 A
Slightly Faster and Safer Internet FREE!
A
small step for your PC, a giant leap for you
By
Carey Holzman, Co-host talk radio show <http://www.computeramerica.com>
Author:
The Healthy PC (McGraw/Hill); Smart Computing magazine
http://www.careyholzman.com
Carey(at)ComputerAmerica.com
Obtained
from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG
member groups.
You
may have never heard of a DNS before, but if you use the Internet,
you use DNS all the time. DNS is short for Domain Name Server and I'm
going to teach you what it does and why you should care. To
understand what DNS is, let's start with something similar you are
probably already familiar with – cellular phones.
If
you're like most people, you own a cellular phone. You probably have
your friends and family programmed into your phone so all you have to
do is find their name in your phones contact list, or if you have
fancy phone, just speak their name and the phone will dial them for
you. In my phone, for example, I have Mom in my contact list. When I
want to call Mom, I just search for her name in my phone and my phone
knows to dial the number associated with that name. This is just like
what a DNS does.
When
you type a web address into your Internet browser, such as
Microsoft's
Internet Explorer
or Mozilla's
Firefox,
the DNS looks up the number associated with that name and then
'calls' it. That number is called an IP Address, but it's really not
all that different from a phone number.
For
example, if you go to www.google.com
you are really going to 208.67.219.230.
But that would be tough to remember, wouldn't it? Can you imagine if
you had to remember 4 sets of numbers for each web-site you wanted to
visit? What a nightmare! To make using the Internet simpler, all you
need to know is the sites 'name' and your Internet Service Providers
DNS will look it up for you.
The
problem is that some Internet Service Providers DNS computers are out
of date or over-worked. Others may be well maintained, but none of
them do any filtering for you. If you were to receive an email from
your bank asking you to verify your account or encouraging you to
login to your account to resolve some issue, you may actually be
taken to site that looks like your bank in every way, but isn't a
bank at all. Instead, thieves have found a way to copy entire web
pages, word for word and graphic for graphic, and place it on their
own computers. They have a way to make the link you click on in the
email take you to their site, instead of to your real bank. When you
enter your account number and password, you are effectively telling
them your account number and password. If you enter any other
information about yourself, such as your first and last name,
address, secret PIN for your debit card, social security number,
mother's maiden name or other personally identifiable information
about yourself, then you can kiss your identity goodbye. You've just
given them all the information they need to fill out credit card
applications, log into your bank and withdraw all of your funds or
even get a job using your social security number, but never pay any
taxes. All of which will have unfortunate and long term repercussions
for you that can also be quite expensive and frustrating to fix.
We
refer to this process of criminals obtaining your information in this
manner as 'phishing,'
(pronounced as 'fishing.') Perhaps you're under the impression that
if you don't click on any links in email (advice often offered as a
security measure to prevent becoming a phishing victim) you'll be
safe. But that's not guaranteed. Criminals have figured out ways to
manipulate some DNS computers to take you to their site! Imagine if
someone could change the number in your cellular phone for Mom, so
that each time you went to call Mom, your phone dialed a 1-900 number
that charged you $2 per minute! When crooks manipulate a DNS computer
in this manner, we refer to it as 'DNS
cache poisoning.'
Generally
speaking, the Internet Service Providers are doing a great job of
preventing their DNS computers from being compromised, but how can
you be sure? Your Internet Service Provider has a lot of things to do
besides maintain their DNS computer. They have email and spam to
contend with and they may even provide cable TV, telephone or other
services. So how much time and attention do their DNS computers
receive?
OpenDNS
One
company, OpenDNS.com
does nothing but maintain their DNS computers. In fact, they go a
step further by filtering dangerous web-sites. If you were using
their DNS computers, instead of the ones you are using right now, and
tried to visit a fraudulent web-site masquerading as a financial
institution in order to collect your personal information, it won't
let you go there!
On
the left, what a fraudulent web-site might look like without
OpenDNS. The image to right is what a fraudulent web-site will look
like with
OpenDNS.
What's
more, OpenDNS.com
offers their DNS computers free, for anyone to use, forever. Because
their sole focus is on DNS, their computers are extremely fast and
are updated constantly with new, dangerous web-sites to block. You
don't have to install any software, sign any license agreements or
even tell them who you are to take advantage of their free service.
If
you've ever thought your Internet was down, it may have only been
that your Internet Service Providers DNS computers were unavailable
for some reason. When the DNS computers are unavailable, your
computer is unable to resolve the web addresses and it will appear as
though your Internet connection is not working.
OpenDNS.com
has high performance DNS computers in numerous locations around the
world to ensure reliability and speed. They are so proud of how
reliable their system is, you can check the status of their entire
system at any time. Curious? Click here
to see the current status of all of the OpenDNS computers (green =
good, red or yellow = bad).
If
you choose to register with OpenDNS.com,
which is also free, a few more features also become available to you.
This may actually appeal more to a business owner than a home user,
but if you're curious, it might be worth checking out as well.
OpenDNS.com
works with all computers, running all versions of Windows, Linux and
even Apple PCs and gaming machines like the Xbox or PlayStation. It
can also work within your router, and if your phone has Internet
access, it can work with it as well! Best of all, they provide a free
click-by-click
walk through
of how to configure it on all of these devices.
Start
Using OpenDNS
If
your computer runs any version of Microsoft Windows, you can quickly
configure your computer to use OpenDNS by following a few simple
steps that everyone can easily understand right
here.
To
learn more about how OpenDNS works, visit their Frequently
Asked Questions.
If
you want to learn more details of exactly how DNS works, visit
HowStuffWorks.com.
This
article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for
publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the
permission of the author (see e-mail address above).
|
By Harold Buechly