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The Ask Mr. DNS PodcastMatt Larson and Cricket Liu expound on DNS and other topics |
In our ninth episode, Matt and Cricket answer listener Scott McClanahan’s excellent question about the “zone apex” and tell Duncan Hart what gear they use to produce the podcast and why it’s better than their old gear. Except that Matt fails to mention the name of the mic he uses. (It’s a Shure BG 4.1.)
As per usual, the discussion deteriorates into a windy exposition of how DNSSEC works, but you’ve come to expect that by now.
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In this episode, Matt and Cricket congratulate an administrator at a community-spirited ISP for wanting to lock down recursion on his name servers and offer their opinions on when you should sign your zones using DNSSEC. Cricket also invites all podcast listeners to an upcoming webinar on DNSSEC with Dan Kaminsky and Scott Rose, which is – gasp! – on Wednesday of this week.
You’ll especially want to stay tuned until the end, when you’ll hear Cricket sing (poorly) part of the revised version of the “Itchy and Scratchy” theme song. Plus Matt thinks he sounds funny throughout.
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Matt and Cricket cite two data points as evidence of their burgeoning popularity and answer questions from listeners interested in cutting corners: One in configuring in-addr.arpa delegation for a /20 network, and another in responding to queries outside of the zones a name server is authoritative for. Fair warning: Mr. DNS does not sanction shortcuts!
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In yet another episode recorded with Matt and Cricket in the same room, they offer their opinions on two security-related topics: TSIG, including when to use it and whether it’s still worthwhile with DNSSEC-signed zones; and the benefits and drawbacks of using split namespaces. Along the way, they attempt to determine – using nothing but their wits, logical extrapolation and haphazard guessing – how a new feature of BIND 9.6 must work.
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In this episode, Matt and Cricket discuss and debate DNS terminology, explaining resolvers (stub resolvers, iterative resolvers), name servers (recursive name servers, authoritative name servers); they ruminate on how much of name server design is undocumented lore; and make many, many insider references. Oh, and then they remember the name and purpose of the podcast and answer a listener’s questions about lame delegations, revealing a rift between Matt’s and Cricket’s philosophies about them.
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In this, their first in-person podcast, Matt and Cricket examine the redundancy of the phrase “aiding and abetting,” discuss quirks in forwarding terminology, and cover two DNS-related security issues: One in which resolvers are reconfigured by malware to use open recursive name servers, and another — happening on the Internet right now — in which name servers are used as amplifiers in a DDoS attack.
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Warning: spoiler alert! Do not listen to this episode if you do not want to learn the identity of the final Cylon in Battlestar Galactica. Also, do not listen if you do not want to hear Matt correct and elaborate a bit on DNSSEC topics from Episode 2. And especially do not listen if you are not interested in learning about the uses of stub zones and hearing an explanation of web browser DNS “pre-fetching”. Otherwise, it’s fine to listen and we hope you will.
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In our second episode, Matt and Cricket discuss Matt’s distaste for handbells and lapse into a discussion of Star Trek (The Original Series) — oh, and answer an actual listener’s question about when DNSSEC deployment will be widespread. Also, Cricket says “Right, right” many times.
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Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Ask Mr. DNS Podcast! In this first episode, we introduce ourselves and talk a little about our backgrounds. We also explain who the heck Mr. DNS is and why we’ve named our podcast after him. Then we actually answer a DNS question and wind up the episode discussing some interesting DNS research we’ve each done.
We hope you enjoy it!
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