In Plain Sight

Twitter Benefits: DNS Advantage Response

This post is about my complaints on Twitter last week concerning recent changes to Neustar's DNS Advantage and a query I have as a result from Vincent Lee, a product manager at Neustar.

It comes as a surprise to me that I get more responses micro-blogging from companies than I have ever had by regular blogging. When I recently commented on the Plaxo acquisition a senior marketing executive sent me a tweet to belay my fears, he failed. When I noted concern about the future of Six Apart Anil, their senior marketing exec, was prompted to reassure me. He failed too. Six Apart are so dead IMHO.

This morning I received a note from Vincent Lee, via LinkedIn, asking me about the problems I had with DNS Advantage last week and I sent the response that I have attached at the end here.

We are AT&T customers using a fast Business DSL connection in Sunnyvale. We moved to DNS Advantage because we had experienced severe delays in DNS resolution on our AT&T DSL connection using their DNS and frequently work had been interrupted because the DNS is poisoned by Oversee. As I note in my response, whether this poisoning is the product of a legitimate agreement with AT&T or the result of Oversee hacking is not clear to me.

This mostly effects web browsing, especially introducing delays when you move between domains, but as you will see in my response to Neustar there are other problems that can occur.

What happens exactly? Well, when a domain cannot be resolved the poisoned DNS returns a bogus address effectively redirecting your web navigation to an Oversee page which contains advertising links. This is bad enough, but the real problem is that the poisoning frequently hijacks legitimate domains claiming to be a page generated by that domain.

I suspect this occurs because they circumvent the DNS caching and the primary DNS is temporarily unresponsive so they think, wrongly, that you have entered a false address. I have personally experienced this even in the middle of a site in which the page was working perfectly fine and then miraculously changes to an Oversee spam page that hijacks the domain (it claims to be served from the same address). The way to fix this problem temporarily, BTW, is to clear your local DNS cache and force a new query.

This occasional latency in the DNS network is a problem that you are usually protected from by the DNS caching architecture which is not sensitive to first level latencies.

This has been a problem for long while, I had researched the problem quite extensively - even tracking down the Oversee office in LA from which this all occurs, and I finally saw DNS Advantage as a potential solution.

How can you detect the problem on your own network. Well, simply type into your browser a domain name that is unlikely to exist in the DNS. Try this : http://iam.foobar.com If you get a bogus search page that pretends to be from this domain, then your DNS is poisoned. Just in case they start filtering this domain, try one or two names of your own invention.

I'll leave the rest to my response to Vincent Lee.

===
Hi Vinny,

I will be happy to talk with you. Essentially what happened is two fold.

First, DNS Avantage broke all internal domain resolutions of the form machine.local on Apple networks. We rely on these domains to enable connectivity to our central database. So we noticed the problem because my writing assistant could not start her work of the day. We were compelled to move from DNS Advantage to continue our operations.

Second, we moved to Advantage DNS to avoid the DNS poisoning of Oversee. Whether Oversee do this poisoning legitimately in an agreement with ATT or not is something I am not aware of. This poisoning of the DNS has proven over time to be unreliable and frequently "hijacked" legitimate domains for periods, hindering our work.

DNS Advantage began redirecting unidentified domains to unsolicited advertising in the same way - the very thing we sought to avoid. In my mind this is an unforgivable abuse of the DNS system. The OpenDNS exploitation of its service appears less intrusive. But I am cautious about it also.

With respect,
Steven

Winds of Ash and Cranky CalTrain Authoritarians

I have allergies.

Living in Silicon Valley does not help matters. It's not the industrial pollution or the spraying of insecticide. It's the dust and the trees. Damn I love those trees, but the fact is that when they begin to release into the air the pollens and other detritus I have to increase the amount of Benedryl I consume. If I balance it right then I do not fall asleep. But if I do not get it right, I get dozy.

I routinely take 25mg at night, sometimes 50mg but then I am compelled to awake up every hour to pee, so despite the deeper sleep it is broken up. Benedryl messes with your hydration.

Why not take a more modern drug? I've tried them all. They suck for a variety of reasons, mostly because despite the claims that they are side effect free they mess with your head (I know the claims for the drugs like Allegra are contrary to this, but it is my experience). And I can't have stuff that affects my clarity of thought.

I've had allergies my entire life. As a boy it was the London air and grass pollens. In France it was the Rape Seed in the fields of the Ile de France, one of which was next to my house.

The effect is more than runny eyes and itching - surprisingly I sneeze only rarely. My allergic responses change my behavior. I get cranky.

If you meet someone that says that I am impatient with fools, then they have seen me during an allergy attack. They are not frequent, but when you exhibit that behavior people think that is how you are most of the time. And the truth is, I am mostly tolerant of fools; I have to be, there are just so many of them :-)

Often I notice the behavioral changes before I notice the physical modifications. If I sneeze then I'm well into it. When I have an allergy attack it is not immediately obvious to me; I am really not aware of it immediately unless I observe the things that cause it.

I don't even notice the severe attention deficit that overcomes me. I'll be absorbed in some work and then find I've spent the past two hours obsessively focused upon identifying the right bicycle pedal for my new bike or some such. Yes, I blame my allergies for that.

This past week has been particularly bad because of the fires in the Santa Cruz mountains. One evening last week we were treated to brilliant red skies and relief from the heat by a cloud of cooling ash that covered the sun in the late afternoon. In Los Altos last week people awoke to find their cars covered in ash.

We are lucky in Sunnyvale in that the San Francisco Bay wind can clear out pollution of this kind eventually. But over the past week the ash and dust from the fire has brought with it a dense array of new irritants. I know this because the air filter that automatically detects such things - and runs constantly in my house - has been full on.

How did I notice the problem? Well, I was riding my bicycle into Mountain View on my way to a meeting in Palo Alto when the CalTrain pulled in heading North. changing tactics so that I would be early for the meeting, and in apparently good spirits, I pedaled like crazy to make the train, I even fast walked the full length of the platform to get to the bicycle car and exchanged pleasantries with one of the conductors, though I did note that she was not a happy sort.

Normally I get a monthly pass for the CalTrain, but just recently I've been buying 10 pass tickets that you have to validate before you board. This is because I've been riding my bike more frequently to Palo Alto rather than taking the train.

Now it is not uncommon for someone with such a ticket to run for the train and to validate their 10 pass when they board. As I understand it this is common and accepted practice with these tickets as long as you ask for your ticket to be validated by the conductor as soon as you board.

As you can tell, I'm already getting cranky about it. I should take another Benedryl.

The official policy is that if the validation machine doesn't work you should seek out the conductor for validation. Both conductors saw me run for the train. Despite later claims by the conductors, the train did not have to wait for me.

Yes, it was a hot day but CalTrains are air conditioned.

So, dutiful user of CalTrain that I am, immediately when I boarded I - in good cheer I thought - asked the conductor to validate my ticket. But no. Officiously he refused to validate it.

Now this was the express train, Mountain View to Palo Alto. I was getting off at the next stop.

"Oh!" I said surprised. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not validating your ticket." Says Philip (yes, that was what it said on his name badge) "You have to validate before you get on. I refuse to validate your ticket." Or words to that effect.

I responded that I was getting off at the next stop in any case, what did he want me to do? He indicated then that "She" was on board today and would be checking the tickets. It was all a little tense and stupid. My first asshole of the day.

He went off, unknown to me he was running to his bitch master.

So I seat myself, still puffing and panting from both the rush to board the train and the minor and unreasonable fracas with fool Philip.

Enter the Dragon. A large, surly and unpleasant Latino woman appears at my side and gruffly says "Show me your ticket."

"Ah" says I, "I assume you have come to validate my ticket. Thank you!" And I hand her my 10 pass.

"No" she says accusingly, "You made the train wait and you didn't have the decency to validate your ticket!"

My second asshole of the day.

Let me summarize events. This is in fact the conductor I rushed past when running up the platform. If I had stalled to validate my ticket, I certainly would have held up the train. Knowing that I could get the conductor to validate the ticket I boarded without further delay. In fact, there was no delay and I was not even the last person to board.

Enter my allergies.

In a loud enough voice I said, "Where the hell did they get you people, Missouri?"

"What did you say?" Bitch fool says to me. And seeing Philip come up after her, I raise my voice a little to ensure he can hear me and repeat.

"Where the hell did they get you people, Missouri?"

Now it was not immediately clear to me why I had referred to Missouri and it was only later that I realized the entire import of my own wit. Missouri is, of course, the "show me" State. She had said "Show me" and my mouth was in control. Although, I confess, even I was surprised by both the intelligence and courage it showed. It wasn't taking any prisoners.

Using any phrase with "you people" is fraught with cultural and racial undertones but it was clear both from my reference to Missouri and the fact that Philip is as white as they come that I had, in fact, made no racial reference. And fortunately, it was not taken that way. But, honestly, it was a close call - if she had been black making such a cultural mistake would have had my ass kicked. In any case, my brain never uses "you people," my mouth did it.

The truth of the matter is that I go out of my way to avoid conflict. I don't want it in my life. But I'm a big burly and threatening kinda guy by virtue of physical form alone. So if I do get a little cranky it can be a little intimidating. If little guys get cranky it's much less threatening.

What is more, I am very fond of CalTrain. My reprimand was in fact defensive, suggesting that these conductors were not the regular cute and cuddly kind. Most conductors on CalTrain are warm, friendly and helpful people.

What happened? She validated and wrote ****WARNING*** in big letters on my 10 pass and they let me be.

The bottom line is two fold. First, I hate being cranky and engaging conflict in that way. I know that the people that saw the incident must think that is how I "really" am. It is not. Second, don't you just hate it when someone underpaid dressed in a cheap uniform plays the authoritarian? I do.

Next time I'll take some Benedryl with me and hand it around. Under normal circumstances I would have been less confrontational. And this term "confrontational" is the main variation in my behavior when I get an allergy reaction. It is not that I seek out conflict but rather that I am less tolerant. I was in good spirits boarding the train, but my mood changed quickly when confronted with a problem.

I wish that didn't happen. Most often in these circumstances in my life I am a tolerant and patient diplomat. Always I am instantly forgiving. No exceptions.

It is worth observing that if I had not volunteered to have my ticket validated then no-one would have noticed; no good deed goes unpunished. Conductors that treat customers with hostile contempt are bound to meet problems like this. As I left they were sharing stories with each other about the maximum number of tickets they had experienced can be issued on a single journey from San Jose to San Francisco: sad, and very un-Californian.

But anyhow, sorry Philip, sorry Bitch from hell :-) I forgive you.

No way in hell, Obama.

Let me begin by saying that I am encouraged that Barack Obama won the democratic nomination. But then I would have been encouraged in exactly the same way if Hillary had won.

That a woman and a black man got to run off for the democratic nomination is interesting and encouraging. In my view it does say good things about the social condition of our society. It is a move in a more enlightened direction. But don't get too comfortable with it. It could also set us back severely.

The cynical view is not that a black man won but that patriarchy won: rather than pick a woman, the democratic party preferred any kind of man, even a black man.

If you have been tracking the development of my political theories you will know that I take none of this seriously. Politics is futile. It is simply the drama surrounding inevitable social outcomes. Politicians are instruments of these outcomes but have no real control over them. The public cannot help but get itself drawn into these futile entertainments. It is literally no better than watching a bad TV show like "Jeopardy" and it has about as much impact upon the world.

I deplore this glorification of bureaucrats regardless of color or gender. However, there are several potential and "inevitable" outcomes that are worth considering for those of us that make long term plans and need to navigate societal activity (even if it is just to avoid it entirely). I use "inevitable" here in the sense that whichever of them is "true" there is nothing that can stop them now.

First, it seems to me, is the very likely case that Obama loses. It seems unlikely that the democratic party will risk nominating either a woman or a black man again any time in the foreseeable future, and that will be a sorry state of affairs in which to find ourselves. If Obama does not win, the right and just social cause in the current system for blacks and women is set back decades. It could be another 20 or even 50 years before such an event becomes "politically viable" again.

The second case to consider is the exceedingly unlikely case that Obama wins. So let me address my negativity here. Why do I consider it so unlikely that Obama will win?

Consider that this is the nation that elected George W. Bush in two consecutive terms. That is an important data point. It is a reflection of the state of the nation and is a clear indication of just where it's "head" is at. Simply put, it has its head up its ass. So what has changed so much in convention over the past 4 years that it would elect a black man? The answer is nothing at all.

In fact, despite the ruckus over Iraq, things are not as bad in terms of public perception as we thought they might just be three years ago. Today most people are more concerned with the close to home matters that effect them personally. In other words, they are worried about the economy.

The war in Iraq is bad, but not so bad as to wreck the fortunes of the Republican Party, clearly.

Sure George Bush is the worse Presidential PR exercise since Richard Nixon, and he really IS a crook. On his watch America became a country that threw out the Geneva convention and eliminated international moral standards that took centuries to establish. On his watch he introduced an oppressive regime, falsely imprisoned the innocent, and severely damaged the foundations of American righteousness.

But, apparently, everyone is fine with that. We are so scared of the Islamic Boogie Men that we are actually prepared to accept what had previously appeared in my mind to be inconceivable. America sacrificed the constitution and accepted the leadership of fools. It has only itself to blame.

In this light McCain is an American Sweetheart and I fully expect him to win - and I can say that because I simply do not, under any circumstances, vote. My vote would have no effect what-so-ever on these outcomes and I am not prepared to sanction the farce. The outcome is inevitable, remember.

Worse for Obama, McCain is familiar in a way that Obama never can be. McCain looks like a president, he is what the majority expect as a president, he will not look out of place in the history books that every America child has read.

Jimmy, Ronny, George, Bill, George ... Barack ... nah ... John. It just fits.

Now this is not to say that Obama can't win. In fact, he should win. But not only should he win. He must survive his presidency.

Obama won the nomination in large part because he was able to mobilize the minorities. He could, perhaps, win in November by the same means. The very fact that a black man is running will inevitably bring out the minorities to vote. People that have never voted before will run to the election in droves. Many will see it as a chance to put a nail in the coffin of the white man. So his win may indeed be inevitable, despite my expectations. These expectations are not directed by my experience in California, where Barack will, I have no doubt, be greeted with open arms. They are directed to some degree by my knowledge and experience of the East Coast, South and Midwest of America.

So the question really becomes: is the Right of America sleeping? Are they alert to the danger that the conservative lifestyle faces? If it is sleeping and it is not alert now then it will awaken in January with a shock. The inevitable backlash that will produce could bring bloodshed on this soil.

No one wants to say it I know, but that blood could be Obama's and he has no doubt considered this. The biggest challenge of an Obama Presidency is going to be keeping the man alive.

Future Web: XMLDB

I see the desktop disappearing completely in the not too distant future in favor of full client integration of the net via technologies like Google Gears http://gears.google.com

However, my gripe with Google Gears - apart from the fact it does not support SAFARI yet - is that the integrated db is Sqlite.

This is plain wrong in my mind. It really should be and XMLDB. So I hope that the Yahoo YUI people are taking note because a client side persistent XMLDB that supports XSLT, XPath and XQuery (with Update extensions) is certainly the way to go.

After Rauschenberg

The press didn't let me down when they allowed soulless but know-it-all professors of art history to write Rauschenberg's obituary. It was predictable. In an ideal world they would have waited for Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham or some artist of similar station, that knew Rauschenberg well, to comment. Cunningham said:

"Together we erased boundaries between the arts."

I'm glad that I have had the pleasure to see Merce Cunningham at Stanford in recent years and I am sorry that I never had the opportunity to meet Robert Rauschenberg. I had so many questions for him.

I'm don't really want to deem the Slate with a direct reference (but will anyway http://www.slate.com/id/2191397). I have mixed feelings about Jack Shafer's superficial comments. Obviously, he felt it necessary to to be contrarian and I agree with his notes about the reporting. There is definitely room for more controversy. But obviously Shafer knows nothing about modern art.

Robert Rauschenberg Passed Away

The news that Robert Rauschenberg died today, while not entirely unexpected, is deeply saddening. Robert Rauschenberg was 82 and the world is a little less bright today.

Robert Rauschenberg was IMHO the most important artist of the twentieth century, and he was still producing work in this century. While there is much to celebrate in Modern Art since Cézanne, with many extraordinary contributions from the European continent, including of course the outstanding work of Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Mattisse, van Gogt, and American contributions that took the late twentieth century by storm, one must mention de Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, and Rauschenberg's close friends Jasper Johns and John Cage; they are all illuminated by the bright light that was Robert Rauschenberg.

Why is Robert Rauschenberg so important to our culture and in what way did he transform modern art?

The real reason is not widely appreciated I admit. Sure you will hear curators talk about the great "stuff" he built, his "combines," and they will tell you about how he pulled things into his art from the world around him, but none of this was particularly original or revolutionary.

Robert Rauschenberg is important to Modern Art and our culture as a whole for one thing, and it is a major transformation in thinking about art; more revolutionary than Duchamp and Dada and more profound than the Surrealism of Dali.

He turned ideas into works of art.

It is a remarkable and stunning achievement. And when you look at his body of work it is that one great thought that astounds you. He turned not material things into art, but ideas. This is best illustrated in his "Erased de Kooning Drawing" that is in the permanent collection at SFMOMA. It is, in my view, simply the most revolutionary work of art of the twentieth century.

Rest in peace Robert, and thank you for transforming how I viewed the world.

A New Bicycle

People that know me well know that in the past two years I have been making a real pain of myself by insisting that I fully integrate a bicycle into my life. I've been turning up at business meetings on my bike. I've also been turning up on "dates" on my bicycle, which I have to note has rather limited my first date possibilities. Dinner at the Fairmont is great, just don't offer to turn up on your bicycle apparently.

Well, that's their lose, as they say, not mine. Whittling out the fortune hunters and the materialist bitches is a filter that I am more than happy to apply.

Last summer I lost a bunch of weight as a result of this strategy but since the fall that weight has returned mainly, I think, because of calcium channel blockers that I take to control my blood pressure. Of course, overall I am much fitter than I was.

So, to correct this imbalance and to eliminate the extra 50lbs that I'm carrying I am upgrading my cycling activities. I'm 260lbs, the product of a misspent middle age. I've started to take the long route to Palo Alto, via Portola Valley and about 23 miles. I often ride back more directly, about another 12 miles (and I sometimes take the train).

It is a beautiful and scenic ride, but boy does my ass hurt!

The reason for this is that I'm riding a bike with an Aluminum frame that is really only designed for about town and short distance riding. It's no problem to ride to Palo Alto directly but the longer route is pushing the limits of what I can do on this bike.

So, a new bike is in order and after some research I discover that a man of my excellent stature, in all senses, really needs a steel framed touring bike. All those glamorous carbon framed bikes are useless to me.

While cycling is a very popular sport locally, it's mostly young lawyers, financial types and, believe it or not, wealthy old ladies, riding $6000+ carbon framed road bikes in bright and tight florescent green and yellow tights covered in unrecognizable branding. Geeks riding bikes, like me, tend to be limited to Campus and the commute to and from there. We are mixed among the throng of students, not all of whom are geeks.

When I ride a bike I'm certainly not thinking "Tour-de-France." I'm thinking of black and white photographs of trendy young men riding around Italian or French towns and cities in Roman Plazas, stopping at book shops and cafes, arguing about anarchy, and smoking. Okay, so this isn't much of a match to reality either, but it is an achievable goal.

So on Thursday I went into Palo Alto bikes and was measured for a new custom built bicycle constructed around a Surly Long Haul Trucker steel frame (http://www.surlybikes.com/longhaul.html) and comforted by the blazon "Fatties Fit Fine" imprinted upon the frame. Cost is in the order of $1750 by the time I'm done.

And this may be the route that I go. However, ...

My research on Thursday evening uncovered two things.

First, it really isn't so hard to build your own bicycling machine and it looks like a lot of fun to do so. I love the Palo Alto Bicycle Store (http://www.paloaltobicycles.com/), but it may be time to ween myself off of my dependency upon them.

Second, I discovered Rivendell Bicycle Works (http://www.rivbike.com/).

Rivendell just appeals to the kind of bicycle rider I am. These are the bikes that the trendy young men in blazers, slacks and caps ride around Roman plazas. What is more, the company is a Bay Area company. They are in Walnut Creek. So I just have to go to their location to take a good look before I take my next step. The bikes cost a lot more than I was considering, they are twice as much. But this just may be one of those things that will so improve my daily pleasure and my conviction to extend my cycling habits, and rid myself of this extra 50lbs, that it's a must have. It seems unlikely that I will have time to go to Walnut Creek before next weekend, so I must temper my purchasing drive at least until then.

Proudly Owning Michael Kay's XSLT 2.0 4th Ed.

I am now the proud owner of Michael Kay's XSLT 2.0 4th Edition, just released and flown to me down the friendly Amazon. Excellent! :-)

I've been using XSLT for a couple of years now and I have become committed to using XML, XSLT, XML Schema and XQuery in all my future information projects.

I do all my own science and technical writing in the context of the "memeio project" which I am gradually building up ([re]writing) in these technologies as I need new functionality and explore new ideas. It has turned into quite a powerful tool, built on top of the exist-db native xml database as it now is. I haven't had to write a line of SQL in those two years.

I am also a big fan of the excellent work that is being done with the Oxygen XML Editor, which is really maturing into a fine tool for work with these technologies. A new mode was added recently in version 9 that allows a more WYSIWYG view. It has left me much impressed because I have been able to give it to my non-techy writing assistant and she has been most productive with it and "memeio" in a current project.

With all these things coming together we are due something of a surge ahead in the XML community I believe, with excellent tools like those above becoming widely available and all kinds of new applications possible.