There is a good article from Paul Vixie about "What DNS is not" at
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1647302.

An extended version of Paul's article is featured in the December
issue of Communications of the ACM.

Also we are having an interesting discussion on different technical
forums about this and similar issues
where some ISPs are not only tampering with DNS traffic but using HTTP
proxies to direct you to sites/pages
of their choice when the original DNS response to a query returns that
a given domain name or host does
not exists.

Doing that, a non-existent site such as hardcoreporn.icann.org can be
redirected to whatever the ISP chooses.

This is really a very BAD practice not only for technical reasons but
also for the potential liability and
damage they can create using a domain name that is not under their
control while the real domain
administrator has not a bit of clue that this is going on.

Somebody also argued that this trick is letting them use domain names
that do not exist without
registering and paying for them, which also have huge security implications.

Let me give you a few examples to illustrate how this works and how
far some ISPs are going with this.
(DIG is a tool we normally use in a Unix machine to query the Domain
Name System).

First example, using the name servers of my ISP (Time Warner/Road
Runner) I'll look for address
information for www.this-name-does-not-exist.com which actually does
not exist and should
return a NXDOMAIN.

A non-tampered response should say:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN

Instead the TWC/RR server says:
; <<>> DiG 9.6.1-P1 <<>> www.this-name-does-not-exist.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 45528
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.this-name-does-not-exist.com. IN   A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.this-name-does-not-exist.com. 10 IN A       24.28.193.9

;; Query time: 66 msec
;; SERVER: 24.93.41.127#53(24.93.41.127)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 26 12:53:47 2009
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 98

Giving you the 24.28.193.9 IP address

If you try to connect with your browser directly to that address you
will get a response saying that
the page does not exist (classic HTTP 404 error), but if from your
browser you try to go the
the URL http://www.this-name-does-not-exist.com, your browser will
connect to 24.28.193.9
and request the URL that will land you on a Road/Runner Yahoo search
page with a list
of sponsored links (people pay for them) and other links that may be
related to the URL.

OK, the previous example is for a 2nd level domain that does not
exist, lets see what happens
if we try to go to hardcoreporn.icann.org.

; <<>> DiG 9.6.1-P1 <<>> hardcoreporn.icann.org
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 54420
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hardcoreporn.icann.org.         IN      A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
icann.org.              10800   IN      SOA     dns1.icann.org.
hostmaster.icann.org. 2009112305 10800 3600 1209600 86400

;; Query time: 64 msec
;; SERVER: 24.93.41.127#53(24.93.41.127)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 26 13:20:08 2009
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 91

The query returns NXDOMAIN from Time Warner's server 24.93.41.127 and shows
dns1.icann.org as the authoritative server for icann.org. Nothing
wrong here, at least
this ISP respects the authoritative answer from the current domain administrator
for that name.

But lets see how far other ISPs go, in this case Telefonica de
Argentina (note: I had to ask a friend
who is a customer of Telefonica to do the queries because they filter
queries to their name servers
if you are not a customer).

Lets look again for the address record for hardcoreporn.icann.org
using Teleconica's server
200.63.155.204:

; <<>> DiG 9.6.1 <<>> hardcoreporn.icann.org.
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 46746
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hardcoreporn.icann.org.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hardcoreporn.icann.org.	10	IN	A	208.70.188.15

;; Query time: 265 msec
;; SERVER: 200.63.155.204#53(200.63.155.204)
;; WHEN: Thu Nov 26 16:45:59 2009
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 78

As you can see instead as returning NXDOMAIN like the server from Time
Warner in this case
Telefonica returns the 208.70.188.15 IP address, which is a similar
page with a Yahoo search
box, etc.

This is extremely bad because Telefonica has not right whatsoever to
say what names are existent or
not under the ICANN.ORG domain, also while they redirect you to a
Yahoo search page they can redirect
you to whatever page/site they please even create fake sites that
people may assume are valid ICANN
sites because are under the ICANN.ORG domain.

What can be done then ? (that's part of the discussion going on in
NANOG and other
technical forums and related also to the memorandum from ICANN).

First of all ICANN has no contractual relationship with these ISPs, so
there is no contract
they can enforce to stop this crap. We can argue that this has to do
with "preserving and enhancing
the operational stability, reliability, security, and global
interoperability of the Internet" as stated
on ICANN's bylaws.

Get DNSSEC deployed, while is not a bullet-proof solution and has some
burden and
other side effects (like most US pharma products), we'll have the
choice to only accept DNS
responses that have a valid signature from the authority for a given domain.

Class Action Suit "All Internet Users vs All Bad ISPs", probably not
feasible (EFF ?)

Disseminate information, create conscience and bad publicity for ISPs
doing this ?

Bypass the ISP name servers and use servers that don't do this ?
doable for a power
or savvy user, I'd not know how to tell grandma how to configure her
resolver, also
some ISPs even filter DNS traffic to other servers so you are forced
to use theirs.

Regards
Jorge

PS. Happy Thanksgivings for those who celebrate Turkey Day today.