OT: Verizon wildcarding DNS

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2007, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
>On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 01:51:03PM -0500, Kenneth Brody wrote:
>> As you probably recall, Internic got reamed a couple of years ago
>> for wildcarding all of *.com, causing any non-existent domains to
>> resolve to their (pay-per-click?) advertising page.

Actually that wasn't Internic, but Network Solutions, aka NetSlime that was
playing that game.

>> Well, it appears that Verizon is doing the same thing for ("to"?)
>> their customers.
>
>"To".
>
>> I mistyped one of our domain names into my browser, and it took me
>> to a Verizon search page.  I was pretty sure that the domain name
>> I actually typed didn't exist (and a whois confirmed that).  Delving
>> a little further, I found:
>> 
>>     You reached the preceding search results page because Verizon
>>     is using specific Domain Name Service (DNS) Servers to look up
>>     domain names. These DNS Servers eliminate dead-end "no such name"
>>     error pages you can encounter as you surf the web. This search
>>     service is designed to make your web surfing experience more
>>     productive. No software was installed on your computer for this
>>     service to work.

Big Brother is ``helping'' you.

FWIW, I mis-typed my own domain name, using celestiall.com, and
much to my surprise something came up.

>> They do, however, allow you to "opt out" of their "DNS assistance"
>> service, and you can download a simple 9-page PDF with instructions
>> on reconfiguring your router to do so.  (At least, the one for my
>> particular router was 9 pages long.  Each router they supply has
>> its own PDF on how to reconfigure it.)
>
>What is this, now, Slashdot?  :-)
>
>Verizon -- Earthlink is doing this too -- has put this hack in place on
>their default customer resolver DNS servers, for all the stupid people
>out there in the world, who can't type, and who don't understand the
>difference between an Address box and a Search box.

At a minimum, we set up all our customer's Linux gateway systems
with their own dnscache resolving DNS server (from djbdns), and
have them use that regardless of what their upstream provides.

...
>If your PC is behind a router, then it should be on a static IP address
>(no, really :-), and this is trivial.  If it's DHCPd, you *may* have to
>switch it to static to be able to set DNS servers manually, and whether
>you can override it on your router depends on the router -- some
>permit, it, some don't.

All the appliance router boxes I've seen, LinkSys, Netgear,
Actiontec, etc., have the ability to set the DNS server(s)
manually, and will use that if you're using their DHCP to set the
IP addresses on internal machines.  This includes all of the DSL
routers I've seen provided by QWest in this area (I've known
people to select locations for the business so that they would be
in QWest territory, not GTE/Verizon :-).

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676

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