Invalid *.net address forward to net.net (spyware?)

sonrisusonrisu
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I recently noticed, while screwing around with trying to set up subdomains for my website that any invalid website address ending in .net redirects me to the website: http://net.net. For instance, using Safari, if I type in blah.loomsoft.net I'm redirected to http://www.net.net/search.asp?Keywords=loomsoft. What is up with that? Could this be some kind of strange spyware, or did I inadvertently mess up something? I thought a culprit could be my hosts file but there's nothing in there.



The same results do not occur for a .com website (I get the regular "Page could not be found" stuff).



I'm running OSX v10.4. I tried this with both Safari and IE (crap that is is from previous OSX install) -- same thing happens in both browsers. I then decided to try this on my windows machine in case it was possibly something wacky with my ISP. No dice. My windows machine isn't affected by this net.net crap.



Any suggestions? I haven't the slightest idea how to combat this.



[edit] No, I haven't run any strange or weird software that prompts for a password or anything like that. The most recent thing I can recall is installing Quicksilver and shortly thereafter removing it completely from my system.



Also deleted caches. No luck.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    sonrisusonrisu Posts: 15member
    Hm. After some other digging and help on IRC it appears that this behavior might actually be normal. As we all know, modern browsers have the bahavior of adding .com/.net/.org to improper urls (ie: just a keyword) used as a url.



    I guess what might be happening is nonexistenturl.net is being changed to nonexistenturl.net.net, which, in fact, is a valid url; someone owns net.net (and probably with wildcard dns stuff; that is, any *.net.net points to http://net.net).



    I still think this is a little bogus. If anyone has any tips on how to dig through this further I'm all ears. This does, however, seem like the reason why this is happening.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    regreg Posts: 832member
    This is normal and happens all the time. Internic got in trouble when domain names were expanded because they redirected every one back to their site if a bad url was put in. That way they would be the first place people would go to purchase a domain. Back in 97 some one got in trouble for hacking Internic's site,

    http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/tech...2,5232,00.html

    Just be careful when you get to some of these sites, they could be trying to get info or money.



    reg
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