Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers 140
An anonymous reader writes "A new Google domain — 1e100.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name — is now the net's 44th most visited site. Google says the domain is used to 'identify servers' on its internal network, hinting that reverse DNS plays a role. The domain was registered in September and launched in October, about the same time Google unveiled Spanner, a new addition to its backend infrastructure designed to shift loads automatically among its data centers."
Re:1e400.net? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's right in the article..
But on closer inspection, the domain is obviously Google's, chosen with a mathematician's wink at the search giant's famously misspelled name. This mystery domain is 1e100.net. "1e100" would be scientific notation for 10 100, a one followed by 100 zeros, also known as a googol.
Besides, google-analytics.com is way too easy for people to remember to block. Now change it to 1e100.net and they probably get a lot more data.
Its not a "site" per se... (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, what google has done is change their reverse information for a LOT of their stuff to point to 1e100.net rather than google, since Google these days is so much more than google: you have youtube, blogger, analytics, doubleclick, and a host of others.
The 1e100.net name is nice because it allows admins etc to go "this is GOOGLE" rather than "this is X" (which got assimilated by google).
Re:Accuracy? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what happens when people read The Register.
I don't even know why Slashdot links there anymore, it's become such a stupid site, it really is worse than Fox News nowadays.
The issue is that The Register really isn't a news site anymore, it's a pressure group passing itself off as a news site. You'll note many of Andrew Orlowski's articles there for example are full of outright lies, often there is no opportunity to comment on his stories, but when there is they are heavily moderated such that any disagreeing viewpoint is not accepted through. Even if they are, Andrew himself generally deletes them shortly afterwards. He claims it's because he likes correspondence direct to his e-mail, but obviously that misses the point of a comments section which is that it enables discussion with peers on the topic. As seen by his constant congratulations to himself in his articles- things like "I was the only one anyone in the audience applauded", "I was first to unveil the news on this" it's pretty clear what his real problem is, he's an attention seeker, and worse an insecure one, who can't take criticism even when he bluntly knows he's not being honest.
But it's not just Andrew Orlowski, Google is one of The Registers targets of hate along with Wikipedia and some others, as such you cannot treat anything coming from there with any real seriousness. They constantly attack Jimmy Wales for example, and whilst he's far from perfect, let's face it, he's contributed far more to the web with the creation of Wikipedia than anyone at The Register ever has or likely ever will.
It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so hypocritical, they for example launch attacks on climatologists with the arguments of them not being open enough, not being willing to accept criticism, and then in the very same articles they go and block comments either altogether or from anyone dissenting from their viewpoint, anyone pointing out errors in their analysis and so forth. Point out enough errors in their articles, even if you keep yourself reasonable about it, even if you backup your point with perfectly legitimate sources and so forth and eventually your account will just break and you'll get a "Sorry, there was a problem logging in, please contact the webmaster" - any attempt to get your account "fixed" is simply ignored, it's quite clear what their game is. But worse, they sometimes even give the impression they allow dissent with things like "Andrew's mailbag", they will post dissenting comments here, but they'll be very carefully selected, and swamped with counter-comments attacking back, with no right to reply again.
Really, this Google domain is no big deal- it is after all no different to the likes of Akamai domains and so forth which spuriously appear but which no one questions in the same. It's really just a case of The Register making a story where there isn't one, trying to make Google look evil when there's really no big deal. The result is though we get people like have posted here on Slashdot in response to this article, who fall for The Register's agenda, shit bricks and start blocking said hosts when there's really no need unless you're so paranoid that you probably shouldn't be on the internet anyway.
The Register is as agenda based as Fox News and really does not deserve the slightest bit of attention, it's best to just leave it to rot as an "also ran" in the internet's list of IT news sites.
Not misspelled (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot helps (Score:2, Interesting)
Meh. Really the modern equivalent of the old slashdot effect these days is when the Google doodle returns your site as the first result. Hopefully your hosting provider doesn't bill by the megabyte...
79 comment about the scientific notation of google (Score:5, Interesting)
...and 1 comment asking what the article means to all of us. Not a single comment on why are they redirecting things through this domain.
Yup, this is /.
Nothing too new... (Score:3, Interesting)
I had to do some network analysis last year to try to track down the source of massive overload on our firewall. The domain 1e100.net came up a few times, and it took me a second before I figured out the clever naming choice.
I guess I never thought that the name was a big enough deal to be worthy of a whole Slashdot story.
Don't believe it. (Score:3, Interesting)
At home, I run a squid proxy and all port 80 requests must go through it.
I checked the logs, which go back 8 weeks, and there is not a single instance of 1e100.net in them. It might be on an alternate port, but my personal browser is explicitly set to use the proxy.
Clearly Alexa sees the requests to this domain, but, Alexa only has information from people who have installed the Alexa toolbar, so perhaps the 1e100.net domain is somehow only used by people who have the Alexa toolbar?
Re:Accuracy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh I understand what The Register was originally, what it was intended to be (I'm British, we invented that type of humour thanks), and what it kept true to for a long while, but in recent years, perhaps the last 3 or 4 it's strayed much further than that, and been hijacked to push certain agendas. It is not merely a case of hating everybody, I understand they have a very sarcastic negative slant, but you'll notice reoccuring themes that gone well beyond hating everybody. Examples range from climate change, to persistent character assasination of people like Jimmy Wales, to pro-RIAA agenda, to a heavily anti-Google agenda, to often outright false/incorrect opinion pieces on the British military related matters.
What's notable is for some of these repeated themse (pro-RIAA agenda, Climate change) you'll find a strong correlation with prevention of comment posting, or manipulation of comment posting. There is a clear difference between posting news articles with a sarcastic tone, and persistently pursuing certain targets with zeal, and with a clear attempt to manipulate published public opinion of visitors to the site.