Reverse DNS Question

Dec 15, 2004 4 Replies
J

My ISP just added reverse DNS to my ADSL line. Shields Up brought it to my attention and I asked the ISP about it. They say I shouldn't be concerned. Shields Up says that any Web site I long on to can recognized my computer without setting a cookie, as least as far as I understand it. I try to keep most if not all cookies off of my machine. Maybe I'm paranoid.



What does conventional wisdom say about reverse DNS? I've run without it for a long time and haven't seen any bad effects because of the lack thereof.



Should I insist they disable it?



Thank you very much.


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D

In article , Jack Gillis writes

No, reverse DNS should be set. Not having it set can cause problems, especially if you ever run a mailserver.

If you really are paranoid, you want dynamic IP assignment rather than static IP assignment anyway. Use a firewall. And for the truly paranoid, you want to use TOR and mixmaster.

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N

Maybe. The site says that the rDNS "...might uniquely identify you on the Internet". But it has more details further down the page. The detailed explanation is, in part:

"But the beginning of the string uniquely identifies your Internet connection. The question is: Is the beginning of the string an "account ID" that is uniquely and permanently tied to you, or is it merely related to your current public IP address and thus subject to change?"

Most rDNS names that I have seen are pretty generic, and no more revealing than the IP address. Such as my current connection:

adsl-66-125-91-50.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net

....which isn't revealing much more than a lack of rDNS would reveal; and not nearly so much as a tracking cookie.

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