Re: Vixie warns: DNS Changer ‘blackouts’ inevitable

[Jeff Shultz <jeffshultz () wvi com>]

On 5/23/2012 6:27 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 5:42 PM,<valdis.kletnieks () vt edu>  wrote:

> > One could make the case that the releases before Paul got there weren't
> > exactly popular - how many DNS servers were in production in 1986? ;)
>
> Please don't make me remember hosts.txt before I've had a chance to
> wrap up work, go home, and get some Scotch in...

When I was in the US Army in Augsburg, GE, I was a dial-up "customer" of 
our local Army internet node. I'm not sure what the Micro was (Sperry? 
Unisys?) but it took up a good portion of a small room. hosts.txt was 
what it used - if I wanted to e-mail someone, I had to get the IP 
address of their e-mail server and have the sysadmin add it to the file.

I, through my aunt, had the hardest time getting the IP address of the 
Oregon State University e-mail server out of them because they couldn't 
believe that there was someone out there who wasn't running DNS yet. I 
just wanted to be able to send e-mail to my aunt, who was one of my few 
family members who had e-mail at the time.

This was 94-95. The system was due to be replaced at some point by a 486 
PC... that would do DNS. Base closed in 1998... I wonder if they ever 
got their new system?

Oy... I just remembered trying (and occasionally succeeding) to find 
Anonymous FTP sites via the nearly random typing of IP addresses on that 
system.

Okay, time to go hug my DNS server.

--
Jeff Shultz