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Paul Vixie: 100,000 DSL Modems May Lose Their DNS On July 9

Posted by timothy on from the blame-the-feds dept.

Dante_J writes "Up to 100,000 DSL modems may lose access to DNS come July the 9th, due to scripted web interface changes made to them by DNSChanger. This and other disturbing details were raised by respected Internet elder Paul Vixie during a presentation at the AusCERT 2012 conference."

13 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. 8.8.8.8 by windcask · · Score: 4, Informative

    What DNS issues?

    1. Re:8.8.8.8 by philip.paradis · · Score: 4, Informative

      Any DNS provider you use can do the same thing. If you don't like this, feel free to operate your own resolvers.

      --
      Write failed: Broken pipe
    2. Re:8.8.8.8 by foradoxium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would worry more about your ISP being forced to cache (for 2 years) all the same information for the government or their employers to use then google using your habits to form better directed ads..

      http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2288

      all it takes is this legislation to gain footing in a few states, then the rest start caving.

      Google watching you really should be the least of your online privacy worries..

    3. Re:8.8.8.8 by Lifyre · · Score: 4, Insightful

      These days? I would bet more than 50% by traffic probably A LOT more by traffic...

      Do you think Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, AT&T (SBC), Bright House, Verizon etc... aren't? What percentage of DNS services do they provide?

      Even if they don't use it directly many of them are selling it to someone who does.

      --
      I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
  2. Why not warn them? by l_bratch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they just start redirecting web users to a warning page explaining the situation to them at some point before the cut off date?

    1. Re:Why not warn them? by n5vb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because they would probably do what they do any other time something complicated appears on the screen: click OK and get back to searching for pr0n.

      They couldn't if their DNS doesn't return anything but the warning page.

      You would be amazed how many times some people would click the OK button before giving up and either telling everyone the Internet isn't working, or calling and screaming at their OS platform support until redirected to their ISP, and then calling their browser support instead and screaming at them. It's incredible the lengths to which some people will go to avoid reading what's on their effing screen..

  3. Re:ISP should warn them by dmacleod808 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I dunno, whenever I recieve a letter from my ISP, I immediately destroy my hard drives and torch my house.

    --
    There Can Be Only One...
  4. Re:Why bother warning them? by n5vb · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are some people who will call tech support whether they get a warning or not. Usually the wrong support, and usually to unload a half hour of angry rants that do absolutely nothing to fix the problem. If there's any reading involved beyond about the 2nd-3rd grade level, they'll ignore warning dialogs and just call and complain. This is a constant in the tech support universe.

    (And I still have to laugh when people tell me their internet isn't working but they can send and receive email..)

  5. harumph! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    DNS? pshaw!
    If you just listened to APK and put everything in your HOSTS file, you wouldn't have to worry about any of this folderoll!

    1. Re:harumph! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      DO NOT SUMMON HIM!

  6. Re:Why bother warning them? by n5vb · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm still in favor of the big red button with a clearly worded warning on it that says it will render the computer unusable and/or void the warranty if pressed. The people who read instructions and warnings and in general have some clue what they're doing will leave it alone and get years of service out of the computer; the ones who just poke and click at things totally at random when things don't do what they expect get what they deserve...

  7. TR-069 by stewwy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Some modems implement this , TR-069 (remote config) protocol. At least some of the clueless should have this active, I'm surprised it's not used more widely by ISP's Of course anyone with half a brain will have it disabled,( do you want your ISP to control your router? ) and if you have it disabled at least you know your modem/router HAS a config page but still, it's for exactly this reason it's there.

  8. This is a trivial number by Skleed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In 2009, there were 32 million DSL modems in the United States. http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm

    Even if there has been no growth in DSL usage, 100,000 modems represents 0.3% of all DSL users.

    BUT, this 100,000 number is world wide modems that have been compromised. That makes the actual percentage of modems affected so small that it hardly seems worth the time to calculate it.

    Turn the "bad" DNS off, and most tech support lines will not even notice the increase in support calls.