Comcast changes naming convention

Jack Hodgson hodgson at da4.com
Fri May 2 09:44:26 EDT 2003


I'm no more than an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to network and 
system admin, but I just noticed something interesting.

Sometime in the past few days Comcast has made two changes to my 
cable modem account settings.

First, after nearly a year, I've been issued a new IP address. That's 
not all that remarkable, I've always known it could happen at any 
time. But...

Second, they've changed a naming convention that has existed for at 
least a couple of years, and which could be useful.

I used to be able to lookup my current IP address by doing a

     nslookup h<insert my router MAC num here>.ne.client2.attbi.com

     eg: h002078f7bb6d.ne.client2.attbi.com

but now Comcast has changed the naming to

    c-<current IP addrs separated by dashes>.ne.client2.attbi.com

     eg: c-24-34-217-135.ne.client2.attbi.com

Ah well.

I suspect this is Comcast fixing a weakness in their system that made 
it easier for customers to setup dynamic DNS, and thus run evil, 
illegal servers.

Is it me, or do these Comcast folks have more tech smarts that the 
att/mediaone people?

-- Jack Hodgson



More information about the gnhlug-discuss mailing list