Dyn's "Internet Guide" DNS service

[Tom Metro]

Cole Tuininga wrote:
> Just as an FYI, Dyn has a product sort of like this but with more
> controls (and again, completely free).
> http://www.dyndns.com/services/dynguide/

The page says:

   We make your Internet secure and safe by blocking phishing and malware
   sites. You can also set parental controls for content or common sites
   in an office setting.

It also says "your computer will be able to find websites faster," but 
no explanation as to how thats accomplished.

The emphasis seems to be on being a filtering tool. (Could be a good 
option if you want a low effort (although easily bypassed) way to impose 
parental controls. Doesn't OpenDNS also offer this?)


> It's not *quite* as fast as Google's (yet...

Lets see...I noticed in the first benchmark I ran:

Mean response (in milliseconds):
--------------------------------
Google Public DN ############### 81.08
UltraDNS-2       ################### 100.77
Localhost IPv4   #################### 106.07
Genuity BAK      ######################### 133.86
DynGuide-2       ######################### 134.02

includes DynGuide-2, which namebench identifies as:

216.146.36.36   DynGuide-2         189 ms | NXDOMAIN Hijacking

That matches the IP addresses listed for Internet Guide, so I guess 
their tool already includes it in the pool of servers they try.

I tried a more specific benchmark by specifying the Dny servers on the 
command line, while running a benchmark using 200 random queries:

./namebench.py --no_gui -m random -O 216.146.35.35 216.146.36.36 
192.168.0.35 8.8.8.8

and got:

Fastest individual response (in milliseconds):
----------------------------------------------
216.146.35.35    ######################################## 19.24396
216.146.36.36    ########################################## 19.97709
8.8.8.8          ##################################################### 
25.74205

Mean response (in milliseconds):
--------------------------------
8.8.8.8          #################################### 131.40
216.146.35.35    ################################################ 177.11
216.146.36.36    ##################################################### 
196.18


Seems the Dyn servers are closer, but can't quite sustain the same 
response rate.

A repeated run a few hours later during Internet "prime time" showed:

Fastest individual response (in milliseconds):
----------------------------------------------
216.146.36.36    ####################################### 18.11504
192.168.0.35     ####################################### 18.19587
216.146.35.35    ######################################### 18.94689
8.8.8.8          ##################################################### 
24.85609

Mean response (in milliseconds):
--------------------------------
8.8.8.8          ############################# 129.57
216.146.35.35    ########################################### 193.22
192.168.0.35     ############################################## 206.22
216.146.36.36    ##################################################### 
238.19


(On the previous run namebench detect that the LAN cache (192.168.0.35) 
was proxying Google's servers, and considered it redundant with the 
Google server I explicitly listed on the command line, dropping it from 
the test. On this run it either didn't detect that or Dynsmasq has since 
shifted the Google server out of the preferred spot.)

Relative ranking remains the same.


> ...like being able to disable NXDOMAIN hijacking.

Sort of a back-handed feature. "We give you the option of disabling the 
way we broke DNS." :-) (Sure, I'm sure some people find those customized 
error pages helpful.)

(As you can see above, namebench reports which servers do this. 
Apparently some (OpenDNS) also hijack and proxy the Google home page.)

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/