Testing Your Internet Connection for ISP DNS Diversions

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Lauren Weinstein [lauren () vortex com]
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 10:17 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Testing Your Internet Connection for ISP DNS Diversions

             Testing Your Internet Connection for ISP DNS Diversions

                   http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000377.html


Greetings. Over at the Network Neutrality Squad, the issue of ISPs
intercepting and/or diverting DNS (Domain Name Service) lookups has
recently risen to the surface. Some tests that you can perform to
investigate this for yourself on your ISP are described below.

Increasingly, ISPs have been attempting to monetize users' Web
browsing in various ways, and steering them to ISP-partnered search
engines in cases of mistyped domain names and the like is just one
example of this activity.

There is a great deal of variation in how this is accomplished;
whether or not effective opt-outs are available; and how forthright,
opaque, or simply confused ISPs' tech support pages and people may
be regarding this matter.

Beyond the issue of shunting users to search engines of the ISPs'
own choosing, diversion of DNS requests can have significant
negative impacts on various applications, especially non-browsing
(non-http) applications.

  [ ... ]

  [ Due to their length and detail, the full information and links
    for the test procedures and accompanying explanations are
    omitted here.  Please see the complete write-up at:

    http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000377.html

    Thanks! ]

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com

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