2008-04-27 Verizon is Still Evil

Verizon has been continuing to give us troubles, hijacking valid web addresses like www.google.com to their websearch.verizon.net "powered by Yahoo" search service. Over the last week, we were unable to get to many major sites on the Internet. Yet, all the time, connecting via IP worked without problems.



It is clear that the problem is in Verizon's network — their "DNS Assistance" service is mistakenly thinking that valid addresses do not exist. However, their support organization is sadly even more broken than their network...

We called front line support, and the lady that first helped us correctly narrowed down the problem to DNS resolution, and was starting to walk us through the procedure to "opt out" of "DNS Assistance". However, when she found out that we were using a Macintosh, she refused to provide further assistance, and indicated we had to talk to someone in their Macintosh support department. (Despite the steps being configuration changes to the modem, which had nothing to do with the operating system)

Ten minutes of holding later, we talked with another fellow, who first refused to acknowledge that the problem even existed, then said that the problem was the browser that we were using and told us that all he could recommend was to download Firefox, despite the fact that I walked him through the fact that you could see the problem just using telnet, and that the DNS resolution subsystem is independent from the browser.

So, time for a supervisor...

Ten minutes more holding, and the supervisor said that "nothing could be wrong with their network, and that the problem was with the modem." So I specifically asked if the DNS resolution code that redirects me to a different address when the requested address is not found was in the modem. He answered that it was, and said that the only thing he could do was to send me a new modem.

ARRRGGGGG!!!

Of course, while on hold, I found forum postings on how to change the modem DNS configurations, the passwords for the modem, and the official Verizon support page that describes how to "opt-out".

Official Verizon DNS Assistance Opt-Out Instructions

We're going to take the screenshots of Verizon redirecting www.google.com to a yahoo branded search service and send them to google, since this hijacking is completely unacceptable, even if it is the result of their system problems.

2008-01-20 Verizon is EVIL

I was reading The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), about the recent Boing 777 crash in Heathrow, when all of a sudden, instead of the link taking me to the next article, I was presented with the following screen:



This is outrageous. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the ISP ever proxy themselves between my web browser and the web server that I am trying to contact. In the security industry, this is called a man-in-the-middle attack, and it Verizon is TAMPERING with and ALTERING the information being provided to me by other entities on the Internet.

Upon further investigation, it appears that Verizon is doing this for DNS entries that do not resolve. But this is further an outrage given that I can ping and access the Guardian's web servers from another server, indicating that their systems are running.

Tomorrow, I shall phone their support line and explain that this behaviour is unacceptable, in violation of the fundamental protocols that define how Internet applications function, and that unless such behaviour is stopped, we shall be terminating our service with the company and recommending that all other people that we know do so as well.

Update

It appears that other people have been encountering this behaviour, abet just with incorrect DNS entries:

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1227
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-sitefinder-redux-verizon-tests-dns-redirect-service.html

This is completely unacceptable, and this needs to be stopped.

Update 2

I can't even view my own blog, because Verizon is no longer resolving seataf.blogspot.com. Yet, I can resolve this address without any problems from my other server, which is not connected to the Internet via Verizon. Time to call support...

Update 3

Support wasn't useful, except saying that they were doing some unspecified "maintenance" to their system.

I replaced the configured Verizon DNS servers with alternate ones, and things are at least working again.

I think a letter complaining about their unacceptable alteration of DNS responses is in order...