Re: Installfest this Saturday - PLUG website dead?

>>     Eric Shubert wrote:
>>      >
>>      > Could you elaborate about the redirect-failure-to-ads trick? I don't
>>      > know what you mean by that.

>>      >
>>      > Also, do you happen to know if Qwest is also doing this?

>>      >
>>      > Thanks again.

>>     Most ISP and commercial DNS providers, when a domain name isn't
>>     found, do not return the mandated a NXDOMAIN response.
>>     Instead they return the IP address of a server that just dumps a
>>     page full of ads based on the (presumably mistyped) domain name.
>>     The immediate problem is that a completely innocent typo can then
>>     result in ads for almost anything (which can be *really* bad if a
>>     kid is doing the typing).

>>     It's a dirty trick to try to turn DNS into a profit center, and I
>>     find it completely despicable.
>>     DNS has to trustworthy or the whole trust model of the net fails,
>>     and any service that's willing to change NXDOMAIN responses for
>>     profit could just as easily start redirecting other traffic for even
>>     more profit (imagine if www.gnu.org <http://www.gnu.org> got
>>     redirected to a MS anti-FOSS site when accessed from a Windows machine).

>>     I don't know if QWest is doing that, but I would be mildly surprised
>>     if they aren't.