As I mentioned, EZTV.it has been down for the past few months, but today, it's splash page claimed that it was up and running even though I had the page I was viewing was being on the downed server. They explained that the page was being displayed because my ISP had not yet updated their DNS records. My internet service provider is also my DNS provider and it doesn't update it's records often (a DNS record is the mapping of an IP address to a domain name). Anyway, they described a quick solution on how to point your router to a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) server.
The steps were pretty straight forward for most routers but since mine used open-source firmware, it took a bit longer and a few more steps to setup. After making the changes to my router settings and creating an OpenDNS account (optional) I made sure to use a special command one my router that would prevent a user on my network from overriding the current DNS provider with one of their choice (DD-WRT instructions here).
Below is the settings page for your OpenDNS account:
What followed simply amazed me since what I had just setup was big brother at it's finest.
Not a single social networking sites worked nor did most of the blog sites I usually visit. It was a complete lock down in parallel to all we experienced in high school and the simple command that was two lines long prevented any circumvention of this system. It's internet loving people worst fear! And it's free!
But in the end, the DDNS directed me to the correct webpage. The splash page was gone. So parents, porn-hating people and censor freaks, if you want to lock down your network, DDNS is the key.
