DNS entry abuse question
We recently discovered that bee.net DNS is pointing the name molvis.org at our main web server, www.emory.edu, without our permission. The billing contact for molvis.org is a student at Emory. Although we can contact bee.net and the student to address this violation of our policy, my question is whether there is anything we can do in general to prevent people from pointing DNS names at computers at Emory without our permission. Presumably there is great opportunity for mischief here, in that someone could register a domain name such as emorysucks.org and point it at our web site. If this is the wrong place to ask this question, please accept my apology and suggest an alternate place. Thanks for any advice you can give. Peter Day Emory.edu administrative contact Information Technology Division N. Decatur Bldg Suite 300 | E-mail: ospwd@emory.edu Emory University | PHONE: +1 404 727-7678 Atlanta, GA 30322 | FAX: +1 404 727-0817
Although we can contact bee.net and the student to address this violation of our policy, my question is whether there is anything we can do in general to prevent people from pointing DNS names at computers at Emory without our permission. Presumably there is great opportunity for mischief here, in that someone could register a domain name such as emorysucks.org and point it at our web site.
If this is the wrong place to ask this question, please accept my apology and suggest an alternate place.
There isn't any way to prevent others from assigning A records in their domains to point to hosts and addresses in Emory. All you can do is contact the DNS administrators and owners of the domains to remove the offending records. The more appropriate place to ask this might be one of the BIND/DNS group/mailing lists that are out there. HTH, tim
There isn't any way to prevent others from assigning A records in their domains to point to hosts and addresses in Emory. All you can do is contact the DNS administrators and owners of the domains to remove the offending records.
one can set up emory as a primary with the zone content of molvis.org. SOA (...) NS my.server. MX 42 some.schmuck.lame.delegated.molvis.org. use a low ttl so it de-caches quickly when they fix the lame delegation. randy
I honestly don't think there's much you can do regarding someone else pointing an A record at one of your machines if you don't run DNS for the domain that the A record is coming from. Now, you could just make it part of your acceptable use policy or student handbook that it's not acceptable to be doing things like that with possible penalities (expulsion, things like that). But really, is the offense such that it warrants drastic action? -- Joseph W. Shaw - jshaw@insync.net Freelance Computer Security Consultant and Perl Programmer Free UNIX advocate - "I hack, therefore I am." On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Peter Day wrote:
We recently discovered that bee.net DNS is pointing the name molvis.org at our main web server, www.emory.edu, without our permission. The billing contact for molvis.org is a student at Emory.
Although we can contact bee.net and the student to address this violation of our policy, my question is whether there is anything we can do in general to prevent people from pointing DNS names at computers at Emory without our permission. Presumably there is great opportunity for mischief here, in that someone could register a domain name such as emorysucks.org and point it at our web site.
If this is the wrong place to ask this question, please accept my apology and suggest an alternate place.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Peter Day Emory.edu administrative contact Information Technology Division N. Decatur Bldg Suite 300 | E-mail: ospwd@emory.edu Emory University | PHONE: +1 404 727-7678 Atlanta, GA 30322 | FAX: +1 404 727-0817
Interesting that this came up, was just reading an article that pointed me in this direction. http://www.toad.com/~dnssec/ Henry R. Linneweh Joe Shaw wrote:
I honestly don't think there's much you can do regarding someone else pointing an A record at one of your machines if you don't run DNS for the domain that the A record is coming from. Now, you could just make it part of your acceptable use policy or student handbook that it's not acceptable to be doing things like that with possible penalities (expulsion, things like that). But really, is the offense such that it warrants drastic action?
-- Joseph W. Shaw - jshaw@insync.net Freelance Computer Security Consultant and Perl Programmer Free UNIX advocate - "I hack, therefore I am."
On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Peter Day wrote:
We recently discovered that bee.net DNS is pointing the name molvis.org at our main web server, www.emory.edu, without our permission. The billing contact for molvis.org is a student at Emory.
Although we can contact bee.net and the student to address this violation of our policy, my question is whether there is anything we can do in general to prevent people from pointing DNS names at computers at Emory without our permission. Presumably there is great opportunity for mischief here, in that someone could register a domain name such as emorysucks.org and point it at our web site.
If this is the wrong place to ask this question, please accept my apology and suggest an alternate place.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Peter Day Emory.edu administrative contact Information Technology Division N. Decatur Bldg Suite 300 | E-mail: ospwd@emory.edu Emory University | PHONE: +1 404 727-7678 Atlanta, GA 30322 | FAX: +1 404 727-0817
Interesting that this came up, was just reading an article that pointed me in this direction. http://www.toad.com/~dnssec/
Henry, how does DNSSEC stop me from putting in A (or CNAME) records in a zone that I control that point to things in a zone that I don't control? To my knowledge it doesn't. Tim
On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Peter Day wrote:
Although we can contact bee.net and the student to address this violation of our policy, my question is whether there is anything we can do in general to prevent people from pointing DNS names at computers at Emory without our permission.
You're absolutely correct. Can you clearly explain why you care, other that defamation issues (which I address below)? Is this somehow impacting your ability to operate in some fashion?
Presumably there is great opportunity for mischief here, in that someone could register a domain name such as emorysucks.org and point it at our web site.
That's a defamation issue. It's a social problem, and needs a social solution. In this case, you contact the people doing it, and if they're not helpful, you call your lawyer. Technology can't solve everything. -- Edward S. Marshall <emarshal@logic.net> [ What goes up, must come down. ] http://www.logic.net/~emarshal/ [ Ask any system administrator. ] Linux labyrinth 2.2.3-ac2 #2 Thu Mar 18 19:48:40 CST 1999 i586 unknown 9:10pm up 1 day, 31 min, 4 users, load average: 0.24, 0.08, 0.09
participants (6)
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Edward S. Marshall -
Henry Linneweh -
Joe Shaw -
Peter Day -
Randy Bush -
Tim Finkenstadt