!@!#$ argh thrash CHARTER !@^%#*@^(#. Sysadmins and techs listen up.

Charter are being amazing assholes.

Any of you who use Charter for your internets may have noticed that lately if you try to go to a website that doesn't exist, such as http://horkinforkin.com , instead of getting a normal error page you are redirected to the following crap instead: http://www11.charter.net/search?qo=horkinforkin.com

Problem is, the damage they have done to achieve this goes far deeper. They aren't just doing this for web stuff. Charter DNS servers, if queried for a domain name that it can't resolve to an IP address, will return false IP address information. For instance if I ping horkinforkin.com , it resolves horkinforkin.com to IP address 64.158.56.56.

Trying to do email or DNS diagnostics in this environment is driving me nuts.

I wouldn't even know what was going on if it wasn't for finding the following post when researching the bizarre DNS behavior I was seeing:
http://forums.etree.org/viewtopic.php?t=8697 (Near the bottom)

"PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:38 am
This is late, but I found this page on a Google search of 64.158.56.56 .

Your problem is this: Charter has begun to stink horribly. They set up their DNS servers such that, if they do not find a DNS record, they return 64.158.56.56 and 206.112.100.132, instead of returning NXDOMAIN, like it is supposed to do. They have set up a search results page on port 80 of those IP's. That way, if their servers don't find a domain name, they assume that you are using the web, not some other internet service (such as a torrent, remote desktop connection, SMTP, etc., etc. and route traffic for domains that should have returned NXDOMAIN to their own search site, which they can then advertise on and make money by messing up DNS service for their customers. This is currently messing up my internal DNS because my router is checking Charter's DNS before its own host records for some reason. This means that all computers inside my network return Charter's stupid search server instead of returning the correct address, because Charter returned an IP instead of NXDOMAIN, like it was supposed to."

What's more, Charter's DNS servers are for some reason failing to resolve the following rather important URLs:
sbl.spamhaus.org
list.dsbl.org
when other servers (such as DNSstuff.com) return proper and working DNS info for these domains. (and pings work too)

On the sidewalk, & a death

This actually happened yesterday.

I was out walking at lunchtime with my camera, experimenting with infrared. I'll post some of those later. I was heading back towards the office, and ahead on the sidewalk sat a young woman with long dark hair, heavy but not unpleasantly so, leaning against a telephone pole with a trash bag full of something in her left hand. She stared blankly ahead.

As I passed I said "Hello", and her face suddenly brightened and she said "Hi!" with animation and warmth in her voice, but then immediately lowered her eyes and quietly said "Sorry..."

I walked the next block wondering why she had said "sorry" like that.

I walked the block after that wondering why I hadn't asked her.



In an unrelated note, my grandfather passed away today. My extended family lives mostly in the midwest, and so I haven't seen him for years. Last time I saw him at my parent's house in NJ he had suffered a stroke and couldn't talk. He mostly sat on the sidewalk and pulled weeds, cutting the dandelion roots under the surface with his pocketknife. He had more strokes after that. Mom and Dad tell me that last time they visited him at the nursing home, he didn't even recognize them. I remember him mostly as he was when I was a child, both gruff and playful... he had a wallet on a chain that we kids would delight in pulling out and letting drop as we ran away. He feigned surprise and anger every time. He was a farmer. He was a tall, tan man... he looked a lot then like my father looks now. I am thankful my kids live closer to my parents, and will get to know them more than I knew mine.

I miss Grandpa Woody, and I'm very sad he passed. I'm also sad for my father.