Re: Cox DNS misadventures (was Re: Installfest this Saturday…

>>>     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.