Rumors are flying around the intertubes about Comcast intercepting DNS traffic and returning replies from their own servers.  The Domain Name Service (DNS) is the Internet service that allows us to use names like “www.google.com” instead of remembering that if you want to do a search, you have to go to 74.125.67.100.  Most people use the DNS servers provided by their Internet Service Provider, but there are a number of reasons you might want to use a third-party service.  Regardless, an ISP intercepting DNS traffic and forcing people to use their own servers is considered shady by many people.

As a Comcast customer who happens to use Open DNS, I naturally took an interest in these rumors.  It took only a few seconds to check to see that I was not, in face, a victim of Comcast’s alleged abuses.  If the discussion on /. and Fark.com is any indication, nobody else is either.  It has been suggested that only Earthlink customers who get service indirectly from Comcast are affected.  The evidence for that is scant, too.  Basically, it seems like a load of crap at the moment.