For ages now, Screamers' transparent web cache has been completely useless. It constantly returns a Squid error page with a DNS failure.
I told the supposed Screamer representative on MyBroadband about this, and he assured me they knew and were working on it. How could they not know, surely some employee or staff of Screamer actually makes use of their own service?
I eventually gave up on waiting for this to be fixed, and diverted my web traffic over another port into a network that I control (and run properly).
It was then, while trying to debug a clients server, that I found some other unsavoury things.
Great, they force me through their SMTP server too. I wonder how well they run that...
That's bad enough, I can somewhat understand catching SMTP to prevent their single NAT gateway (sad) from getting blacklisted, but it gets far worse.
On 22/08/2009 at 09h00 I lost all semblance of DNS resolution. The DNS server (172.17.0.10) was completely unresponsive to DNS queries.
So I did what all technically minded people do, I kicked it out of my resolver config and went to root queries. Bind then told me all the root servers were lame. Had the world somehow plummeted into darkness? No
They transparently redirect port 53 too!
Fortunately I can direct my DNS queries over OpenVPN to IS who actually know how to provide Internet access.
I pay for access to the Internet, not access to the bits Screamer decides. Considering how badly these services are clearly provisioned, it would be very nice if people with technical knowledge could work around them without being _forced_ to use broken services through stupid transparent proxies and service redirects.
I have a standing order with Telkom for an ADSL circuit, when they finish smelting the new copper wire, I will be downgrading Screamer to a 500MB package and use it for redundancy. Some of us actually work from our internet connections, we can't afford to sit around and wait for you to get a clue.
If you want to be competition to the other providers out there, grow up and start learning how to offer decent service continuity at the very least.
I told the supposed Screamer representative on MyBroadband about this, and he assured me they knew and were working on it. How could they not know, surely some employee or staff of Screamer actually makes use of their own service?
I eventually gave up on waiting for this to be fixed, and diverted my web traffic over another port into a network that I control (and run properly).
It was then, while trying to debug a clients server, that I found some other unsavoury things.
Code:
coffee ~ # telnet 196.212.55.130 25
Trying 196.212.55.130...
Connected to 196.212.55.130.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 relay.screamer.co.za ESMTP PostfixGreat, they force me through their SMTP server too. I wonder how well they run that...
That's bad enough, I can somewhat understand catching SMTP to prevent their single NAT gateway (sad) from getting blacklisted, but it gets far worse.
On 22/08/2009 at 09h00 I lost all semblance of DNS resolution. The DNS server (172.17.0.10) was completely unresponsive to DNS queries.
So I did what all technically minded people do, I kicked it out of my resolver config and went to root queries. Bind then told me all the root servers were lame. Had the world somehow plummeted into darkness? No
Code:
coffee bind # tcptraceroute -n 192.5.5.241 53
Selected device ppp0, address 10.0.64.157, port 59183 for outgoing packets
Tracing the path to 192.5.5.241 on TCP port 53 (domain), 30 hops max
1 10.0.64.253 39.047 ms 39.888 ms 39.543 ms
2 172.11.11.1 44.865 ms 45.127 ms 44.662 ms
3 10.254.253.254 44.915 ms 44.872 ms 44.912 ms
4 192.5.5.241 [open] 44.918 ms 54.826 ms 55.068 msThey transparently redirect port 53 too!
Fortunately I can direct my DNS queries over OpenVPN to IS who actually know how to provide Internet access.
I pay for access to the Internet, not access to the bits Screamer decides. Considering how badly these services are clearly provisioned, it would be very nice if people with technical knowledge could work around them without being _forced_ to use broken services through stupid transparent proxies and service redirects.
I have a standing order with Telkom for an ADSL circuit, when they finish smelting the new copper wire, I will be downgrading Screamer to a 500MB package and use it for redundancy. Some of us actually work from our internet connections, we can't afford to sit around and wait for you to get a clue.
If you want to be competition to the other providers out there, grow up and start learning how to offer decent service continuity at the very least.
