chronicling something strange

I've been trying to get to Google Maps but keep getting flipped to Yahoo Maps. Trying to capture what happened in case others have experienced this in the past or are experiencing this now.

First off, this looks odd:

$ traceroute maps.google.com
traceroute to maps.l.google.com (98.136.42.132), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 10.414 ms 0.979 ms 1.009 ms
2 73.220.38.1 (73.220.38.1) 8.990 ms 8.228 ms 7.975 ms
3 ge-4-13-ur01.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net (68.87.207.65) 8.295 ms 7.303 ms 8.122 ms
4 be-70-ar01.burien.wa.seattle.comcast.net (68.85.240.101) 9.642 ms 11.061 ms 8.976 ms
5 be-40-ar01.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net (68.85.240.94) 10.064 ms 10.512 ms 9.978 ms
6 pos-0-0-0-0-cr01.portland.or.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.93.105) 14.582 ms
68.86.95.185 (68.86.95.185) 18.711 ms
pos-0-1-0-0-cr01.portland.or.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.93.109) 14.648 ms
7 pos-1-7-0-0-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.109) 14.971 ms 13.591 ms 13.087 ms
8 te-3-2.car1.seattle1.level3.net (4.79.104.105) 14.353 ms 14.662 ms 14.563 ms
9 ae-31-51.ebr1.seattle1.level3.net (4.68.105.30) 25.328 ms 20.115 ms 17.439 ms
10 ae-7-7.ebr3.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.132.49) 37.199 ms 38.963 ms 35.658 ms
11 ae-73-73.csw2.sanjose1.level3.net (4.69.134.230) 35.853 ms 41.441 ms 35.956 ms
12 ae-33-89.car3.sanjose1.level3.net (4.68.18.133) 32.992 ms 35.116 ms 34.360 ms
13 yahoo-inc.car3.sanjose1.level3.net (4.71.112.14) 33.677 ms 35.309 ms 35.993 ms
14 ae-0-d161.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.59) 33.408 ms
ae-0-d171.msr2.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.83) 80.014 ms
ae-1-d161.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.63) 34.297 ms
15 et-17-1.fab3-1-gdc.sp2.yahoo.com (67.195.128.73) 37.080 ms
et-17-1.fab4-1-gdc.sp2.yahoo.com (67.195.128.77) 35.420 ms
et-17-25.fab3-1-gdc.sp2.yahoo.com (98.136.16.27) 35.792 ms
16 te-8-1.bas-c1.sp1.yahoo.com (67.195.130.112) 36.362 ms
te-9-1.bas-c1.sp1.yahoo.com (67.195.130.116) 34.918 ms
te-8-1.bas-c1.sp1.yahoo.com (67.195.130.112) 34.479 ms

Here's what an HTTP request looks like:

$ telnet maps.google.com 80

Trying 98.136.42.132...

Connected to maps.l.google.com.

Escape character is '^]'.

GET / HTTP/1.1

Host: maps.google.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 05:10:15 GMT

P3P: policyref="http://info.yahoo.com/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="CAO DSP COR CUR ADM DEV TAI PSA PSD IVAi IVDi CONi TELo OTPi OUR DELi SAMi OTRi UNRi PUBi IND PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL HEA PRE LOC GOV"

Expires: Wed, 16 Mar 1966 12:00:00 GMT

Cache-Control: must-revalidate

Pragma: no-cache

Set-Cookie: _ygms=deleted; expires=Tue, 15-Dec-2009 05:10:14 GMT; path=/; domain=.maps.yahoo.com

Vary: Accept-Encoding

Connection: close

Transfer-Encoding: chunked

Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

10dd

(html escaping by me) HTML/HEAD/TITLE: Yahoo! Maps, Driving Directions, and Traffic.. and the rest of the HTML...

Will keep digging.. Wonder if the DNS address is right from where I am, or if my DNS server has been rogered.

$ nslookup

> maps.google.com

Server: 192.168.1.1

Address: 192.168.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:

maps.google.com canonical name = maps.l.google.com.

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.104

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.106

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.103

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.99

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.105

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.147

[Update- back to normal]

nslookup says:

> maps.google.com

Server: 192.168.1.1

Address: 192.168.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:

maps.google.com canonical name = maps.l.google.com.

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.106

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.104

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.103

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.147

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.105

Name: maps.l.google.com

Address: 74.125.127.99

which looks like the original nslookup.

And now this works fine too:

$ telnet maps.google.com 80

Trying 74.125.127.99...

Connected to maps.l.google.com.

Escape character is '^]'.

GET / HTTP/1.1

Host: maps.google.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:50:42 GMT

Expires: -1

Cache-Control: private, max-age=0

Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=0b3839d36a39775f:TM=1292395842:LM=1292395842:S=ogeImsmEEtA3UI9c; expires=Fri, 14-Dec-2012 06:50:42 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com

X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff

Server: mfe

X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block

Transfer-Encoding: chunked

1000

I wonder if I ran my nslookup query too late on the first sequence to catch the glitch.

onward

My job at Gallup moved me to Omaha in 2003. Perhaps most importantly, I managed to find my wife here. My job treated me well. We found a great place to live: out away from everything, on a lake, with no neighbors, and 20 acres of wooded hills.

Earlier this month, I resigned from my job and accepted one in Seattle. So, now we begin our move..

I think I got it right..

In my post "How exactly did Comcast win?", I concluded with:

It seems clear, from both the court ruling and the political stance, that the FCC is a operating from a position that needs to be revisited. Ironically, even Comcast seems to think so.

From Google and Verizon's recent joint policy proposal on an open internet, there's a clear push to get the FCC to have the authority to do exactly what they could not do with Comcast:

..because of the confusion about the FCC’s authority following the Comcast court decision, our proposal spells out the FCC’s role and authority in the broadband space. In addition to creating enforceable consumer protection and nondiscrimination standards that go beyond the FCC’s preexisting consumer safeguards, the proposal also provides for a new enforcement mechanism for the FCC to use. Specifically, the FCC would enforce these openness policies on a case-by-case basis, using a complaint-driven process. The FCC could move swiftly to stop a practice that violates these safeguards, and it could impose a penalty of up to $2 million on bad actors.

An (old) term paper regarding Tor

If you value free speech, you should read about Tor.

After becoming enamored with it, I wrote an acceptable term paper on the project.

Mailbox 2.0

Our new (custom built) mailbox, replete with paint. And yes- its a leaping dog, all this courtesy of Bruce.

Panoramic Experiment

Six different pictures shot with a Canon XSi, and an EF 50mm prime lens. White balance set to 6000K (cloudy). Net result, stitched with Hugin.

Organic things (like grass, and flowers and such) that tend to move here and there or have tiny edges that recast shadows in variant ways tend to cause a little bit of trouble, but Hugin does a great job in overcoming them.

How exactly did Comcast win?

On April 6th 2010, a US Court of Appeals found that Comcast could not be held accountable for a ruling made by the FCC. For some following the whole process, this seemed pretty odd.

As a quick recap, here's how this began:

Initial reports of users having trouble with BitTorrent connections began to circulate on discussion forums around May 2007. Those affected appeared to be Comcast subscribers, and observers began speculating about the causes. A Comcast subscriber named Robb Topolski ran a tool called a packet sniffer3 while attempting to "seed" (i.e., offer to others for download) files on BitTorrent and discovered unexpected TCP RST packets that were causing inbound connections to his computer to die.

Packet Forgery By ISPs: A Report on the Comcast Affair

The EFF proved that Comcast was injecting packets into sockets that were crucial to BitTorrent traffic. If you've written code that worked over sockets, consider how much overhead you'd require to validate that the transport layer wasn't screwing you. The FCC got involved next:

The FCC determined that Comcast had violated the agency's Internet Policy Statement when it blocked certain applications on its network and that the practice at issue in this case was not "reasonable network management."

http://opencrs.com/document/R40234/

What happened next was quite interesting. Here's how Comcast came back (from the same Open CRS document above):

Comcast argues that the FCC does not have the authority to enforce its Network Management Principles and the Commission's order was invalid for that reason.

We now had the following scenario:

1. The FCC called out a major ISP and said that they were in violation of reasonable network management practices
2. Comcast responded by saying that the FCC had no jurisdiction to make such a claim and appealed the ruling from the FCC

Here's what Comcast's PR machine signed off with as they went to court with the FCC:

It’s truly sad that the debate around “net neutrality,” or the need to regulate to “preserve an open Internet,” has been filled with so much rhetoric, vituperation, and confusion. That’s gone on long enough. It is time to move on, and for the FCC to decide, in a clear and reasoned way, whether and what rules are needed to “preserve an open Internet,” and to whom they should apply and how. In launching the rulemaking, the FCC said that greater clarity is required, and we agree. Comcast will join many other interested parties in making comments to the FCC this week regarding its proposed open Internet rules. Our goal is to move past the rhetoric and to provide thoughtful, constructive, and fact-based guidance as the FCC looks for a way forward that will be lawful and that will effectively balance all the important interests at stake.

Comcast, the FCC, and "Open Internet" Rules: Where We Stand

Nonetheless, this went to court, and a US Court of Appeals found that Comcast was indeed legitimate in its challenge:

..the Commission relies on section 4(i) of the Communications Act of 1934, which authorizes the Commission to “perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” 47 U.S.C. § 154(i). The Commission may exercise this “ancillary” authority only if it demonstrates that its action—here barring Comcast from interfering with its customers’ use of peer-to-peer networking applications—is “reasonably ancillary to the . . . effective performance of its statutorily mandated responsibilities.” Am. Library Ass’n v. FCC, 406 F.3d 689, 692 (D.C. Cir. 2005). The Commission has failed to make that showing.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Opinions [PDF]

It seems like a US Court just ruled that the FCC doesn't have the authority to tell an ISP not to tamper with subscriber traffic. I hope you're as stunned as I am.

On May 6th, Congressman Jay Rockerfeller and Representative Henry Waxman wrote to the FCC Chairman. Here's an excerpt from their letter [PDF] :

We believe that it is essential for the Commission to have oversight over these aspects of broadband policy, because they are vitally important to consumers and our growing digital economy. For this reason, in the near term, we want the agency to use all of its existing authority to protect consumers...

To accomplish these objectives, the Commission should consider all viable options. This includes a change in classification, provided that doing so entails a light regulatory touch, with appropriate use of forbearance authority.

In the long term, if there is a need to rewrite the law to provide consumers, the Commission, and industry with a new framework for telecommunications policy, we are committed as Committee Chairmen to doing so.

It seems clear, from both the court ruling and the political stance, that the FCC is a operating from a position that needs to be revisited. Ironically, even Comcast seems to think so.

As a populace, it seems like a great opportunity for American citizens that care about their network (which is part of a bigger network) to write their political representatives. Consider for a minute how similar these two are:

• an ISP that has a monopoly on a subscriber base that chooses to manage traffic sending malicious packets down sockets to disrupt traffic
• a country that chooses to regulate where your sockets can connect to

A democracy is only as strong (and smart) as the people that participate in it. Now is the time to learn and take a stance on what you think broadband rights, net neutrality and the regulation of the internet should look like. Get educated, start talking about it, and write to your representatives. New laws are going to be made and you've got a ringside seat in being able to shape them.