Phorm and Cookies

[James Firth]

On 03 April 2008 13:13, Richard Clayton wrote:
> leaving aside that IP does not have port numbers....

I don't know whether to let you have that one.  Very pedantic point, in that
pure IP is rarely used, and I was referring to the suite of IP sub-protocols
in common use today (UDP, TCP/IP), all of which share a common header with
additional fields for service type and port number.

> 
> >HOWEVER I sincerely hope that there are no ISPs who are surreptitiously
> >redirecting outgoing DNS requests intended for third-party name servers
> and
> >handling them internally.
> 
> ... this action is often a key component in blocking systems for illegal
> images of children.  So there are a number of UK ISPs doing it today.
> 

Can you please clarify.  I was talking about the specific case that the user
had chosen to reconfigure his/her connection so that a third-party DNS
server was used, e.g. opendns.com.

I was not aware that ISPs attempt to intercept DNS (port 53) packets
en-route to e.g. opendns.com and spoof a return.  

I was however aware that the ISPs name servers could be doctored for the
purposes you mention, namely all-your-typos-are-ours catchall and
low-quality blocking solutions.

James Firth