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Are we dead yet?

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J. P. Gilliver (John)

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Sep 15, 2020, 1:52:31 PM9/15/20
to
Martin Brown's "Namesco MFU ..." thread prompted me to check my old
domain:

soft255.demon.co.uk (in Firefox) - eventually says "has timed out". Not
"cannot be resolved", note. When pinged, still resolves to the IP
address I was given all those years ago. (Doesn't respond to the pings -
same as it has always been.)

Adding the www: www.soft255.demon.co.uk: ping resolves to
85.233.160.129, and responds (12 ms). In Firefox (27), gives a blank
page - but one that contains code, see below.

I thought *.d.c.u was supposed to be unresolvable by now (with or
without the www.)?

Looking at the www version in up-to-date Chrome brings up the "Don’t
let this space go to waste
Make soft255.demon.co.uk work hard for you" Namesco advert.

When I do "View Page Source" on the apparently-blank page in Firefox 27,
this is what's there:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>soft255.demon.co.uk</title>
<style type="text/css">
body, html
{
margin: 0; padding: 0; height: 100%; overflow: hidden;
}
#content
{
position:absolute; left: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0; top:
0px;
}
</style>
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
</head>
<body>
<div id="content">
<iframe width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0"
src="https://www.names.co.uk/parked-domains/index?/=/domain/soft255.demon
.co.uk"></iframe>
</div>
</body>
</html>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Abandon hope, all ye who <ENTER> here.

Richard_CC

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Sep 18, 2020, 12:45:54 PM9/18/20
to
On 15/09/2020 18:49, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> Martin Brown's "Namesco MFU ..." thread prompted me to check my old
> domain:
>

>
Nope

Sadly and annoyingly my demon website which I never transferred and I
wished was long dead is still there - 17.45 18th Sept.

J. P. Gilliver (John)

unread,
Sep 18, 2020, 1:29:40 PM9/18/20
to
But I thought all demon.co.uk DNSing (or whatever the process is called)
was supposed to have ceased: does the fact that mine resolves, and yours
is actually still there, mean that someone at Voodoofone - or, possibly,
Namesco - has renewed the domain(s)? Or didn't they (it?) actually
expire when we were told it would (August/September transition)?

(I've never really understood how the subdomain business works,
technically.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

By most scientific estimates sustained, useful fusion is ten years in
the future - and will be ten years in the future for the next fifty
years or more. - "Hamadryad", ~2016-4-4

Alan Woodford

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Sep 18, 2020, 2:29:41 PM9/18/20
to
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 18:27:44 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6...@255soft.uk>
wrote:

>On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 17:45:53, Richard_CC
><ric...@nospam.rjcresources.co.uk> wrote:
>>On 15/09/2020 18:49, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>> Martin Brown's "Namesco MFU ..." thread prompted me to check my old
>>> domain:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>Nope
>>
>>Sadly and annoyingly my demon website which I never transferred and I
>>wished was long dead is still there - 17.45 18th Sept.
>
>But I thought all demon.co.uk DNSing (or whatever the process is called)
>was supposed to have ceased: does the fact that mine resolves, and yours
>is actually still there, mean that someone at Voodoofone - or, possibly,
>Namesco - has renewed the domain(s)? Or didn't they (it?) actually
>expire when we were told it would (August/September transition)?
>
>(I've never really understood how the subdomain business works,
>technically.)

My old site (bortas.dcu) is there, and it hasn't been updated this millenium
:-)

A quick poke around suggests that at least some of the old demon sites are now
sharing 85.233.160.129, so it looks like Namesco may have done something with
them.

Alan Woodford
The Greying Lensman

Joe

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Sep 18, 2020, 2:36:46 PM9/18/20
to
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 18:27:44 +0100
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6...@255soft.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 17:45:53, Richard_CC
> <ric...@nospam.rjcresources.co.uk> wrote:
> >On 15/09/2020 18:49, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> >> Martin Brown's "Namesco MFU ..." thread prompted me to check my old
> >> domain:
> >>
> >
> >>
> >Nope
> >
> >Sadly and annoyingly my demon website which I never transferred and
> >I wished was long dead is still there - 17.45 18th Sept.
>
> But I thought all demon.co.uk DNSing (or whatever the process is
> called) was supposed to have ceased: does the fact that mine
> resolves, and yours is actually still there, mean that someone at
> Voodoofone - or, possibly, Namesco - has renewed the domain(s)? Or
> didn't they (it?) actually expire when we were told it would
> (August/September transition)?
>
> (I've never really understood how the subdomain business works,
> technically.)

Every subdomain has its own MX, A, www, CName etc. records in the
demon.co.uk domain DNS. That must be quite a lot...

My website is finally not found, after thirteen years of zombie
inaccessibility.

--
Joe

J. P. Gilliver (John)

unread,
Sep 19, 2020, 3:07:26 AM9/19/20
to
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 19:29:39, Alan Woodford <al...@thewoodfords.uk>
wrote:
[]
>A quick poke around suggests that at least some of the old demon sites are now
>sharing 85.233.160.129, so it looks like Namesco may have done something with
>them.
>
>Alan Woodford
>The Greying Lensman

That's if you put www. on the front when pinging them. If you don't, you
get the original (in the case of mine, anyway).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

LISTENING means hearing what people are not saying as well as what they're
saying. - @CharlotteAlter 2020-9-4

J. P. Gilliver (John)

unread,
Sep 19, 2020, 3:10:28 AM9/19/20
to
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 19:36:44, Joe <j...@jretrading.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 18:27:44 +0100
>"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6...@255soft.uk> wrote:
[]
>> But I thought all demon.co.uk DNSing (or whatever the process is
>> called) was supposed to have ceased: does the fact that mine
>> resolves, and yours is actually still there, mean that someone at
>> Voodoofone - or, possibly, Namesco - has renewed the domain(s)? Or
>> didn't they (it?) actually expire when we were told it would
>> (August/September transition)?
>>
>> (I've never really understood how the subdomain business works,
>> technically.)
>
>Every subdomain has its own MX, A, www, CName etc. records in the
>demon.co.uk domain DNS. That must be quite a lot...

So what _did_ happen at the end of August/beginning of September?
>
>My website is finally not found, after thirteen years of zombie
>inaccessibility.
>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Martin Brown

unread,
Sep 20, 2020, 5:31:11 AM9/20/20
to
On 19/09/2020 08:08, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 19:36:44, Joe <j...@jretrading.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 18:27:44 +0100
>> "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6...@255soft.uk> wrote:
> []
>>> But I thought all demon.co.uk DNSing (or whatever the process is
>>> called) was supposed to have ceased: does the fact that mine
>>> resolves, and yours is actually still there, mean that someone at
>>> Voodoofone - or, possibly, Namesco - has renewed the domain(s)? Or
>>> didn't they (it?) actually expire when we were told it would
>>> (August/September transition)?
>>>
>>> (I've never really understood how the subdomain business works,
>>> technically.)
>>
>> Every subdomain has its own MX, A, www, CName etc. records in the
>> demon.co.uk domain DNS. That must be quite a lot...
>
> So what _did_ happen at the end of August/beginning of September?

They briefly did kill some of them pointed at another phantom server
between approximately 28th July and Monday 3rd of August.

I suspect their silver bullets were impure and anyway they were vampire
websites rather than zombies and so needed a stake through the heart.

And on the seventh day they rose from the dead...

>> My website is finally not found, after thirteen years of zombie
>> inaccessibility.
>>

Are you sure about that? Mine disappeared briefly for 6 days and then
*reappeared*. I haven't had a .dcu IP address for yonks. It only caused
me grief with a few corporates whose anti-spam tried to reverse lookup.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Joe

unread,
Sep 22, 2020, 3:25:02 AM9/22/20
to
Yes, it's back again....

--
Joe

Andy

unread,
Sep 22, 2020, 4:38:13 AM9/22/20
to
In message <20200922082...@jresid.jretrading.com>, Joe
<j...@jretrading.com> wrote
[
>
>Yes, it's back again....
>
It's the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It doesn't exist, unless you
actively look for it...
--
Andy Taylor [President, Treasurer & Editor of the Austrian Philatelic Society].
Visit www dot austrianphilately dot com
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