[semi-OT] configuring DNS, virtual hosting on dreamhost (?)

[Michael ODonnell]

I purchased a domain name registration from GoDaddy as a gift for a
friend.  His kid (who already has a domain registered at dreamhost.com)
agreed to work with me to initialize things such that the new domain
points at the family's page on shutterfly.com.  So I asked the kid to
tell me what to use for the A record and he said, "Oh, don't worry about
that - just set the domain server entries to point at nsX.dreamhost.com
and I'll handle the rest."

Being busy, I did as he suggested without thinking about it further;
sure enough, when I later opened http://newDomain.com/ with my browser
it redirected to their shutterfly.com page just as he predicted.  Then I
started to wonder how he could have arranged that without any further
involvement from me.

I claim that I understand the basics of the trickery behind (some types
of) virtual WWW hosting: when your browser sends a GET to the machine
of record for the domain in question, that GET mentions the desired
hostname and that info is then used to redirect (via something like a
"301 Moved Permanently") to a machine that is serving the desired pages.

What I don't understand is how the kid could arrange all that without
involving me, the nominal owner of the domain in question.  He's not
available to supply details just now but he indicated that he intended
to use the standard tools dreamhost.com supplies to accomplish this.
Since I was never contacted after setting the nameserver entries it
appears to me that those tools give him the power to mess with *any*
such domain, as long as dreamhost.com is specified as the nameserver in
the DNS record.  Could that be?  Yikes...