9395088
story
Comments: 140 + - Technology: Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers on Monday February 08, @08:51AM
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicgoogle.gif); width:104px; height:38px;
google
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicinternet.gif); width:70px; height:73px;
internet
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topictech2.gif); width:60px; height:80px;
technology
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."
Related Stories
Submission: Google mystery domain reroutes 3% of net surfers by Anonymous Coward
Star Trek Lives!
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.
1e400.net? (Score:3, Insightful)
"1e400.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name"
Could someone explain that one cause I really don't get it or see the nod.
Re:1e400.net? (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong summary. I emailed the editors a minute too late I guess.
The domain is 1e100.net:
Domain Name: 1E100.NET
Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com/ [markmonitor.com]
Name Server: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
Name Server: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: serverDeleteProhibited
Status: serverRenewProhibited
Status: serverTransferProhibited
Status: serverUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 13-oct-2009
Creation Date: 25-sep-2009
Expiration Date: 25-sep-2019
Parent
Re:1e400.net? (Score:4, Informative)
Domain Name: 1E400.NET
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.enom.com
Referral URL: http://www.enom.com/ [enom.com]
Name Server: NS1.NONEXISTE.NET
Name Server: NS2.NONEXISTE.NET
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 08-feb-2010
Creation Date: 08-feb-2010
Expiration Date: 08-feb-2011
It just has a picture of a very nice rainbow, over some island city.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
that is honolulu
Re: (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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Could someone explain that one cause I really don't get it or see the nod.
Someone screwed up because it should have been 4e100.net, aka "four googol" aka "for google"
Re:1e400.net? (Score:5, Funny)
>Could someone explain that one cause I really don't get it or see the nod.
After a long mescaline trip Eric Schmidt and Larry Page decided the company should be called LEE00 (pronounced lee-ooooo) and the l33t-speak domain 1e400.net was born.
After poor reception from investors and users alike a memo was written up asking all employees to suggest a new domain name. A young intern, who later committed suicide in a bizarre self decapitation with a chainsaw, suggested that 1 to the 400th power was actually a gogool. Schmidt and Page were impressed and after accepting how less fun it is to say gogool than "leeee-oooooo" decided to change the name. Because its difficult to trademark a real word, they just went with "google." 1e400.net is a nod to the good old leeee-ooooo days.
*actually its 1 to 100th power
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A young intern, who later committed suicide in a bizarre self decapitation with a chainsaw, suggested that 1 to the 400th power was actually a gogool.
*actually its 1 to 100th power
Of course, 1 to the 100th power is the same as 1 to the 400th power, is the same as 1.
You mean TEN to the 100th power.
Re:1e400.net? (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong. 1e100 is 1 * 10^100
"e" is not the same as "^"
Parent
Re:1e400.net? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1e100 is the same as 1^100, which is a Googol, or if you're a google founder, spelled "Google"
I hope that was a typo.
Re: (Score:2)
1t's a recursi^e typ0, to keep with the theme of the article :)
So that would be... (Score:2, Funny)
a Quoogle?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bing!
1e400 or? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1e10 = 1*10^10 = 10000000000 [wolframalpha.com]
1e100 = 1*10^100 = a Googol = 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 [wolframalpha.com]
Accuracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably that should be 1e100.net? And presumably it isn't actually "rerouting" anything. Hmmm.
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well you're right, there's no such thing as truly unbiased news.
But certainly there are extremely biased sources, and it's certainly the case that Fox is one of those sources.
The likes of the BBC are generally much more unbiased, because they exist without needing to answer to shareholders and in fact, have a legal duty in many cases to avoid bias. Whilst you do get cases of individual bias with the BBC, they are just that, and multiple reporters with multiple views will post on the same topics, meaning the likely hood of some inherent bias is much lower than in places like Fox, where people are employed specifically with the goal of a pre-defined agenda.
So yeah, it's hard to find an entirely objective source, but suggesting the likes of the BBC for example are on par with Fox and The Register in terms of bias and zealotry of their agenda is really quite ignorant. The BBC for example does not censor comments for starters based on anything other than a set of objective rules which are clearly laid out and adhered to. They have a proper process for ensuring that anyone who believes their moderation was unfair can appeal.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do realise that there is a legal separation between the government and the BBC right?
The BBC exists by royal mandate, it is entirely separate from government and the government has no influence over it. This is exactly what makes the BBC one of the least bias news sources out there, because any bias can only exist at an individual level, and even then is accountable to the BBC Trust which oversees it. It also has a mandate to transparently handle complaints- the same can't be said of commercial channels
Re: (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,
Why with all the mystery? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just call it 1e400.google.com? Screwy domain names with numbers in them make me think of ads, spam, or malware. I'd be a lot more likely to allow javascript/cookies and not put the site in Adblock or the hosts file if it was clearly a Google domain.
The googol network? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tha would be the googol network. Why not: -o-o-o-.net? (That would be a goggle with an extra "o".)
Re:The googol network? (Score:5, Funny)
Or like we normal people like to say it, it is an invalid domain name.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
-o-o-o-.net is neither RFC1123- nor RFC952-compliant.
With longer straps perhaps?
l-o-o-o-l.net
Lazy (or penny pinching?) Slashdot geeks (Score:5, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
what a load of crap (Score:2)
I imagine someone pointed out that a million bucks a year of bandwidth costs could be saved by using a shorter domain name. What a non-story.
And what's this about Google being "misspelled"? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. "Google" is a great brand name loosely based on a word that would have been a terrible brand name.
Re:what a load of crap (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not misspelled (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not misspelled (Score:5, Informative)
Because they originally did:
"Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data," Koller writes.
"Sean verbally suggested the word 'googolplex' [a one followed by a googol zeros], and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, 'googol'....Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use.
"Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as "google.com," which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name 'google.com" for himself and [fellow co-founder] Sergey [Brin]."
Parent
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: (Score:3, Informative)
6 months of 100 user's squid logs to grep, 1e100 turns up nothing other than the image on this story's link, it can't be http.
We use Google for everything including our site wide mail, advertising, website Analytics, and even our DNS and Chrome is the default browser at a lot of locations, then we have the android handsets... (The owners have daughters working at Google, but hey, we aren't a Microsoft shop, and their daughters already sold them on the value of Linux for everything else, so my life is easy.)
Google briefly took over Wikipedia that way (Score:5, Informative)
For a brief period on February 5, "en.wikipedia.org" was directed by DNS to an address at "pw-in-f139.1e100.net" [wikipedia.org]. That was quickly corrected, although it may have happened more than once. Apparently somebody at Google sent out some bad DNS records. (Google is now in the DNS business, remember.) [google.com] They need to be more careful.
The story from Google... (Score:5, Informative)
1e100.net is a Google-owned domain name used to identify the servers in our network. Following standard industry practice, we make sure each IP address has a corresponding hostname. Starting in October 2009, we started using a single domain name to identify our servers across all Google products, rather than use different product domains such as youtube.com, blogger.com, and google.com. We did this for two reasons: first, to keep things simpler, and second, to proactively improve security by protecting against potential threats such as cross-site scripting attacks. Most typical Internet users will never see 1e100.net, but we picked we picked a Googley name for it just in case (1e100 is scientific notation for 1 googol).
So there you go!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You realize that it's just infrastructure, right? You might as well block images.google.com for all the good it will do you. It's just a domain name.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's deceptive, which of course makes it look underhanded, even if it may not be. When I saw it appearing in my firewall logs, I blocked it immediately.
They could have easily used spanner.google.com, or loadshift.google.com, or balancer.google.com, or something else that isn't so suspicious.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the domain name is actually the numerical equivalent of a googol, which makes it clever, not underhanded. Just because you didn't get it doesn't make it sneaky.
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Informative)
It's supposed to be 1e100.net, i.e. 1x10^100 or a Googol.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
(Note; summary will probably be corrected by the time most people see this)
Doesn't look like it. I guess people will first need to see the moon before the Slashteam corrects the summary...
Re:Slashdot helps (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be surprised how little impact that has these days. Slashdot continues to be popular with its core demographic, but that Internet has grown by orders of magnitude since being Slashdotted meant something. Now, if this had been posted to a World of Warcraft forum... ;-)
Parent
Re: (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...
Re:Slashdot helps (Score:4, Informative)
Slashdot really has stayed still while the internet changed and matured around it, other than the absence of some memes and Y2K stories the slashdot of '99 looks much like today. (For better or worse) ...
We are the tech Luddites!
And yes "Slashdotting" is such and incredibly dated and egocentric word dating back to when our population was something to be impressed with, that day has long since passed, the few times we do "slashdot" a real server everyone gets all giddy, and I just don't have the heart to tell them that it was fine when it hit our front-page, but it just hit the front of reddit and digg.
(If you don't recall what it looked like, this is what ten years of progress on a cutting edge geek/tech site looks like http://web.archive.org/web/19991013054427/http://slashdot.org/ [archive.org] )
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like googol grew by quite a few orders of magnitude.
Binary orders of magnitude?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Rather than repeat myself, see my post here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1541436&cid=31060452 [slashdot.org]
Effectively it's a non-story, hyped up into a story by typical The Register anti-Google trolling.
I don't like a lot of things Google does, particularly Schmidt's "done nothing wrong, got nothing to hide" style comments, but really, non-stories like this are just utterly stupid and as they're part of The Register's agenda based bullshit wagon, don't even deserve to be entertained.