Comments on: RCN Hijacking Mistyped URLs

By: Josh Brinkman

Josh Brinkman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:30:35 +0000

I guess I’m late to this party, but I’ve been living with this situation for a while now. My problem differs from you all because I need to use a Virtual Private Networking client to connect to my office. RCN (randomly it seems) intercepts all DNS lookups, no matter what protocol. If I ping a hostname in my company’s internal network, I frequently get back an RCN IP address, and sometimes I get back the real machine address. This is even more annoying because I need to first log into my company’s firewall (via http) before accessing any machines. RCN hates to let me get to the firewall so I can type in my credentials… they always redirect to their search results page.

By: Ed Hayes

Ed Hayes — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:01:00 +0000

Very simplified, when you request a non existent URL, let’s say ‘nonexistent.com’, your computer asks your router where it is. Your router doesn’t know, so it asks your ISP. In this case, your Internet Service Provider, RCN, says “we don’t know where that is, but we’ll send you to our page, with ‘nonexistent.com’ as the search results.” Then they make money from the ads on that page.

By: Cynthia Ross

Cynthia Ross — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:48:44 +0000

Wow, can they actually do that? I always thought if you typed an incorrect URL you should get the error message.

By: Chilled Out Bearded Man» Blog Archive » RCN Hijacks Mistyped URLs

Chilled Out Bearded Man» Blog Archive » RCN Hijacks Mistyped URLs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:23:02 +0000

[...] finally got on my nerves today and I decided to search for a solution. At first I found this article titled RCN Hijacking Mistyped URLs by Ed Hayes which recommended calling RCN as he had done. I didn’t want to call them, so I spent a few [...]

By: Ed Hayes

Ed Hayes — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:39:53 +0000

Yes, OpenDNS will solve the problem. To test it, just make the change to your router or PC’s DNS server settings, and go to a fake server.

By: RCharles

RCharles — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:32:31 +0000

I went through this with RCN a while back, with no confidence they actually had disabled the URL interception.

I then programmed my wi-fi router to use specific IP address for DNS server, e.g., 4.2.2.1 My understanding that this should bypass RCNs DNS system and, therefore, the URL intercept function as well.

Can anyone confirm that using public DNS servers solves this problem?

Is there a way to test this arrangement and prove that it works?

Thanks

Ray

By: Matt Boone, CPA

Matt Boone, CPA — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:28:36 +0000

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the issue is now resolved. Time to donate more money to the Net Neutrality people.

By: Matt Boone, CPA

Matt Boone, CPA — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:25:47 +0000

I went to the RCN website and completed the “Contact Us” form for tech support. I typed, “Please disable your DNS hijacking service called “FoxFire.” About an hour later I received an email from their tech support that said the following:

Dear Mr. Boone,

My apologies for the inconvenience. About the redirects, the reason we had this on our system is that if ever you made a mistake or entered search terms into your address bar while using a web browser, the new service tries helping you find what you are looking for, similar to a toolbar function, without the need to install a toolbar.

But since this is quite inconvenient on your end, I will be disabling this setting on your end so that you connection will go back to the way it was. And just to complete this process, can you please power cycle all of your equipments.

SEQUENTIAL POWER CYCLE (with wireless router)

1. Turn OFF the computer. (Complete shutdown)

2. Turn OFF the wireless router. (Unplug power cord from the router)

3. Turn OFF the cable modem. (Unplug power cord from the cable modem).

4. Leave it OFF for about a minute or two.

5. Turn ON cable modem first. (Give it a minute to reboot)

6. Turn ON wireless router. (Give it another minute to reboot)

7. Turn ON computer and then try to get online to the internet.

Or you could also try these steps.

POWER CYCLE (without the wireless router)

1. Turn OFF the computer. (Complete shutdown)

2. Turn OFF the cable modem. (Unplug power cord from the cable modem).

3. Leave it OFF for about a minute or two.

4. Turn ON cable modem first. (Give it a minute to reboot)

5. Turn ON computer and then try to get online to the internet.

I hope these steps could help you with your issue. Should you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us on your most convenient time.

Thank you,

Bessy

RCN Email Support

1-800-746-4726 (toll free)

1-610-443-5550 (toll fees apply)

RCN – Connect to Something More.

By: RCN DNS Redirect in Boston and How to Opt Out - Unlikely Words - A blog of Boston, Providence, and the world

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:16:08 +0000

[...] my account for an opt out before sending an email to RCN Customer Service. I would have called, but this post made me think I’d be better off emailing them and waiting for a reply instead of [...]

By: Ed Hayes

Ed Hayes — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:43:56 +0000

Gant, RCN can turn it off on your entire account if you call them. The solution Paxfire likely gave you was to use the cookie solution or something of that nature. That does not turn it off, it just hides it.