RE: Microsoft Is Using Linux To Protect Its Own Web Site - hehe

[MadHat <madhat () unspecific com>]

On Sun, 2003-08-24 at 18:59, Paul Hieb wrote:
> There's just one problem with the theory here guys -- Reverse DNS of
> www.microsoft.com is showing "unknown.Level3.net" hence they are having
> Level3 filter traffic for them, they might even be co-located at
> Level3's facilities. I presume that you all know who Level3
> communications is? (www.level3.net) Also I would assume that for load
> balancing purposes, that DNS entries are round-robining to at least two
> different hosts. So, keep probing!

They use Akamai (as Fyodor mentioned), as do a lot of big name sites.  
Akamai has collocation in a lot of facilities around the world but the
owner of the IP space decides whether or not to set up the reverse DNS
(in other words it is not delegated to Akamai in most cases).  Yes it
uses round robin DNS, but the request gets handed off to the Akamai
server which then passes the request on to the real web server.  Akamai
uses Linux for some of its servers, which is what you would be
fingerprinting.

Limited details about EdgeSuite
http://www.digex.com/services/intelligentNetworking/akamai.asp

Akamai's Web Site
http://www.akamai.com/


$ dig www.microsoft.com
; ANSWER SECTION:
www.microsoft.com.      2344    IN      CNAME  
www.microsoft.com.edgesuite.net.
www.microsoft.com.edgesuite.net. 426 IN CNAME   a562.cd.akamai.net.
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.169
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.179
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.182
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       64.156.220.104
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       64.156.220.105
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       64.156.220.106
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.166
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.167
a562.cd.akamai.net.     13      IN      A       63.209.144.168

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n3cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n4cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n5cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n6cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n7cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n8cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n0cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n1cd.akamai.net.
cd.akamai.net.          1746    IN      NS      n2cd.akamai.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
n7cd.akamai.net.        2680    IN      A       64.215.172.61


$ whois edgesuite.net
[whois.opensrs.net]
Registrant:
 Akamai Technologies, Inc.
 8 Cambridge Center
 Cambridge, MA 02142
 US

 Domain name: EDGESUITE.NET

 Administrative Contact:
    Hostmaster, Akamai  hostmaster-billing () akamai com
    8 Cambridge Center
    Cambridge, MA 02142
    US
    +1.6174443000    Fax: +1.6174443001


-- 
MadHat at Unspecific.com
`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here...'
   -- Lewis Carroll - _Alice's_Adventures_in_Wonderland_


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