The trouble is, the edgecast.com Content Distribution Network (CDN) is owned
by Verizon. In theory, the `nslookup example.com` command should fail with NXDOMAIN
(Non-eXisting Domain) error, but on some networks like Verizon, the bastards are
actually resolving it even though the IETF and IANA specs say it should never
resolve at all. For notes, Verizon does transparent redirection of DNS requests
on their network so you actually can't use anything other than their DNS servers,
but this case is just odd.
EDIT: I originally wrote `whois` rather than `nslookup` --heck, whois doesn't
have that error code. It's early/late, and it seems hn user "vertex-four" below
is right about the "example.com" domain always being registered to IANA, but as
far as I remember, it should never resolve to an IP address. Need sleep.
> In theory, the `whois example.com` command should fail with NXDOMAIN (Non-eXisting Domain) error
Huh? No, it shouldn't. Example domains are, according to the RFC, permanently registered to IANA, although not through the "normal channels" (I suppose they don't have to pay for them).
example.com and other example domains resolve correctly wherever you are. They are not treated specially in any way (or shouldn't be, according to the RFC) aside from that they're permanently registered to IANA and that application developers should understand that they're example domains. The RFC does not prevent IANA from running any services on example domains, and they choose to run an HTTP server.
You're right about the "example.com" and similar domains always being
registered to IANA, and I even did a brain-fade on whois/nslookup in
my comment, but as far as I remember, the example domains are never
supposed to resolve to an IP? I'll look at this again after I get some
sleep.
The trouble is, the edgecast.com Content Distribution Network (CDN) is owned by Verizon. In theory, the `nslookup example.com` command should fail with NXDOMAIN (Non-eXisting Domain) error, but on some networks like Verizon, the bastards are actually resolving it even though the IETF and IANA specs say it should never resolve at all. For notes, Verizon does transparent redirection of DNS requests on their network so you actually can't use anything other than their DNS servers, but this case is just odd.
EDIT: I originally wrote `whois` rather than `nslookup` --heck, whois doesn't have that error code. It's early/late, and it seems hn user "vertex-four" below is right about the "example.com" domain always being registered to IANA, but as far as I remember, it should never resolve to an IP address. Need sleep.