Internet Blues

[Al Skierkiewicz]

It may not be inside...

Internet Mystery Solved

Those missing Web Pages

The root cause of the problem is a flaw in the Internet service itself which hackers have managed to exploit to cause sporadic world wide disruptions during the last couple of weeks. This flaw which has been publicized in numerous news articles (http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_85257...F007863C4.html) is known as the DNS Exploit.

The Internet is a worldwide collection of computer networks, cooperating with each other to exchange data using a common software standard. At the core of any network is the DNS (Domain Name System). When a user goes to a website the URL that we can easily remember such as 'google.com' is translated into an IP address (216.239.39.99) by a DNS server so it can easily traverse the internet. Hackers have found a security hole in the root DNS servers that they can exploit so when a request comes in to go to 'google.com' instead of it being translated into the correct IP it is translated into the hackers IP of choice and then the end user is directed to that server. The server can house malicious content, be a spoofed website to appear as the intended website, etc.

This is part of a message sent to my work users last week. I have noticed my Earthlink at home acting very badly. Timeouts are regular over the last two to three weeks. Data transfers are normal for several seconds then just stop for as long as 30 seconds or more. Speed tests done at the request of Earthlink support show the same problem. Normal transfer rates for seconds interupted by longer periods of no speed.