Scott Hanselman

DNS is one of these things that we just take for granted. You type www.cnn.com and it resolves to an IP Address.

Who've have thought you could take a stodgie old protocol like DNS and hack a business model around it?

UPDATE: One of the founders of OpenDNS, David Ulevitch, has responded with some helpful info in the comments area.

OpenDNS has. Just set you DNS settings to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 or click the button in the upper right corner of this post.

Interestingly, that button is a SMART button. If YOU are already using OpenDNS, you'll see one image, while everyone else sees the other.

They not only offer faster DNS lookups, but they'll

• correct spelling errors so if you try to visit www.craigslist.or or www.yahoo.cmo they will correct it for you!
• anti-phishing at the DNS level so if you try to visit http://www.internetbadguys.com you'll see a Phishing Site Blocked message. That's cool.

They make their money when you completely booger up a domain name, or DNS doesn't resolve, and you'll get a search page with their advertisers on it.

Now, to be clear, the protocol purists will hate this, declaring things like in the comments here:

I also don't like that "spelling correction" or "anti-phishing" feature. That doesn't belong in the cache; it belongs at the resolver. I would agree [snip] — OpenDNS is unsuitable for use as an enterprise DNS cache. It might be a good solution for people who want to run their own personal cache on a local node.

Personally, I'm loving it. I loves me a clever hack and this be one. Take a look at their FAQ. Since there's no software to install, and you can undo it anytime, it seems harmless to me.

If you want to try it with nslookup on Windows, remember to include the trailing . after the domain name.

C:\Users\Scott>nslookup www.craigslist.org.
Server: resolver1.opendns.com
Address: 208.67.222.222:53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.craigslist.org
Address: 66.150.253.241

C:\Users\Scott>nslookup www.craigslist.orr.
Server: resolver1.opendns.com
Address: 208.67.222.222:53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.craigslist.orr
Address: 208.67.219.41

Notice how the misspelled domain points to a 208.67.x.x address? That's OpenDNS. They'll redirect requests to craigslist.orr to the real site, that's how they handle misspellings - they're actually misspelled in the cache.

Take a look at their http://system.opendns.com Status page. They are pretty hard core. I'll be hooking the parents and relatives up with this one, ASAP. If you're a parent or relative of me, go here to the Getting Started Page if you like, and follow the instructions, and call me if you have trouble. When you're done, visit http://welcome.opendns.com and you'll know if it worked or not.

Comcast's (my ISP) DNS tends to suck, and I have been compensating by running DNS Masq here at the house on my Linksys Router.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. I am a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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