![]() Any program that accesses computers by name will be protected, whether it be a Web browser, e-mail program, instant-messaging program, FTP or whatever. Let me end by pointing out that OpenDNS protection applies to your Internet connection. Next time, I'll go into more detail on the various types of protection offered by OpenDNS. That intelligence, such as preventing you from accessing known bad Web sites, is the big selling point (if a free service can have a selling point). In addition to infrastructure, OpenDNS adds intelligence to the translation process that was not part of the original design of the DNS system. If your computer is talking to a compromised DNS server, you can enter "(for example) into the address bar of your Web browser and not end up at Citibank's Web site, but instead be looking at a phony imitation Web site. Nothing is worse than a compromised DNS server. Hopefully, because they are specialists, their DNS servers will be more resistant to attack by the bad guys. Consider that the first reason to use them. A cable TV company or a telephone company may not have the in-house expertise to do this well. In addition, speed and redundancy are critical issues. Running DNS servers is not a trivial thing-there are many configuration options that need to be understood and correctly set up. OpenDNS provides excellent instructions for doing this. To use their service, you change the TCP/IP networking software on your computer to point to their DNS servers instead of those from your ISP. : Sunday, Decem2AMĪs the name implies, OpenDNS runs their own DNS servers. Sample XP output from this command is shown below.Ĭonnection-specific DNS Suffix. Windows Vista, XP and 2000 users can see this by entering the command "ipconfig /all" at a command prompt. Should one fail, your computer automatically tries to use the other one. When you first connect to the Internet, you are assigned a pair of DNS servers. The translation (technically DNS resolution) happens so quickly and transparently you are not aware of it.ĭNS is a core service provided by every ISP which runs a pair of computers called DNS servers (at least a pair, maybe more). When your computer goes to (or any other Web site) it first obtains the IP address by making a translation request to a computer called a DNS server. It is the process of converting the name of a computer to its IP address.ĭNS ( Domain Name System) is a huge distributed system that functions amazing well, especially considering the initial design predates the Internet as we now know it by many years. DNS resolution can be thought of as a telephone book. Just as people have both names and phone numbers, computers on the Internet have both names (and IP addresses (216.239.122.51). Thus, the standard way of representing the above IP address is 216.239.122.51 (without a dot/period at the end).Īs proof, enter this IP address in the address bar of your Web browser as shown above. To make it especially simple, clumps of eight bits are converted to decimal and the four clumps are separated by periods. For example, when going to under the covers, your computer is talking to a CNET machine at this IP address:įor simplicity sake, an IP address is written in decimal rather than binary. Technically an IP address is a 32 bit ( binary dig it) binary number. You can see the IP address of the computer you're reading this blog posting with by visiting, , or other similar Web sites. When two computers talk to each other on the Internet, they address each other using this number, which us nerds call an IP address. Americans can think of it as a Social Security number for their computer. I'll be as brief as possible.Įvery computer on the Internet is assigned a unique number. This topic can be a bit technical, but some background is required to understand where OpenDNS fits and how it can provide the services it does.
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