lead platoon to start shooting into the hungry mob. Do you really think some 19 year old from Ohio is going to shoot a bunch of people that kind of remind him of his family back home?

I doubt it, I think a lot more soldiers would rather cross the line and take their m4 with them than shoot their own countrymen

You're so right

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Everything will be good...

Re:Underestimates the problem of NXDOMAIN hijackin

[SuricouRaven]

I've heard about it breaking printers too. Automatic firmware updates - they try to contract their long-abandoned firmware server, get a fake server instead, download the page filled with ads... fortunatly arn't so stupid as to write it into firmware, but stupid enough to lock up and can only be fixed by rebooting them without an internet connection.

Re:Much better.

[toriver]

Ah another believer in the "there are only this many bits in the network" lie.

The answer is simple...

[Genda]

Someone needs to start a new ISP, one that will hopefully have global appeal at some point. Its selling point would be that it:

1. Recognizes and active supports net neutrality.
2. That it treast customers with extraordinary respect starting with maintaining absolute privacy.
3. It never throttle traffic and gives you exactly what you pay for
4. That it is honest and open with its customers about everything, good and bad
5. That it closely works with its customers to create a shared environment hostile to hacking, cracking, malware, and breaches of personal security.
6. That it not only allows, but empowers its customers to be part of proving its services, aimed at informing and enlightening its customers.
7. That it puts its customers ahead of the government, ahead of other corporations, even ahead of its own momentary desires.

I have no illusions that such an ISP wouldn't be for everyone. Some folks don't have a problem with be used by governments or corporations like cattle. This is for folks who actually give a damn about their human rights, and demand to be treated with some modicum of dignity and respect. People for whom the word responsibility occur as less a curse, but more an opportunity.

Its fair to say that the network has become our most vulnerable aspect to modern life, because greedy and stupid people have traded our sanctity for their benefit. We need to take back what is rightfully ours and nobody elses.

re: Dane

[Phusion]

Sonic.net was my first ISP back in '97, they offered a free shell server and happened to host the MUD I was currently addicted to. They have always been an incredible ISP and a great place to work (if I could just get in there! grr) in Sonoma county and all over California. I'm always glad to see Dane Jasper on the front page of /.

Re:This is the ISP's perrogative

[KZigurs]

Tooth fairy is a government (parents) subsidised market inefficiency aimed to elict an expected behaviour out of you :)

A common carrier redirects your package.

[niftymitch]

What if a common carrier redirected your parcel or
first class letter to you via an alternate carrier for profit.

Then the alternate carrier did a deep package inspection
of your commerce and sent you product you did
not order and also sold that deep package inspection
the To: and From: address info and sold that in conjunction
with the results of their "deep package" inspection.

Remember most "Mail" transport is contracted to airlines and trucking
services....

this is not surprising

[hesaigo999ca]

the way ISPs tap up the usage on your accounts, this is not surprising, even between themselves....in the end, all the bandwidth we use we pay for...one way or another....if everyone were to treat the usage of web like electricity rather then water, they would be more conscientious. Don't leave all the lights on in the house when you leave, only turn them on if you are using them....same with the internet. Most would consider twice before buying a hot tub due to the extensive electricity use. Same thing with big downloads....less we use, less we apy