Submission + - Comcast Blackholing DNS to EZTV Tracker & RSS
in4mer writes: I got to my computer this afternoon to a screen full of red. My RSS feed parser was blowing up, claiming it was unable to resolve anything at eztv.it or ezrss.it. "They must be down again", I thought. In short, I was wrong. I was wrong because I'm a residential comcast customer in California, and comcast is blackholing DNS requests for the aforementioned sites.
Is this illegal? If I were a small ISP and pulled some kind of stunt like this on a customer with deep pockets, I'd probably get nailed for breach of contract. Why do we continue to allow them to play with people's internet protocol?
How do I know they're blackholing requests? Because the nameservers reported by DHCP on my router magically fail to respond to queries for anything that starts with ez and ends with .it, but they'll answer just about anything else you throw at them. Can anyone else resolve these names? Why yes, they can. Proof (performed @ 1430 PST 12/2/2009):
(Side note: EZTV's nameservers respond to all queries from my location, but resolution of their nameservers through comcast's fails)
for server in 68.87.76.178 68.87.78.130 4.2.2.2; do
for host in www.netcom.com www.comcast.net eztv.it ezrss.it ns1.eztv.it; do
echo "\n### LOOKING UP $host ON $server ###"
host $host $server
done
done
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.32
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.49
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
Host eztv.it not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 68.87.76.178 ### ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 68.87.76.178 ### ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.49
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.9
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 68.87.78.130 ### ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
Host ezrss.it not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 68.87.78.130 ### ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 140.174.24.163
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 140.174.24.218
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
eztv.it has address 212.63.212.35
eztv.it mail is handled by 10 mail.eztv.it.
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
ezrss.it has address 94.23.87.215
ezrss.it mail is handled by 10 mail.ezrss.it.
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
ns1.eztv.it has address 85.17.200.248
Is this illegal? If I were a small ISP and pulled some kind of stunt like this on a customer with deep pockets, I'd probably get nailed for breach of contract. Why do we continue to allow them to play with people's internet protocol?
How do I know they're blackholing requests? Because the nameservers reported by DHCP on my router magically fail to respond to queries for anything that starts with ez and ends with
(Side note: EZTV's nameservers respond to all queries from my location, but resolution of their nameservers through comcast's fails)
for server in 68.87.76.178 68.87.78.130 4.2.2.2; do
for host in www.netcom.com www.comcast.net eztv.it ezrss.it ns1.eztv.it; do
echo "\n### LOOKING UP $host ON $server ###"
host $host $server
done
done
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.32
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.49
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 68.87.76.178 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.76.178
Address: 68.87.76.178#53
Aliases:
Host eztv.it not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 68.87.76.178 ###
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 68.87.76.178 ###
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.49
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 64.212.100.9
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 68.87.78.130 ###
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 68.87.78.130 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 68.87.78.130
Address: 68.87.78.130#53
Aliases:
Host ezrss.it not found: 3(NXDOMAIN)
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 68.87.78.130 ###
### LOOKING UP www.netcom.com ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
www.netcom.com is an alias for www.pipeline.net.
www.pipeline.net has address 199.174.114.27
### LOOKING UP www.comcast.net ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
www.comcast.net is an alias for www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net.
www.comcast.net.edgesuite.net is an alias for a1526.g.akamai.net.
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 140.174.24.163
a1526.g.akamai.net has address 140.174.24.218
### LOOKING UP eztv.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
eztv.it has address 212.63.212.35
eztv.it mail is handled by 10 mail.eztv.it.
### LOOKING UP ezrss.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
ezrss.it has address 94.23.87.215
ezrss.it mail is handled by 10 mail.ezrss.it.
### LOOKING UP ns1.eztv.it ON 4.2.2.2 ###
Using domain server:
Name: 4.2.2.2
Address: 4.2.2.2#53
Aliases:
ns1.eztv.it has address 85.17.200.248