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Showing posts from August, 2013

Domain Information Groper (DIG) -- DNS Query Tool

DIG is a command-line tool for querying DNS Name Server (similar to nslookup utility available in Windows and host utility). dig utility can be used for querying DNS about the host address (both A and AAAA), name server(NS), mail exchange(MX), Pointer Record(PTR), SOA (Start Of Authority) and others. DIG is a part of BIND software package ( BIND package is developed and managed by Internet Systems Consortium ISC). Usage Example :- 1. Ask for a host address :- dig nkn.in 2. Ask from a specific server :- dig nkn.in @8.8.8.8 ; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P2 <<>> nkn.in @ 8.8.8.8 ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 13527 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;nkn.in. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: nkn.in. 14103 IN A 164.100.56.206 ;; Query time: 171 msec ;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53 (8.8.8

How to install DIG in Windows Machine

DIG is a domain query tool and a part of BIND package of ISC. Using dig is very simple in Linux but is little bit tricky to use the same in Windows. I have tried to do the same and sharing you the steps which i follow for configuring the dig in my windows machine. How to install dig in Windows :- 1. Create a folder for dig (eg: C:\dig) 2. Download the latest version (currently which is 9.8.5-P2) of BIND software from  here  (ZIP format) 3. Extract the .zip file and copy the dig.* and *.dll files in the folder created in step 1 4. Add the folder in the Environment Variables path settings (Right click on My Computer --> click on Properties --> Advance System Settings --> Environmental Variables --> Path ) Use dig more efficiently (using .digrc) :- dig gives lot of information in its output which may not be useful in most of cases (and may be annoying for some of us). To cut short the dig output to show you only the answer section, you need to give lot of pa

Online Privacy (About gstatic.com and DoNotTrackMe)

There was a time when we use to get  a call from marketing companies selling blah-blah products and these calls were the last call we want to receive. Then comes a  National Do Not Call and we get a rid of these marketing calls. But what about internet. Big internet marketing companies (like Google and others) whose business base is marketing and selling ads are tracking us. They track every site we visit, how much time we spend on each site, our search preference and based on state-of-art algorithms there robots decide what ads we will receive. Google do the same thing through gstatic.com domain. If you do the packet trace when you do the browsing, you will find the significant traffic from gstatic.com although you haven't ask anything from that domain. Document on gstatic.com which itself talk about  Advertisement  . Will we wait for government DND type initiative or we will do something by own to protect us. They are many browser extensions available freely in marke