It started a few days ago with an email from my Spam Service Provider, an automated message stating that it couldn’t find the proper MX records on my personal domain name (ShawnReed.Com).

Yesterday, after a glourious ride through Missourri and NW Arkansas (also saw the new BMW K1200S), I had several emails from TriumphRat.Net users on the US East Coast and the UK stating that they have been having problems accessing TriumphRat.Net.

Major ISPs were affected; Verizon, Comcast, and BT Internet.

This morning I received an email from my current DNS Service Provider (WorldNiC / Network Solutions):

Dear Shawn Reed,

Thank you for contacting Network Solutions.

We are currently experiencing a degradation of service on some of our servers. Our engineering team is aware of the issue and it is our top priority to resolve. We apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing.

Thank you for submitting your request to Network Solutions.

Sincerely,

Network Solutions Specialist
Network Solutions, LLC

While I have always believed the next large-scale Internet catastrophe will be a significant attack on DNS. What better way for one of Allah’s warriors to prove his worth by plunging the world back 20 years through a systematic murder of the world’s primary DNS NAPs.

Think of all the business done on the Internet today. If we were to set aside consumer eCommerce as un-important, there is still enough DNS-dependent traffic to cause a significant economic downturn in a matter of days (or hours).

Does your business or company use SSL-enabled web applications over the Internet, or maybe an SSL VPN? Or worse, your network admin has tied the resolution of your IP-Sec VPN to a DNS record.

The creator of DNS was recently quoted in NETWORK WORLD as stating that an attack on DNS would be futile, due to the multi-redudant systems making up the world’s DNS network. My dis-agreement with that assessment, up to now, has been due to the risk associated with running your own DNS server. Setting one up isn’t technically challenging, but keeping it from being hacked is. For me, one experience was enough to encourage others to always outsource DNS to a provider with a team and process in place to manage it.

Seems that recent events are proving that my forecast was right.

We need laws in place with specific punishments for DNS attacks:

• Life sentences for US Citizens that hack (or attempt to hack) public DNS servers
• Pre-Approved processes for US Intelligence Agencies to “recover” terrorists that do the same
• Congressional backing to attack & invade countries that can’t control it

The WTC was a sad event, but killing DNS has far greater consequences. It’s time to wise up and make some changes!

A recent post by one of my friends on TriumphRat.Net, about the recent sales and stock drop at Harley Davidson, is making “virtual vultures” out of us. Who can blame us?

The economy is improving, but not without continued shifts in our corporate economy. This represents a significant portion of the revenue that has supported H-D over the last decade. Unless you are in a profession that thrives in change, such as a corporate attorney, purchasing a new VRod or Electra Glide isn’t a priority on your agenda.

Some people think this is the beginning of the end for H-D, it’s too early to tell. As long as girls continue to prefer DynaGlides over Thruxtons, it’s anyone’s guess.

CentOS is basically the efforts a small development team that obtains the source code/files for Red Hat Enterprise and compiles them into their own distro. The idea in itself is sound, if you like using Red Hat.

From a server perspective, Red Hat is a very stable distribution, but I haven’t been that excited about using it for a desktop OS. For example, I keep a P3-based machine in my office just to use as a file storage server (within my LAN) currently running SuSE. If I wiped it clean and did a pure text-based CentOS install (I don’t use X on my file server), then it would be very similar to Red Hat and would likely run very well.

However, if I wanted to do anything more than just a simple Linux-based application like storing files, then it doesn’t take long for one of many other distros to catch up and surpass CentOS. Things like Windows networking, multimedia, and support are either commercially available or freely available through enthusiastic users.

So if I looked at it another way, it wouldn’t be that difficult to use Debian or Gentoo for the same file server. Hell, let’s just throw Fedora on it

You get the picture – just my opinion.

The low-cost webhosting business is nothing more than a bunch of marketing B.S.

Get this; 2400 Gig of Disk Space – 150 Gig of Data Transfer – and many other BS Features = $7.00 per month.

It goes on and on, and people actually waste their time mulling over all of these services as if it is as significant as reading automotive reviews in Consumer Reports.

Look at disk space: Some hosting services offer 2 Gig of disk space, which does make some sense but where does 2400 Gig come from? Even if they did provide it, you would have to fly in and install a high speed storage server to make regular backups a bearable experience.

Somebody stop the bandwidth BS: 150 Gigs! Geez man, if your website had enough content for kind of draw it would have to fall within such a fine spec that maybe 1% of the worlds websites could fall into. For the rest of us, if you are transferring that much data your site is doing more to the server than just transferring bandwidth.

The fact is that the small hosting market has become so consumed in low-cost hosting that it is almost impossible to find a provider who does the “necessities”. Things like a guaranteed share of the server’s processor or memory would be a start. Firewall support would also be nice, but most webmasters don’t understand the significance of locking down your site (come to think of it, most web hosting providers don’t know either).

Personal Blogs are usually not entirely server resource intensive, so what should you use? Well, if security and availability aren’t a concern then just about any service will work. However, if security and availability are a concern and you don’t mind a little commercial advertisement on your site then check out what the big ISPs or Portals offer (AOL, Yahoo, Google, etc.) They may not be perfect, but at least there are some smart folks behind the infrastructure.

If you prefer to go it on your own, then get ready because few Hosting Providers have a working knowledge of Network Security of Server Administration. Don’t believe the BS that most spew out about 24×7 NOCs and around-the-clock engineers, because the web hosting reseller business is huge. All they have to do is setup a snazzy website and wait for the unsuspecting to sign up.

My advice is either sign up with a big-name hosting company, or find a small business in your area that provides hosting. You’ve either got a well-established support process to fall back on or a local relationship that may not always be available, but you’ll better understand what your challenges may be. For example, if your site does do 150Gigs of data transfer the next web hosting choice will represent a smarter decision.