Just keep in mind that 404 would not be appropriate.
Since we’re talking about a domain name resolution failure, your request will never reach a web server.
The 404 message is the web server’s not found message, since your request should not reach a web server this response is inappropriate.

Your computer should send out a query to your DNS server which should eventually receive a non-existent domain response, your browser would then display whatever error page it shows when a domain does not exist.

I feel the larger problem we’re fighting here is a social rather than a moral issue.
When many people connect to the Internet they see themselves as using access sold to them by a company.
When companies sell people access to the internet they see themselves as selling a product.

The majority on both sides doesn’t seem to realize that by connecting to the Internet you’re becoming a component contributing to the Internet’s health.
If more people were aware of the effects of their presence on the network, more people would probably be upset by the actions of ISPs doing such meddling in core protocols.

is the only appropriate answer in all cases.

road runner needs to take some of that

money we’re GIVING them and purchase

a MORAL COMPASS.

jr

Sounds like someone at Time Warner really messed things up in your case. Glad to hear you got it all resolved. I’d be wary of using OpenDNS permanently. While OpenDNS has helped me out of a bind with DNS problems in the past, a little voice in my head always warns me to be wary of their ability to alter my web experience.

See the link below for an example of “questionable” practices.
http://blog.opendns.com/2007/05/22/google-turns-the-page/

While the intent is admirable, their willingness to take the onus out of the hands of the user with such a low level protocol will always worry me.

Or I could just be paranoid.

Cheers.

Yes, I thought it was hypocritical to offer an “opt in or opt out” link when it is opt-in by default. When I first called in about it, the lady had never heard of DNS redirection. She put me on hold, and when she came back, she explained that this had “somehow” been switched on on my account… She made it sound like it wasn’t supposed to be on by default. She stepped me through the opting out process, but when Time Warner came and replaced my modem, the redirection got turned back on. So I’m thinking they are using the MAC address to redirect.

Time Warner should have learned a lesson from Facebook’s Beacon debacle. Quietly enabling their Beacon advertising system on everyone’s account didn’t go over so well for them. They had to change it from an opt-out to an opt-in feature. I think the ethical thing to do here, would be for Time Warner to follow suit and make it an opt-in service.

I mean, honestly - could they have put it anywhere else that would have gotten less attention?

Thanks for the post, and for pointing it out.

Wow you must have found it day one, I obviously didn’t run into the problem until my logs got suspiciously large.

While it is depressing, it doesn’t surprise me that the “service” was auto opt-in with no option to opt out. What happened to the type of forethought that used to exist in networking technology that has resulted in such long lasting technologies as DNS in the first place.

Just to clarify for anybody who is unfamiliar with the DNS protocol, an NX response is a Non-eXistent domain response.

I’m very glad you managed to talk to a network tech, I wasn’t able to get my ticket elevated despite multiple calls. After finding the opt-out I couldn’t rationalize spending any extra time on the problem.

Thanks for your persistence!

However, they didn’t have the “opt-out” service when I called. The first person said that doing DNS queries violated the terms of service, I hope she’s been fired by now. The second person didn’t know what DNS was or how it was important to the internet. So little to say I got talking to their network engineers about why NX records are important. So they added the “opt-out” service for people like us who know what’s up.