Get FREE secure DNS access

I'm going to list two free DNS services for you to use which will help your internet experience ten fold and more by speeding up your internet access, filtering pop-ups, preventing fraud sites and much much more, but first an introduction to DNS.

Basic Concepts

The DNS system is, at its heart, a translation mechanism between things humans are comfortable dealing with, and things that computers are comfortable dealing with. The human comfy part is essentially the domain name. Something like chrislea.com or nata2.org… something that we can see and recognize and remember. The thing is, your computer doesn’t care about those human readable domain names at all. The computer wants a number, since computers are pretty good at dealing with numbers. Specifically, the computer wants a number known as an IP address. That’s what DNS does.

The way that a domain name actually gets mapped to an IP for your computer is a little complicated, so I’m not going to talk about all the possibilities. The simplified version is that your computer will consult something called a “resolving nameserver”. These are different than “authoritative nameservers” which I’ll talk about in a bit. For now, there are two things to keep in mind.

1. Resolving nameservers are computers whose job it is to answer certain computers when they ask for a domain name to IP address mapping.

2. Your computer will typically use resolving nameservers that are provided by whatever ISP you are connecting to the internet through.

This means, for example, that if you are really unlucky and have Time Warner Cable as your ISP, then when your computer wants to know what IP address to use for say amazon.com, the Time Warner resolving nameservers are there to answer that question.

If you ask for a domain name and the resolvers don’t know the answer already, then the following sequence of things happens very quickly.

1. The resolver figures out what nameserver(s) know what IP is supposed to be used for the given domain.

2. The resolver asks that nameserver (which is the authoritative one) what the answer is.

3. The resolver stores the answer, and sends your computer the information it just got.

That is the basic life cycle of a DNS query. In general, you’ll be asking the resolver for what’s called an “A Record”.
An A Record is an IP address that corresponds to the domain name you asked for.

There are a couple of things to pay attention to here. First off, the nameservers that your domain registrar made you pick as your authoritative nameservers isn’t actually what most client computers talk to. Those authoritative ones spend most of their time answering requests from resolvers. Another important point is that the resolvers store the answers for all the computers that use them. If you’re using those Time Warner resolvers, and somebody else who uses them has gone to Digg prior to you going there, then when you go you’ll get the already stored response. It doesn’t have to do the lookup each time. But, the resolvers will periodically do a fresh lookup, even if it already has an answer in hand.

Also check this diagram out to see it in graphic.

I hope that covers everything but if it doesnt please do post with questions and I'll get back to you.

The two free DNS services are as follows.

OpenDNS -

Make your network safer, more secure, and more reliable.
Industry-leading Web content filtering, anti-phishing, DNS infrastructure and navigation services.

Comodo Secure DNS -

Comodo Secure DNS is a domain name resolution service that resolves your DNS requests through our worldwide network of redundant DNS servers. This can provide a much faster and more reliable Internet browsing experience than using the DNS servers provided by your ISP and does not require any hardware or software installation.

I use the later and have noticed faster browsing and less pop-ups than before.

They are easy to setup and need NOTHING extra for you to download, just slight modifications of your settings to point towards the chosen services DNS servers.
See this page for more on how to do that and links for those with XP, Vista, MAX OS X & Routers.

OpenDNS servers
---------------
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Comodo Secure DNS servers
-------------------------
156.154.70.22
156.154.71.22


Thanks

Static contraction causes a reflex-induced release of arginine vasopressin in anesthetized cats

Static contraction causes a reflex-induced release of arginine vasopressin in anesthetized cats


Lea R. Liviakisa and Charles L. StebbinsCorresponding Author Contact Information, a
a Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and Department of Human Physiology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

Received 27 March 2000;
accepted 8 June 2000.
Available online 19 October 2000.

Abstract

We tested the hypothesis that brief static contraction of the triceps surae muscle causes reflex-induced increases in plasma arginine vasopressin (AVP) in anesthetized cats. Arterial blood samples, for measurement of plasma AVP, were taken before and after 30 s of electrically stimulated static contraction performed at a low intensity (<20% of maximal; n = 5), a high intensity (>70% of maximal; n = 7), and a high intensity after denervation of the triceps surae (n = 5). The low intensity contraction protocol was repeated during α-adrenergic blockade (n = 7) to minimize potential baroreflex-induced inhibition of AVP release. Passive stretch of the triceps surae was conducted (n = 5) to determine effects of muscle mechanoreceptor stimulation on the release of AVP. Low intensity contraction had no effect on plasma AVP. During α-adrenergic blockade, this same contraction intensity caused this peptide to increase from12.8 ± 2.1 to 17.7 ± 2.6 pg/ml. High intensity contraction caused an increase in AVP (13.2 ± 3.5 to 26.1 ± 6.6 pg/ml) that was abolished by denervation (14.4 ± 3.7 vs. 17.1 ± 6.6 pg/ml). Passive stretch had no effect on plasma AVP. These findings suggest that brief static contraction causes increases in plasma AVP that are reflex in nature, intensity dependent, opposed by the arterial baroreflex, and probably unrelated to muscle mechanoreceptor activation.

Author Keywords: Arterial baroreflex; α-Adrenergic receptor antagonism; Muscle mechanoreceptors

Quick Update

I'll write a thread on how to use the hosts file that is incl with windows and to also use various software for it incl the hosts manager.

Will also do a summary on how to configure windows so it doesnt need to use the hosts file and instead is converted to a format so the default DNS system reads it which will speed the process up and is much better for large host files.

In my new threads I shall incl some information on software for internet security, such as firewalls and anti-virus systems etc.

Hostfile providers

Links to various third parties who offer updated hostfile for use on Windows machines, aswell as other formats for different applications.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5

Also more links here Link 6

Update on the Chinese hacking story

More has started to surface about connections to the recent hacking story towards the end of March, that said the Chinese gouverment could be behind a worldwide hacking campaign.

The Chinese gouverment deny such talk.

Now it appears this 'system' used to onfect the world, has a name and this name is Ghostnet [What a shock!] and security giant Symantec have released a demo video on how easy the system could be used to target an infected machine.

See the video by Symantec here.

It appears that various groups are hunting the source of this Ghostnet and have already obtained information.

Some feel the whole story about China hacking around the globe was created by the US to help them pass new rules.

Others are useing this to make a point that Microsoft's Windows really has more holes in it than a fishing net and that whe world could be better switching over the Linux.

More info on Ghostnet here via Wikipedia.

You can also download a very informative report by ISC handler Maarten Horenbeck on a similer topic to Ghostnet for SANSFIRE talk in 2008 which is located here and will give you some extra understanding as to what could be going on etc.

We will see what unfolds, but for now I would advise you all keep your China and Korean blocklists enabled.

This is not a gurantee against attack from the region, as I will explain in more detail at a later date but will keep you safe from direct contact with anything infected within the wall and it has to be said, lots of infections and insecure networks lie in the region.

Updated list of known spam ranges

This next link takes you to the page which lists in CIDDR format the subnet space for KNOWN spamming groups as listed by the Spamhaus project.

So NOTHING in this lot should be allowed to connect to you in any shape or form and you can use the list for your e-mail servers for example or have it converted into PeerGuardian or ProtoWall format to block the entire lot out via IP range so you dont visit them while you surf the web or anyother mehtod.

If a site is blocked in this list than its a scammers site and you should note the site name down and report it to me here and I'll find its domain name and DNS servers for inclusion into a hosts block list.

The list.

Linux IP blocking software

Just a quicke to inform anyone that uses Linux that I have been told about two applications for that OS that will work well with these lists.

MoBlock & IPlist

Never used either but you will need them as PeerGurdian & ProtoWall do not support Linux.

PeerGuardian developer's have plans for a Linux version in the future.