bert (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} zubatac) wrote,@ 2008-07-27 13:22:00 |
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a small victory (geekdom: 1, evil: 0)
Recently, Comcast decided to make our unbundled cable modem service way more expensive than it should be. Their loss: we switched to Verizon DSL (since Verizon FiOS is unavailable for us at the moment).
After the switch, we noticed that Verizon was adding a "feature" to our host name resolution. If you try to use a hostname that starts with "www." but doesn't actually exist, Verizon will "helpfully" tell your computer that the host exists, and give it the address of a Verizon Web server. That server is configured to turn the hostname you used into a search engine query. So if we tried to open "www.verizon.sucks", we'd end up at a Yahoo! search portal showing you the search results for "verizon sucks".
I was wondering why Verizon was bothering with this until3diff pointed out that they probably get ad revenue from the portal.
There are two problems with this. The minor one is that it pretty much walks all over DNS standards (Verizon's name server lies to my computer), which offends my tender sensibilities. But there's actually a real and annoying problem there, too. If you're using a site whose name server is slow or flaky, sometimes you don't get the response in time, and you get a "not found" for a site which does exist. Normally, you can just try again (reload the page or whatever); your computer tries to resolve the name again and likely gets the right answer. But Verizon's magic prevents that: your computer received the fake address, and won't try again for the real one. This would be called "cache poisoning" when not done by an ostensibly respectable corporate entity.
Fortunately, this was easier for me to work around than to call up their support drones.
Verizon DSL: (some) USD/month [sorry, I havegljiva semi-asleep on my lap and can't look it up]
Setting up a caching DNS server on a Linux machine: less than half an hour
Configuring the wireless router to tell all other machines at home to use the new DNS server: 2 minutes
Being free of Verizon's name service crap: priceless
Recently, Comcast decided to make our unbundled cable modem service way more expensive than it should be. Their loss: we switched to Verizon DSL (since Verizon FiOS is unavailable for us at the moment).
After the switch, we noticed that Verizon was adding a "feature" to our host name resolution. If you try to use a hostname that starts with "www." but doesn't actually exist, Verizon will "helpfully" tell your computer that the host exists, and give it the address of a Verizon Web server. That server is configured to turn the hostname you used into a search engine query. So if we tried to open "www.verizon.sucks", we'd end up at a Yahoo! search portal showing you the search results for "verizon sucks".
I was wondering why Verizon was bothering with this until
3diff pointed out that they probably get ad revenue from the portal.There are two problems with this. The minor one is that it pretty much walks all over DNS standards (Verizon's name server lies to my computer), which offends my tender sensibilities. But there's actually a real and annoying problem there, too. If you're using a site whose name server is slow or flaky, sometimes you don't get the response in time, and you get a "not found" for a site which does exist. Normally, you can just try again (reload the page or whatever); your computer tries to resolve the name again and likely gets the right answer. But Verizon's magic prevents that: your computer received the fake address, and won't try again for the real one. This would be called "cache poisoning" when not done by an ostensibly respectable corporate entity.
Fortunately, this was easier for me to work around than to call up their support drones.
Verizon DSL: (some) USD/month [sorry, I have
gljiva semi-asleep on my lap and can't look it up]Setting up a caching DNS server on a Linux machine: less than half an hour
Configuring the wireless router to tell all other machines at home to use the new DNS server: 2 minutes
Being free of Verizon's name service crap: priceless
