Uh-Oh; FR is Down Again

There have been times I wished I had a VPN connection to the web.

Check out VPNBook. It's free and easy to set up.

I was using it the other day, and Google came up in Romanian, because they thought I was in Romania. I usually use their Canadian server. For some reason, Google thinks it's in India, but it's actually in Montreal, so the performance impact from here is minor.

However, do check for "DNS leakage". DNS leakage is when your DNS requests fail to go over the VPN, thus potentially allowing your ISP to see where you're surfing. There are several sites that will check if you are leaking. E.g., here is how dnsleaktest.com describes their service:

The DNS leak test works by sending your client a series of domain names to resolve within a specific test domain. Each request is sent from your client to your configured DNS server. Even if you have configured a single DNS server, there may be many other servers that the request is passed on to in order to be resolved (normally to load balance the requests). For example if you configure Google DNS then you will often find 6-10 Google DNS servers which are fullfilling the DNS requests.
The Standard test performs 1 round of 6 queries for a total of 6 queries. This should be more than sufficient to discover if you have a DNS leak. The original test prior to the 2014 upgrade did 3 queries. The advantage of this test is that it is fast. Use this test to quickly check for dns leaks when you connect to your VPN service.
The Extended test performs 6 rounds of 6 queries for a total of 36 queries. This high number ensures that all DNS servers are discovered. However for the purposes of discovering if you have a DNS leak this is not normally neccessary and can take 10-30 seconds longer to complete. If you have strong anonymity/privacy requirements you can choose the extended test just to be certain.

My configuration was leaking because it was configured to use my router for DNS, thus using Verizon's DNS. So, I added a few lines of code to switch it over to Google (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) when bringing up the VPN and then back to the router when taking the VPN down. The Google addresses are routed through the VPN, whereas the router's, being on the LAN, could not be. It would also work to use Google permanently, regardless of whether the VPN is up.

It’s cool man. We just have a different sense of humor.

The thing is; I don’t find our forum being down to be in any way funny like you do.

I use duckduckgo for most of my searches. Have for several years. Before that Scroogle. smile.

You ever try https://www.wolframalpha.com/ ?

Never tried it. I run Zero Script plugin to minimize javascripts. I had to temp. allow it to go to the search screen.

Thanks.

You ever try https://www.wolframalpha.com/ ?

It has its uses, which seem to be many and various. Although, I can't say that I use it more than a few times a year.

For instance, you can type Pyongyang to Washington, DC, and it will give you basic stats on the trip and the endpoints, together with a nice map showing the great circle route:

It also offers to enlarge or customize the map, but Tilt! That requires a Pro subscription.

You can get a nutritional analysis for, say, 1 lb of cherries, and it will display an official-looking nutrition label, together with additional data.

You can look up a chemical compound, say octanitrocubane, and it will list basic facts and show you a diagram of the molecule.

You can get the sales tax for a random zip, eg., Sales tax 80906, and it will show the total rate together with the state, county, city breakdown.

You can key in your SSN, say 042684425, and receive copious useless info about it, such as its prime factorization and the fact that it is odd. To Wolfram's credit, they do provide a link to treat it as an SSN. If you click that, you find out it is a Connecticut SSN, even though, oddly, it was issued to a Hawaii resident.

You can ask it about a date and place, say 4 August 1961 in Honolulu, and it will tell you that that was 55 years 11 months 21 days ago, that sunrise was at 6:06am and sunset at 7:09pm, that two famous people were born that day, and that the city center's elevation was 16 ft (is it still?).

It does mortgages, e.g., What is the monthly payment on a $300000 mortgage at 4%? Except, oops, it's wrong. Apparently, $-signs confuse it. If you leave out the dollar sign, What is the monthly payment on a $300000 mortgage at 4%?, it gets the right answer (the correct answer according to my HP 12C is $1432.25).

But if you really want to confuse it, ask How many Pro subscribers does Wolfram Alpha have?

Hope it’s working better for you now now. I talked to John and he said he’d look into it. I see he got some of it fixed already. Thanks.

Yes, Thank You, it is working good now. I hope the cause of this reoccurring issue can be resolved at some point. Do you know if it's a bug in the code or an outside attack of some kind?

Thanks again! :)