Site-Lookup Service Foils Fraud By Ryan Singel Wired News
02:00 AM Jul, 10, 2006 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71345-0.html?tw=wn_index_1 Few netizens think about the internet's domain name system: the architecture that invisibly translates a browser's request for, say, wikipedia.org into the numeric IP address where the site is hosted. But a new startup is hoping to make DNS into a household word and usher in an age where smarter DNS service is offered competitively, like e-mail service or spam filtering today. The OpenDNS system, which will open its servers to the public Monday, wants to be a more user-friendly name resolution service than those provided by ISPs, with technology to keep fraudulent sites out of its listings, correct some typos and help browsers look up web pages faster. Setting up an internet connection to use OpenDNS is about as difficult as setting up a POP3 e-mail account, and more advanced users can tinker with their router settings to make the change across a small network. In return, sites like the notoriously sluggish MySpace.com load significantly faster, thanks to the way OpenDNS caches IP addresses. Users who type "wordpres.sorg" or "craigslist.or" into their browser's address field are automatically routed to the correct address, instead of getting a 404 error page. Those who click on a link in a phishing e-mail that attempts to take them to a fake site and con them into entering their credit card number won't even make it to the website, if OpenDNS knows about it. OpenDNS can identify the sites both from monitoring abnormal DNS behavior and from relationships with services like Spamhaus that track online fraudsters. "In short, it's a safer and faster DNS service," says OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch, who already runs a DNS company called EveryDNS that lets websites list their home address for free. But the long answer to the question of why he started the service is far more interesting. Ulevitch's seven-person startup is an attempt to revolutionize a layer of the internet's architecture in order to clean its underbelly of scammers and spammers. While working at EveryDNS, Ulevitch and his team started clearing out listings for fake PayPal sites and IP addresses controlling botnets of compromised computers. They grew frustrated with the knowledge that were only cleaning up their small section of the internet. "The problems we are trying to solve, such as phishing and malware, these are social DNS problems, not technical," Ulevitch says. "Recursive DNS servers are the root of the problem. None of these attacks work without DNS. We set out to create a DNS server and DNS service that provides intelligence and transparency into the way recursive DNS service works." The startup hopes to make money when users type in a nonexistent domain name, such as schwinnbicyclepumps.com. Currently, web surfers simple get an error message when they attempt to navigate to an unused domain. OpenDNS users will instead be routed to a company server that will present a list of search engine results and paid advertisements. The web-interception service currently lacks ads and isn't very useful -- it doesn't break up "schwinnbicyclepumps.com," for example, into discrete words -- but the company plans to fix these details once it has a user base. The tactic could be controversial, as it is reminiscent of VeriSign's Site Finder project, which it unilaterally launched in September 2003. VeriSign, which controls the .com and .net top-level domains through a contract with the U.S. government, began directing users who mistyped domains names to its own servers, where it presented paid search results. The move outraged the technical community and eventually led to an ICANN commission report (PDF) condemning the practice and an unsuccessful VeriSign lawsuit against ICANN. But OpenDNS' approach is very different from VeriSign's, according to DNS expert Allison Mankin, an independent consultant who helped write the Site Finder report and works with the Internet Engineering Task Force. "The important difference is this is your DNS service provider and not the provider of the support infrastructure of top-level domains," Mankin says. But to avoid problems, the service should strive for transparency, says Mankin. "It would be good to have an audit trail or log, so a user could look up and see why the service has refused to provide resolution." Mankin's sentiments are echoed by Rick Wesson, who runs a company called Support Intelligence that sells data on bad actors to OpenDNS. Wesson's service on the ICANN board with Mankin got him named as a defendant in two lawsuits filed by Verisign. "One of big things with Site Finder is that they did it for some 60 million domains," Wesson says. "I don't know how long it will take for OpenDNS do that. OpenDNS is actually able to provide some defense for people who use their service, and I have not seen anyone use DNS like a firewall. But the internet and the market can decide if they are doing a good thing." OpenDNS may also face legal challenges if the company's paid search results show up on unassigned domain names that match other companies' registered trademarks. Google has been hit with a number of such suits over its AdWords program. A lawsuit filed by Geico, an insurance company, was dismissed in 2004; another suit filed by home-decorating firm American Blind is ongoing. Current beta testers, pulled from the EveryDNS.net, are also begging OpenDNS to redirect clear typos, such as "wikepedia.org" (instead of "wikipedia.org"), away from typo-squatters who set up pages with advertising to cash-in on errant keystrokes, something Ulevitch seems game to implement. ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
