EarthLink Establishes Their Own "Site Finder" 241
Guppy06 writes "Last week, instead of a regular DNS error, EarthLink's DNS servers started to return a redirect to earthlink-help.net, a site that bears a close resemblance to VeriSign's much-maligned Site Finder, to their subscribers. According to their official blog at Earthling, "By presenting users with contextual help based upon the non-existent domain the user entered, we believe we are improving the EarthLink user experience with a system that will not interfere with other network processes." Most of the responses in said blog posting aren't positive."
Profit is the Motive (Score:5, Insightful)
I wasn't born yesterday, I understand the concepts of paid search, sponsored links & banner ads. They generate revenue and insult me. They waste real estate on websites and obscure my information that I would prefer to harvest un assaulted by sales pitches.
I'm betting I'm not the first to say this, but this is insane.
If they wanted to be 'helpful' they would provide you with some sort of new service. In this solution, they are simply deciding which search engine you will use and cashing in off of it also. If we want to search for another answer, I think we know where to go. If you doubt our abilities to select a preferred search engine, at least give us some choices. Do you know what happens in Firefox when I pull down the search engine on the upper right? I can select from a number of sites.
You're not improving anything, you're laughing all the way to the bank.
Re:Profit is the Motive (Score:5, Funny)
A best friend used to work in marketing for earthlink and told me about the users they brought in to test websites, systems, etc... I was absolutely horrified and now weep for the future.
Re:Profit is the Motive (Score:4, Interesting)
That being said, even before the Earthlink/Mindspring thing, Earthlink had changed from a fairly savvy ISP to a company that jumped on every bandwagon that came down the pike without asking itself if the idea was any good. Thinking back, I suspect that about a year or so before the merger, the marketing department got control of the company, and it really showed. This is just another example of what happens when technical decisions are made by people with neither the undestanding to do the right thing nor an interest in learning what the issues really are.
Speaking as an Earthlink cable internet subscriber (Score:2)
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Re:Profit is the Motive (Score:5, Insightful)
Broken DNS Servers vs. Broken Web Caching (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Broken DNS Servers vs. Broken Web Caching (Score:4, Informative)
The difference is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting with one's dollars is not always effective (Score:2)
If EarthLink is the only dial-up ISP with modems in a given local calling area, as AOL was for a lot of the United States for a long time, then most residential users are not going to want to pay per minute for long distance just to get on the Internet. Even for more affluent parts of the country, what happens when the phone company has partnered with EarthLink, and the cable company is even less competent?
Re:Voting with one's dollars is not always effecti (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Voting with one's dollars is not always effecti (Score:5, Funny)
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how many of Earthlink's customers do you suppose heve the foggiest notion of what a DNS server is or does or knows how to set up an alternative?
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I am sure he would be happy to explain to earthlink customers how simple it is to set up
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Using another server easier than setting one up (Score:2)
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Might I suggest 4.2.2.1?
's been my "test" DNS server for years.
Re:Voting with one's dollars is not always effecti (Score:2)
Earthlink has pissed me off before and I am seriously considering switching to roadrunner. The only thing that has stopped me is that every time I make even a small change to my account, Brighthouse (who isn't so bright) screws up the entire account and I'm out of service for 2 weeks. And I can't
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Re:Voting with one's dollars is not always effecti (Score:2)
There are other dialup providers out there (Score:2)
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It appears you can "opt out" simply by using Firefox. If I put a nonsense domain into IE, it takes me to the Earthlink "help" page, complete with ads and "suggestions" for ringtones and used cars. If I put the same nonsense domain into FF, all I get is the standard FF "Server not found" page. YMMV.
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1 Cancellation (Score:3, Interesting)
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It is quite simply irrelevant what your contract is with this supplier - if it breaches you, so what? The bank shouldn't care - it's between you and the company. That money is yours, provided to the bank for safekeeping. You should never have to justify, to the bank, why someone shoul
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icann should ban this (Score:4, Interesting)
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The "Unix Way" vs "Everyone Else" (Score:3, Interesting)
The other way of thinking can be termed the "Microsoft way" or even better "Apple way". This viewpoint believes that integrating things into easy-to-use applications leads to greater productivity gains as well as a more pleasant user experience. Instead of giving a ton of pieces to the user and expect them to make sense of it all, this viewpoint presents a fully-formed solution to the user.
The Unix Way zealots will tell you that undermining this dirt road area of the internet by returning useful results instead of an error message is bad. The Microsoft/Apple Way zealots will argue that something useful is always better than an inscrutable error message.
The side you fall on is really a viewpoint issue, and not a technical one. There is no technical reason why Earthlink's move couldn't be worked around, if that is really a good solution. There's also no technical reason why Earthlink needs to go ahead with something like this when search engines are already built into most modern browsers.
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Unrelated to the topic at hand, but just FYI/clearing up some potential confusion.
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Why would Joe User want a tool where you tell it to do one thing, and it does another instead?
"You are already unable to give a valid address, do you think you should also be expected to be able to decipher what a 404 error means?"
I'm not so much hung on on the error being EXACTLY a 404. For all I care, it can be a simple and easy "This page does not exist". That's all.
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Joe simply wants to be connected to the Nascar site. If the browser can point him in the right direction, that is exactly what he wants it to do.
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As others have pointed out, it's not just the web that's the problem, silently resolving invalid domains to some other IP has much wider ramifications, from spam elimination, to email security.
Re:The "Unix Way" vs "Everyone Else" (Score:4, Insightful)
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DNS through an exception, EarthLink caught it. What is so not-computer-science about that?
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I am also installing my
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You might bump that up a bit. Configuring a local caching DNS server is pretty darn simple these days, and if you're running a BSD, you almost certainly already have one installed.
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*megatokyo CTRL+ENTER*
*out pops www.wanna buy a house at house.com? you fit the demographic perfectly. you probably wanted to buy a house, right? you didn't really want to read your favourite webcomic*
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Another example is email. If you misspell the domain name, and it doesn't exist, the mail immediately will fail to deliver and bounce. If the server is there but doesn't respond to requests, your mail server as
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Uh:
# wget http://nonexistantdomain2342134.com/file.htm [nonexistan...342134.com]
What is supposed to happen is the domain doesn't resolve, so the operation fails. With Earthlink's moronic solution, I get their damned bullshit page instead of an error.
I'll use an ISP that doesn't shit all over the RFCs, thanks.
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My firefox presents me a helpfull explanation page and more importantly leaves the URL there for me to correct. Redirecting me would annoy me in the same way the old browser 404 page did by removing what I typed and making me type it in again from scratch.
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I am configuring my email client. I typo when I enter the mail server's domain name. When my client tries to connect to the server, it receives an NXDOMAIN error, and tells me 'the host you are looking for does not exist.'
Now, I try the same thing on EarthLink. This time, the error I get from my client is that the mail server does not respond to connections on the IMAP port. Now what do I do? I call up the server administrator (assuming it's not my server) and tell him to fix it.
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except the results are not useful (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that these results are not "useful", and are even less useful than a simple honest error message. When I type in a wrong URL, I don't want to be punished by attempts to redirect me to a useless second-rate search service. I just want enter the correct URL and go about my business. Such redirections to useless sites are like putting deep mudpits in the dirt road.
"There's also no t
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So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of freely accessible public DNS servers; let those old school "do it our way cuz that's the way it's always been done" zealots learn to drive their own machines and stop telling everyone else how to run their lives and businesses.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, that's what businesses are for, so as you say, if they want to do it, they should be entirely entitled to do so. However:
a) It's not fair on those who have paid for an existing service to have the nature of this service changed on them without warning - many people feel they are now getting a poorer service.
b) They should at the very least have provided an opt-out system for those who prefer untainted DNS that works in the way the internet standards require it to work. Then people with firewall, anti-spam or other systems that this change breaks wouldn't be so up in arms.
If my ISP did this, I'd leave them. Luckily my ISP is more sane.
Jolyon
Abuse? I got your abuse... (Score:2)
And many of those "squatters" (actually parkers) DO NOT own those domains, nor do they ever plan to - they take advantage of the system, registering the domains and then rolling them over just before time runs out to get their money back - then RE registering them, then rolling over the ones that got a hit or two.... ad infinitum. They create a giant pain in the ass for the LEGIT web businesses that woul
Stupidity seems to be contagious (Score:2)
Blatantly ignoring established policy (if a DNS-request does not resolve the response must be "DNS-request does not resolve" not "here it is"). Let's not forget all the privacy issues with hundreds of thousands of e-mails, normally being undeliverable because the sender made a typo in the adress, now end up in their inbox.
Hmmm... if I were to DDOS www.this-site-does-not-exist-but-earthlink-resolv e s-it-anway.something would I act criminally? I mean, the
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The address you entered could not be found. (Score:5, Funny)
You entered "http://www.slashdot.org/".
Advertisements for cow steroids, cars, and free computers followed.
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Apartments, Dating Services, Travel Guides [earthlink-help.net] - Maybe they're telling us to get out of your mum's basement, get a girlfriend and get out of the house!
Stay In the Box (Score:5, Insightful)
These ISPs attract marketing people with dreams of empire and ignorance of Internet. Execs put them in power over the engineers, and just rip across the careful system designs that make the Net work. Then they cry when their stuff doesn't work, and blame the engineers.
But they compete with each other on how well their stuff works. As long as we can switch ISPs among a pool with critical mass size, they'll exploit each others' weaknesses to grab customers. These "DNS hijacks" are going to be with us forever, avoidable only while we have a choice between independent, competing ISPs.
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Most browsers are called Internet Explorer, and they handle NX domain with a microsoft search page on MSN. Anyone trying to take off hostname resolution for those browsers is taking money off Microsoft. Its not 'spare cash left on the table', its 'microsofts money'. If you want to do something for en
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Of course Firefox does exactly the same thing with a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search by default...
Just another co-opted standard... (Score:2)
Solution: Use a different DNS server in settings (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Solution: Use a different DNS server in setting (Score:2)
Earthlink is probably assuming "Well if they dont like it they can work around it, but hey, everybody else likes it!"
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Solution that'll keep both sides happy... (Score:2)
-b.
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Basically, Earthlink should provide an alternative server and instructions on how to utilize it to clients who don't wish to use their automagic Site Finder service.
-b.
If they want to do this, and not get flamed... (Score:2)
Even Worse - It's Inconsistent (Score:2)
#1:
> host www.yahoo.coma ns3.mindspring.com
Using domain server:
Name: ns3.mindspring.com
Address: 207.69.188.187#53
Aliases:
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.93
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.94
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.95
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.90
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.91
www.yahoo.coma has address 209.86.66.92
#2
> host www.yahoo.coma ns3
We got bit by this Friday (Score:3, Informative)
I IMMEDIATELY called earthlink business T1 support and the guy on the phone had no idea what I was talking about.
Why would a company roll out something like this WITHOUT telling its support people and without letting customers know in advance? Why do they not have an opt out option?
I'm in the process of going over the contract for our T1 to see if it's early enough to break (the service was purchased before I came on board but only by a month or so).
I'll get a Speakeasy T1 and be done with it. Why is it so damn hard to find a provider who gives you IP with no bullshit?
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Earthlink's support has deteriorated drastically in the past couple of years, to the point where they're just another pool of shaved apes with email and phone connectivity. It would be a waste of time telling them anything.
I don't know what's happening to the senior management of Earthlink but they really seem to have lost focus on good
the web is not the internet... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not just Earthlink (Score:2)
Looks like paid search placement from Yahoo (Score:2)
Mistyped porn sites and phising sites? (Score:2)
this doesn't just affect HTTP (Score:5, Informative)
When an application queries DNS for A records (IPv4 addresses) for a particular domain, one of three things should happen:
1. if there are A records for that domain, they should be returned
2. if there are no A records for that domain but there are other records, "no information" should be returned
3. if there are no records of any type for that domain, "no such domain" (NXDOMAIN) should be returned
What Earthlink's servers appear to be doing is the following:
1. if there are real A records for that domain, they are returned
2. if there are no A records for that domain, return A records for several hosts that don't belong to that domain.
if the application tries to talk HTTP to port 80 on any of those hosts and supplies the Host: query request
(standard in HTTP 1.1) the HTTP server will do a search for the domain that appears in the Host: request
and return HTML that suggests other domains that appear to be similar to the one given in the Host: request.
however if the application tries to talk to other ports on that machine it will get "connection refused" or
it will time out.
(the behavior is actually a bit more complicated than that. the behavior seems to be dependent on the IP address from
which the queries were made - so if you make the query to their servers from a host that isn't on Earthlink DSL
you will apparently get normal results. the behavior also seems to be dependent on the domain being queried.)
There are several things wrong with this behavior:
1. It's not reporting the error correctly. Applications that do DNS queries quite reasonably expect NXDOMAIN
to be returned if the domain does not exist, and "no information" to be returned if there are no records of
the type they're looking for - not a list of apparently valid IP addresses pointing to hosts that have nothing
to do with that domain. Many applications behave differently depending on the error condition. "connection
refused" and "connection timed out" are often treated as temporary errors - the application assumes that the
remote server is rebooting or isn't reachable and tries again later. "no such domain" is more often treated
as a permanent error, or one that requires immediate user attention. So this Earthlink change can cause
applications other than web browsers to behave improperly, or to give misleading error messages.
For example: if an email server is trying to send mail to someone at a particular domain, it will first do
a query for MX records to determine if there are any mail servers assigned to that domain. If the MX query returns
no answers, it may then issue a separate query for A records. If this happens the Earthlink DNS server will return
bogus A records and the email server will try to send the mail to Earthlink's servers rather than bouncing the mail
like it should. When Earthlink's servers refuse the connection, the email server will treat the condition as a
temporary error and retry at intervals for several days. As a result, mail for nonexistent domains (say, bounced
spam) can clog up the email server's queues and slow things down.
2. It is hiding other records associated with that domain. Say an application will
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even if an application did an SRV query, though, a nonexistent domain wouldn't list any SRV records, and Earthlink's server would return "no such domain" in response to a SRV query. then the application would presumably fall back to querying for A records, and Earthlink's server would return the bogus A records.
(I checked just now, and
Why the hell shouldn't it? (Score:2)
For another, DNS results are cached by browsers and operating systems, so if someone's DNS servers are temporarily down then anyone who gets sent to earthlink-help.net will continue to see the site as "down" for longer than necessary.
For another, many applications need to know if a domain is not found. If they start getting valid res
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P.S. (Score:2)
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This is different from what VeriSign did because VeriSign had a monopoly in the market (if you can call it a market) and also VeriSign had a financial incentive in preventing registration of addresses similar
That's up to the web browser (Score:2)
Then switch to a browser that tells you something useful, or install a plugin or local proxy that does the same thing. Then YOU get to choose whether you'll use Earthlink's search page or Microsoft's or Yahoo's or Google's. You may be using Amazon's A9 service as your default search engine, which means this service could actually be costing you a discount on Amazon.
This is different from what VeriSign did because VeriSign had a mon
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For instance compare http://slashdot.org/some/invalid/path [slashdot.org]
with http://an.invalid.domain/whatever [an.invalid.domain]
The former is unaffected by the mentioned modifications to the DNS that earthlink is doing - you still get
Re:What's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or we get a recording "doo-dah-dee. We're sorry - the number you have reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try again."
We don't get "This recording is sponsored by Gromyko's Widget Works of Belle PPlain, Wisconsin, North American Wireless, and Joe's Pizza. You have dialed 555-1234. If you meant 554-1234, Smith, John, press 1, if you meant 556-1234, Mierzwiak, James, press 2, or if you meant 555-2233, Yung, M., press 3?"
Not to give the phone company ideas or anything :/
-b.
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The web is *not* the entire Internet. There's more than just HTTP out there, and this can break all of it.
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Uh, no. First off, they're hijacking what should be a NXDOMAIN response and causing it to resolve, which breaks, well, everything. Second, the 404 should come from the target web server if it does resolve, not from some other random web site that Earthlink deci
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Just shoot me an email if you want to help beta test this before we roll it out. It'll be in the coming month or two.
Thanks,
David
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