DNS Routing Problem on Wednesday, March 25, 2015.

On Wednesday, March 25, 2015, several DNS servers were having trouble resolving domain names. I first noticed this when visiting Daring Fireball. I was not able to load the site on my iPhone, which is on T-Mobile network. By 4:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, I was still unable to access Daring Fireball on my iPhone. I took the screenshot and tweeted:

If I had to guess, it might be DNS issue with T-Mobile. 

DaringFireball T-Mobile DNS

Two hours later I noticed that I still couldn’t access Daring Fireball. This time I was using the office network; connected through AT&T DSL. We could only get AT&T in this particular area. Then I tweeted to John Gruber:

It seems  is still down. 

Within 3 minutes, Gruber replied:

 No, my site is up. There are internet-wide routing problems, alas: 

Daring Fireball is still down

When I arrived at a colleague’s residence, I was able to to load Daring Fireball site through Verizon FiOS.

Later on, Ben Drago replied:

 It looks like Google’s DNS servers are not resolving . Working OK w/ 

Ben Drago Google DNS has a problem

I tested a few DNS servers and some of them were having the same issues with Google DNS.

At the time of this post, the issue persists on some DNS servers.

Google Domains

Google is now in the domain registration business. Google Domains is currently an invite only beta.

Google Domains Invite Only Beta

Google Domains Request Invitations

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I have a few domains that were originally registered through Google Apps but not by Google. I will try moving at least one domain registration to Google Domains.

March 17, 2014: Google Talk is Down

On Monday, March 17, 2014 Google Talk is experiencing service disruptions. Users reported that they could not access Hangouts through Gmail, Google+ and mobile Apps.

IMG_0162

Google acknowledges service disruptions with Google Talk and Google Sheets.

Google Apss Status 20140317

Google Talk status on 3/17/14 10:15 AM (Mountain View, CA Time):

Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by 3/17/14 11:15 AM with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.

20140317 Google Talk is down

Google Voice users still can receive calls on their phones but not on Google Talk or Hangouts.

Twenty hours earlier, itnews.com.au reports that Google DNS servers suffers brief traffic hijack.

 

You’ll thank yourself later.

Add the followings to your host file and you’ll thank yourself later.

127.0.0.1       gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1       www.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1       api.gawker.com
127.0.0.1       cache.gawkerassets.com
127.0.0.1       cache.gizmodo.com
127.0.0.1       fonts.gawker.com
127.0.0.1       ganja.gawkerassets.com
127.0.0.1       img.gawkerassets.com

Header for the host file:

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

fe80::1%lo0     localhost

Dont know what a hosts file is?
Wikipedia has a page for it.

No more accidentally clicking on links to garbage posts on this particular site.

Spammer Alert: superdooperdeals.com

Readers sent us a few info about new round of spam from superdooperdeals.com. Do not give them your email addresses with hope you’d be unsubscribed from their spam bombardments. superdooperdeals.com site includes some fake testimonials that don’t even make any sense.

Whois info on superdooperdeals.com:

Registration Service Provided By: Namecheap.com
Contact: support@namecheap.com
Visit: http://namecheap.com

Domain name: Superdooperdeals.com

Registrant Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll ()

Fax:
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Administrative Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll (liam@superdooperdeals.com)
+1.5033038404
Fax: +1.5555555555
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Technical Contact:
SuperDooperDeals
Liam Carroll (liam@superdooperdeals.com)
+1.5033038404
Fax: +1.5555555555
15500 SW Jay Street #38743
Beaverton, OR 97006
US

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
ns1.superdooperdeals.com
ns2.superdooperdeals.com

Creation date: 23 Mar 2011 03:15:00
Expiration date: 22 Mar 2012 22:15:00

Other Domain Registered by superdooperdeals.com:

  • bingolikey.com
  • carz-online.com
  • luxuryhosting.net
  • yourkeywords.net
  • we-mean-business.org
  • playwithusdaily.com

We will add more info whenever we get them.

eNom and namecheap are the DNS Registrar that superdooperdeal.com uses, but they are willing to resolve the issue.

This is a sample of namecheap.com reply to the complaints:

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding researchsneeze.info domain name. The domain that you reported is registered with NameCheap but hosted with another company. Please contact the hosting company for help with investigating the incident of spam. You will need to forward entire email with full headers to them. Here are contact details of the company that owns IP address assigned to the domain:

http://who.is/whois-ip/108.60.156.10/
——————–
Regards,
Marta K.
Customer Support

http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=108.60.156.10?showDetails=true&showARIN=false

Other good and responsible DNS Registrars would take the complaints seriously and actually do something to disable the offending domains.

File complaints to FTC: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en for the violation of CAN-SPAM Act.

One Spammer Down, Many More To Go: exectsided.net

Thanks to everyone who took their time contacting moniker.net and filing complaints to FTC. It seems that exectsided.net domain has been taken down by Moniker.com Domain Name Registrar. One down, and many more to go.

If you’re getting a lot of spam emails from a particular domain name, you should find out its domain registrar and contact them. Next you file complaints to FTC.

Google Public DNS

Google has just launched a public DNS similar to OpenDNS as alternative to the ISP DNS.

Google DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Why does DNS matter?
The DNS protocol is an important part of the web’s infrastructure, serving as the Internet’s phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day.

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

——-

OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

http://www.opendns.com/