gatorkram
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|  We demand true and correct DNS servers
We demand true and correct DNS servers, we don't want to "opt-out" or any other such non-since.
If you agree, please let your voices be heard.
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Hazy Arc
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Greenwood, SC | Opting out wasn't difficult. Hell, if it keeps my monthly bill down, I don't really care. |
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gatorkram
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| said by Hazy Arc  :Opting out wasn't difficult. Hell, if it keeps my monthly bill down, I don't really care. We shouldn't have to opt-out, we should opt-in if we are interested in such a service.
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skj
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| Unfortunately, other ISP's are also doing the same thing. If Embarq actually gives you an option to opt-out, that is a lot more than some of the other ISP's do, such as Earthlink.
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gatorkram
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| said by skj :Unfortunately, other ISP's are also doing the same thing. If Embarq actually gives you an option to opt-out, that is a lot more than some of the other ISP's do, such as Earthlink. That is a true statement, but then why can't Embarq be the ISP that cares more about how the end users feel, than doing what every other greedy ISP is doing.
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skj
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| Because they are in business to make money and the truth of the matter is a very small percentage of its customers will even notice, and a smaller percentage will even care.
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gatorkram
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| said by skj :Because they are in business to make money and the truth of the matter is a very small percentage of its customers will even notice, and a smaller percentage will even care. You are correct again. I can't knock what you are saying..
All I can say, is I don't think it's right, and I don't feel like I should have to opt-out of a system I never asked to join. I also shouldn't have to use a 3rd party to get a correctly working DNS server.
It seems to me, more and more ISPs want to do less and less, yet when some of us say, all we want is a dumb pipe, they freak out, and offer useless and pointless services, like big expensive portals, and non-standard DNS servers.. Most have done away with good usenet services too...
I didn't really start this topic for debate, I started it, hoping more people would care, and post up and say so.
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espaeth
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| said by gatorkram :I also shouldn't have to use a 3rd party to get a correctly working DNS server. What exactly doesn't work correctly about Embarq's DNS servers?
You get a search page on miskeying a domain, however, Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser used today and if you miskey a domain it takes you to a Microsoft Live Search page where the money from ads goes to Microsoft. How is this fundamentally different? How does this DNS configuration affect the average user?
-Eric
P.S. Average users don't run mail servers, so that's not a good argument. |
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gatorkram
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| Like I said, I didn't really start this topic for debate. If you think it works right, then so be it. I on the other hand do not think it works correctly.
I wonder what happens, for example, if I type in wrong address for my telnet client, or IRC, or maybe ftp... Does the Embarq service return the correct and expected error codes, or does it just return the redirected ip instead.
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gatorkram
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2 edits | Instead of getting an error, here is a trace I just ran:
Target Name: ireunqwo.com
IP: 72.51.47.180
Date/Time: 1/22/2008 11:50:54 PM
1 1 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 1 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms cable.route [192.168.2.25]
2 * * * * * * * * * [-]
3 * * 7 ms * * * 8 ms * * s66-76-168-197.bssr.suddenlink.net [66.76.168.197]
4 7 ms 9 ms 6 ms 8 ms 10 ms 7 ms 7 ms 8 ms 8 ms s66-76-168-209.bssr.suddenlink.net [66.76.168.209]
5 17 ms 15 ms 15 ms 16 ms 18 ms 30 ms 16 ms 15 ms 17 ms s66-76-168-1.bssr.suddenlink.net [66.76.168.1]
6 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms 18 ms 17 ms 17 ms 207.88.183.41.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.183.41]
7 15 ms 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms 16 ms 16 ms 23 ms 16 ms 16 ms 65.106.3.185.ptr.us.xo.net [65.106.3.185]
8 16 ms 18 ms 16 ms 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms 17 ms 18 ms 206.111.0.62.ptr.us.xo.net [206.111.0.62]
9 79 ms 78 ms 77 ms 77 ms 76 ms 78 ms 76 ms 76 ms 75 ms tbr1.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.8.170]
10 84 ms 78 ms 79 ms 79 ms 77 ms 77 ms 78 ms 79 ms 78 ms tbr1.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.122.10.30]
11 80 ms 79 ms 80 ms 79 ms 79 ms 78 ms 88 ms 79 ms 81 ms tbr2.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.122.9.142]
12 77 ms 79 ms 77 ms 76 ms 77 ms 77 ms 78 ms 76 ms 76 ms tbr2.la2ca.ip.att.net [12.122.10.14]
13 79 ms 78 ms 77 ms 78 ms 77 ms 78 ms 78 ms 77 ms 78 ms gar2.lsrca.ip.att.net [12.123.199.113]
14 83 ms 83 ms 82 ms 83 ms 82 ms 84 ms 83 ms 95 ms 83 ms [12.118.130.42]
15 214 ms 84 ms 84 ms 85 ms 83 ms 84 ms 91 ms 84 ms 84 ms oc48-po3-0.la-600w-cor-1.peer1.net [216.187.88.126]
16 83 ms 83 ms 87 ms 83 ms 85 ms 84 ms 82 ms 82 ms 83 ms oc48-po4-0.lax-sb600w-dis-1.peer1.net [216.187.88.138]
17 85 ms 85 ms 85 ms 85 ms 84 ms 84 ms 87 ms 84 ms 86 ms [72.51.47.180]
So yes, it's broken..
ireunqwo.com should have failed to resolve, but instead it just went ahead and traced to the redirected ip, much like I said it would do.
If I didn't notice my error in typing in the correct host while doing this trace, who knows what information I should be seeing, instead of what is shown..
edit: Oh yeah, and it even allows me to use the embarq dns servers while I'm using Suddenlink, hehe
edit2: So its really funny to see the Embarq page come up, when I know I'm using Suddenlink.
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gatorkram
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| Here is one on the Embarq gateway, weird, the IP for the non-existant domain changed
Target Name: ireunqwo.com
IP: 72.51.47.244
Date/Time: 1/22/2008 11:56:56 PM
1 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms nc-71-48-200-1.dhcp.embarqhsd.net [71.48.200.1]
2 8 ms 8 ms 31 ms nc-69-69-52-245.sta.embarqhsd.net [69.69.52.245]
3 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms sl-gw9-rly-6-0.sprintlink.net [160.81.19.1]
4 14 ms 13 ms 14 ms sl-bb23-rly-3-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.14.37]
5 15 ms 14 ms 14 ms sl-bb21-dc-13-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.214]
6 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms sl-crs2-dc-0-4-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.15.19]
7 52 ms 51 ms 52 ms sl-crs2-fw-0-12-0-1.sprintlink.net [144.232.19.102]
8 80 ms 79 ms 79 ms sl-crs2-ana-0-8-0-2.sprintlink.net [144.232.18.52]
9 79 ms 79 ms 79 ms sl-bb23-ana-15-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.1.164]
10 80 ms 80 ms 79 ms sl-st26-la-0-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.9.22]
11 80 ms 80 ms 81 ms [208.35.174.6]
12 * * * []
13 80 ms 80 ms 82 ms [72.51.47.244]
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gatorkram
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| But anyway, yeah, type in either of those IPs, and you will see what page you get..
Keep telling yourself its working correctly though..
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espaeth
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| reply to gatorkram
Ok, so what if you went to www.goole.com instead of www.google.com ? Do you get what you expected there?
I guess my point is that the ad redirect doesn't break things any more than standard parked miskey domains. If you miskey something it's broken regardless, the redirect doesn't make it any more or less broken.
What the DNS redirection does break is mail servers that check that the sender domain exists with an MX record, and it breaks RBL lookups. For example, if you do have an incoming connection from 10.11.12.13, to do a spamcop lookup you would query for 13.12.11.10.bl.spamcop.net. If the site isn't listed in the RBL, you get an NXDOMAIN return. If it *IS* listed in the RBL, then you get a 127.0.0.x return. In that way the redirect breaks mail server RBL functionality, but as I said that's an insignificant point in a residential setting where 99% of the user base isn't running a mail server. (and those that are can easily work around the redirecting DNS servers)
-Eric |
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espaeth
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| reply to gatorkram
said by gatorkram :Here is one on the Embarq gateway, weird, the IP for the non-existant domain changed You get 2 possibilities for redirect servers:
|
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gatorkram
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| espaeth, I am not going to debate this with you. I say it's broken. I gave an example of why I think it's broken.
This has nothing at all to do with other people setting up domains that are common typos, or other such behaviors, though I don't really support people doing that either, but hey, more power to them.
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gatorkram
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| reply to gatorkram
I have one more example, of why I think DNS is broken on Embarq.
I don't have the tools needed to prove this one, but is a reasonable assumption.
Lets say I have web hosting at web host A
I run a program to monitor my site, to make sure it is up.
webhost A fails and crashes.
My program does a lookup, but instead of getting a fail, the Embarq DNS gives it new information on where my site is, so the program now has no way to tell if my site is up or not.
I make this assumption, based on the fact that my valid domain lookup fails, due to web host A's DNS servers being offline, so the Embarq server will try to look it up, but it will fail, thus giving me the IP of the redirection servers.
I'd love to take the time to reproduce this for you to prove my story would be true, but it doesn't take a lot of work to see I am correct.
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espaeth
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| Sure, that could give misleading results for port 80. The problem with that example is that nearly all monitoring programs work off hard-coded IP addresses because otherwise a DNS failure would trigger a failed result from all monitored elements.
Also, when querying a webserver status you generally want to do more than just check a connection on port 80. In the case of monitoring my hosting servers I hit a PHP script that pulls a record out of the MySQL database and prints it and the Nagios plugin does a check of the text that comes back. If it comes back with a match I know: MySQL is working, PHP is working, Apache is working, and the box is up. I basically get 4 monitored elements for the price of 1.
-Eric |
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gatorkram
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| espaeth, you seem pretty knowledgeable about how all this stuff works. I fail to understand your support for non-standards based DNS servers.
You sure do seem hell bent on trying to prove me wrong.
Can you help me understand your position better?
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espaeth
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| said by gatorkram :I fail to understand your support for non-standards based DNS servers. It's not really that I support it; it's that I don't see a reason to rally against it. In terms of the evils that ISPs have unleashed upon their subscribers over time, this really isn't a big deal. I generally reserve my ISP outrage for implementations that break user functionality and leave no good workaround options.
For example, I found it deplorable that ISPs were sneaking in transparent caching proxy servers on their network in the late 90's and early 2000s. Sometimes you got the correct page rendering, but more often than not you got stale content or broken page renders. The worst part about that was since it was transparent and in-line there was no way for end-users to bypass the caching engines.
The other ISP configuration I get upset about is aggressive spam filters that block valid email, particularly if the mail system is setup such that users are not given a reasonable method to implement white listing. One could argue this is easily correctable by using a 3rd party email solution like Gmail, but changing email addresses involves considerably more work than just changing a couple DNS resolvers on your PC.
While the DNS redirect service isn't necessarily ideal, it doesn't break standard functionality. All of your standard normal queries will continue to function. On a regular DNS server if you miskey a DNS name the service you are attempting to use won't work. Similarly, on the redirecting DNS servers if you miskey a DNS name the service you are attempting to use won't work. The things that redirection breaks are pretty limited, and only really relates to things 99% of home users don't do anyway. For those that are affected by the redirection, there are complete and permanent workarounds by pointing at one of the many other free DNS services out on the Internet.
said by gatorkram :You sure do seem hell bent on trying to prove me wrong. I can see how you could interpret it that way, but that's really not my intent. I'm really mostly curious why people get so worked up about what, in my opinion, isn't a big deal at all. It's not just you, there's been a few dozen threads on the DNS redirection topic on this site across the various forums. It just seems like quite a bit of energy to consume for something that has such a simple workaround.
-Eric |
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gatorkram
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| espaeth, thanks for your reply..
To me, it comes down to one less service my isp is providing.
I really shouldn't have to look to other places for a correctly working DNS server. My ISP hands them out to me, after all, and frankly they shouldn't just one day decide they want to change how they work.
People can argue that they work, and more or less you won't even notice the change. People can also argue you can opt out.
None of these things change what Embarq has done.
Who knows, they might do all sorts of other things with my DNS data I don't want them to be doing too, but this is something that I can see, and it is something I don't like, so it is something that I will continue to complain about.
I pay them for a service, and for the most part I expect it to work how I think it should be. What they are doing to me, is wrong, and I think I have given some examples on why I think its wrong.
They shouldn't force me to opt-out of something today, I didn't have to opt-out of, or even worry about yesterday.
Another part of my issue with it, is simply, why... Why are they doing this? What do they have to gain, and how do they think it is helping me? Did they think of me when they set it up? Was their goal to make things better for me?
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