OpenDNS again

I wasn’t about to try diddling the router at 11:30 last night but it seemed like a no-brainer to test out this OpenDNS service.

So, look at the little button below. If it says “You’re using OpenDNS” then clearly someone in your network (your local PC, router, DNS, ISP, …) is using OpenDNS. The “code” for this button is simplicity itself

<a title="Use OpenDNS to make your Internet faster, safer, and smarter." href="http://www.opendns.com/share/">
     <img style="border:0;"
          src="http://images.opendns.com/buttons/use_opendns_155x52.gif"
          alt="Use OpenDNS" width="155" height="52" />
</a>

So, if images.opendns.com was sent to my ISP, it would likely resolve in one way and if it was sent to OpenDNS, it would resolve a different way. That means that the image retrieved would differ based on whether you are using OpenDNS or not.

Step 1: Setup was trivial. I logged in to my router and deposited the DNS server addresses and hit “Apply”. The router did its usual thing and voila, I was using OpenDNS.

Step 2: Setup an account on OpenDNS. Easy, provide an email address and add a network. In this case, it correctly detected the public IP address of my router and populated its page. It said it would take 3 minutes to propagate within the OpenDNS network. There’s an email confirmation, you click on a link, you know the drill.

Step 3: Setup stats (default: disabled)

All easy, web page resolution seems to be working OK. Let me go and look at those stats they talk about. (Click on the picture below to see it at full size).

August 17th you say? Today is September 1st. I guess tracking 16 billion or so DNS queries for two days in a row is a little too much for their infrastructure. I can suggest a database or two that would not break a sweat with that kind of data inflow rate.

July 30, 2009: OpenDNS announces that for the first time ever, it successfully resolves more than 16 Billion DNS queries for 2 days in a row.

(source: http://www.opendns.com/about/overview/)

So far, so good. I’ve got to see what this new toy can do 🙂 Let’s see what other damage this thing can cause.

Content Filtering

Nice, they support content filtering as part of the setup. That could be useful. Right now, I reduce annoyances on my browsing experience with a suitably crafted “hosts” file (Windows Users: %SYSTEMROOT%system32driversetchosts).

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.0.1       ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1       hitbox.com
127.0.0.1       ai.hitbox.com
127.0.0.1       googleads.g.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1       ads.gigaom.com
127.0.0.1       ads.pheedo.com
[... and so on ...]

I guess I can push this “goodness” over to OpenDNS and reduce the pop-up crap that everyone will get at home. (click on image for a higher resolution version of the screen shot)

Multiple Networks!

Very cool! I can setup multiple networks as part of a single user profile. So, my phone and my home router could both end up being protected by my OpenDNS profile.

I wonder how that would work when I’m in a location that hands out a non-routable DHCP address; such as at a workplace. I guess the first person to register the public IP of the workplace will see traffic for everyone in the workplace with a per-PC OpenDNS setting that shares the same public IP address? Unclear, that may be awkward.

Enabling OpenDNS on a Per-PC basis.

In last nights post, I had questioned the rationale of enabling OpenDNS on a per-PC basis. I guess there is some value to this because OpenDNS provides me a way to influence the name resolution process. And, if I were to push content filtering onto OpenDNS, then I would like to get the same content filtering when I was not at home; e.g. at work, at Starbucks, …

I’m sure that over-anxious-parents-who-knew-a-thing-or-two-about-PC’s could load the “Dynamic IP” updater thing on a PC and change the DNS entries to point to OpenDNS before junior went away to college 🙂

So, I guess that per-PC OpenDNS settings may make some sense; it would be nice to have an easy way to enable this when required. I guess that is a fun project to work on one of these days when I’m at Starbucks.

Jeremiah says, “I do it on a per computer basis because I occasionally need to disable it. (Mac OS X makes this super quick with Locations)”. Jeremiah, please do tell why you occasionally need to disable it. Does something fail?

Other uses of OpenDNS

kuzux writes in response to my previous post that OpenDNS can be used to get around restrictive ISP’s. That is interesting because the ISP’s that have put these restrictions in place are likely only blocking name resolution and not connection and traffic. Further, the ISP’s could just as well find the IP addresses of the sites like OpenDNS and put a damper on the festivities. And, one does not have to look far to get the IP addresses of the OpenDNS servers 🙂

Two thoughts come to mind. First, if the authorities (in Turkey as Kuzux said) put the screws on OpenDNS, would they pour out the DNS lookup logs for specific IP addresses that they cared about (both source and destination). Second, a hypothetical country with huge manufacturing operations, a less stellar human rights record, and a huge number of take-out restaurants all over the US (that shall remain nameless), could take a dim view of a foreigner who had OpenDNS on his/her laptop and was able to access “blocked” content.

Other comments

Janitha Karunaratne writes in response to my previous post that, “Lot of times if it’s a locked down limited network, they will intercept all DNS traffic, so using OpenDNS won’t help (their own default DNS server will reply no matter which DNS server you try to reach)”. I guess I don’t understand how that could be. When a machine attempts a DNS lookup, it addresses the packet specifically to the DNS server that it is targeting. Are you suggesting that these “locked down limited networks” will intercept that packet, redirect it to the in-house DNS server and have it respond?

David Ulevitch (aka Founder and CTO of OpenDNS) writes, “Yeah, there are all kinds of reasons people use our service. Speed, safety, security, reliability… I do tests when I travel, and have even done it with GoGo on a VA flight and we consistently outperform”. Mr. Ulevitch, your product is wonderful and easy to use. Very cool. But, I wonder about this performance claim. When I am traveling, potentially sitting in an airport lounge, a hotel room, a coffee shop or in a train using GPRS based internet service with unknown bandwidth, is the DNS lookup a significant part of the response time to a page refresh, mail message download, (insert activity of your choice)?

My Point of View

It seems to work, it can’t hurt to use it at home (if my ISP has a problem with it, they can block traffic to the IP address). It doesn’t seem to be appreciably faster or slower than my ISP’s DNS. I’ll give it a shot for a while and see what the statistics say (when they get around to updating them).

OpenDNS is certainly an easy to use, non-disruptive service and is worth giving a shot. If you use the free version of OpenDNS (ie don’t create an account, just point to their name servers), there is little possible downside; if you get on a Virgin Atlantic flight, you may need to disable it. But, if you use the registered site, just remember that OpenDNS is collecting a treasure trove of information about where you go, what you do, and they have your email address, IP address (hence a pretty good idea of where you live). They already target advertising to you on the default landing page for bad lookups. I’m not suggesting that you will get spammed up the wazoo but just bear in mind that you have yet another place where a wealth of information about you is getting quietly stored away for later use.

But, it is a cool idea. Give it a shot.