Disable OpenDNS

[coteyr]

how was I wrong ? how was I to know my ISP does not resolve dyndns TLD's

Because if you were "smart" enough to setup a DNS entry you should have checked that entry "some how". I don't mean wrong like "Ooooooo your gonna burn in hell" wrong, I mean your "100%" to blame and it should be on you to fix (i.e. by researching and choosing better DNS servers or by choosing a "better" way to handle Dynamic DNS hosting.

I agree with the privacy concerns , and opendns did not live up to that standard . you go and check about opennic before you throw statements like "Opinion, not fact" .
http://www.opennicproject.org/ was established with privacy concerns on mind .

Good is an opinion, it's your view on if they are doing a good job or not. Even if it's a widely held opinion, it's still just opinion (and not fact). Thus it will NEVER EVER be 100% accepted.

but here's an opinion , your dissection of my post is exactly the FUD clem was referring to

I can not say what clem was referring to but my post is not FUD. I clearly stated my points, I did not (intentionally) leave anything unclear, nor did I sew doubt or fear in any way.

Each line was pointed, to the point, and stated clearly what I meant without using ambiguous terms. The only line that even leaves any "doubt" at all is the last. And it is opinion. Send my data without my active consent, in any way shape or form, and is wrong, immoral (in my opinion) and possibly illegal.

If your referring to "possibly illegal", that's just what it is. There are laws that say (in the US, EU and UK) that state clearly, that you can not send a persons private data, without their consent. Each governing body words it a bit differently, but they all have laws to that effect. The only reason I say "possibly illegal" is because I don't know if "Linux Mint" could be held responsible, or if the liability would fall to the editor of the file, or the creator of the installer or what. In truth there have only been a handful of cases in situations like this, Usually at the ISP level.

So just to restate, my post was pointed, on topic, and in my opinion, not fear mongering, sewing uncertainty, or raising doubt. Don't claim something is FUD just because you don't agree.

[speedie]

let's start over again ;
I set up a server at home . I set up dyndns so that I can connect home when roaming around . Did this so that I don't have to rediscover my IP every time it changes .
When connecting from another location , I was obviously on another ISP , which would not resolve *.zapto.org address I use to call back home . Of course I did not suspect ISP which I was using at that moment would refuse to resolve that specific TLD ( for whatever reason ) , so I suspected my setup was wrong . If I'm surfing the web and everything is just fine , why would I suspect in DNS when I can't ssh home ? That would be your first suspicion ? You would go ping google.com - everything is fine , and then *.zapto.org - no host , and your first inclination would be to go change DNS on your machine ? Gimme a break ....

As for FUD ;

Keep in mind that ANYTHING, that sends my data (in any part) to a third party without my consent is wrong, immoral (in my opinion) , and possibly illegal.

In my book , that's FUD .

I'm not gonna continue arguing with you , all I wanted to say is that clem acted in good fate with dns fallback , and we should not go busting his balls over it . And because of guys like you , he decided to drop that little conveniency .

[clem]

Hi,

The decision was taken to remove DNS fallback from Mint.

- OpenDNS was identified as not being the right choice for DNS Fallback (mostly due to the way they handle errors).
- It was demonstrated that resolvconf's tail technique was not adequate technically to implement the concept of DNS Fallback.
- The need for DNS Fallback was questioned and although it did fix an issue from upstream Ubuntu at the time, it's arguable whether we do still need it nowadays.
- Privacy concerns are peripheral to this. Everything we do is to improve Mint, including adding DNS Fallback at the time, and removing it right now. ISPs know much more than OpenDNS since they don't just know what you're visiting but also your real name, your address, your phone number, your credit card details and so on. Again, I've no interest in getting into the privacy argument. I'm very well aware of the problems with PRISM and all at the moment and I understand why people are so concerned over this. The best I can say is that we're trying our best out here to make a great OS, and that means something that works great for you, not against you.

DNS Fallback isn't the first time Mint ventures outside the boundaries of what other distros do and solve something on its own. We were proud of it, I'm still proud of the way we tried and took the initiative, but I'm happy we identified the drawbacks here as well and so it's time to remove it.

Mint 16 will be the first release to come with no DNS Fallback. In prior release you can remove it with the command:

sudo rm /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/tail

I'd like to thank everyone here and on Launchpad for the feedback they gave us.