Category Archives: Technology and Society

Administrative, Business, Technology and Society, Weird

Amazon.com

11 Comments

Very weird. I cannot access the website from this computer. It’s not a route issue, because I can get to it from her Windows machine, but on my Linux machine, it times out. Traceroute output is:

$ traceroute amazon.com
traceroute to amazon.com (176.32.98.166), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 * * *
2 81.d6.9bc0.ip4.static.sl-reverse.com (192.155.214.129) 17.514 ms 17.540 ms 17.560 ms
3 ae22.dar01.sjc01.networklayer.com (50.23.118.158) 19.775 ms 17.523 ms 19.857 ms
4 ae9.bbr02.eq01.sjc02.networklayer.com (50.97.19.166) 19.543 ms 19.665 ms 19.535 ms
5 ae6.cbs02.eq01.sjc02.networklayer.com (50.97.17.78) 20.183 ms * *
6 ae0.cbs02.cs01.lax01.networklayer.com (50.97.17.86) 26.906 ms 27.243 ms 27.196 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 ae2.dar01.dal13.networklayer.com (169.45.18.37) 57.537 ms 54.337 ms 55.683 ms
10 * ae16.cbs02.eq01.dal03.networklayer.com (169.45.18.90) 54.432 ms 57.155 ms
11 ae0.cbs01.tl01.atl01.networklayer.com (50.97.17.163) 82.146 ms 84.211 ms 85.019 ms
12 ae8.bbr01.tl01.atl01.networklayer.com (50.97.17.155) 72.644 ms 74.857 ms 72.502 ms
13 amazon.tieatl.telxgroup.net (198.32.132.95) 77.715 ms 74.947 ms 74.869 ms
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 178.236.3.31 (178.236.3.31) 88.314 ms 54.240.229.187 (54.240.229.187) 90.802 ms 54.240.229.217 (54.240.229.217) 84.928 ms
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *

When I ping it, I get this:

$ ping amazon.com
PING amazon.com (176.32.103.205) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=1 ttl=233 time=79.8 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=2 ttl=233 time=80.7 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=3 ttl=233 time=79.8 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=4 ttl=233 time=82.8 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=5 ttl=233 time=79.7 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=6 ttl=233 time=78.7 ms
64 bytes from 176.32.103.205 (176.32.103.205): icmp_seq=7 ttl=233 time=79.2 ms
^C
— amazon.com ping statistics —
7 packets transmitted, 7 received, 0% packet loss, time 6005ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 78.697/80.101/82.796/1.235 ms

When I try to browse to that IP address, I get this:

Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from 176.32.103.205 (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more

NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID

This server could not prove that it is 176.32.103.205; its security certificate is from *.peg.a2z.com. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.

**************************************************************

Anyone have any idea what might be going on? This only started in the past day or so.

Note: I have the same problem on my virtual Windows machine. I simply cannot access Amazon from this hardware.

[Update a while later]

None of the proferred explanations so far explain why it’s only (AFAIK) amazon.com.

[Afternoon update]

OK, the problem is with ExpressVPN. When I disconnect it, and put Google’s nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf, it works. So I guess I need to talk to them.

[Late afternoon update]

OK, the problem seemed to be the San Francisco VPN server (the default). When I connected to LA instead, the problem went away.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Conservative Treehouse

18 Comments

…has been deplatformed by WordPress.

Bob Zimmerman has further thoughts.

I use WordPress software for all my blogs, but I don’t quite understand this. Were they actually using WordPress as a host? If so, while this is stupid, they could in fact simply find a new host. This sort of thing is why I lease my own server.

[Update a while later]

Zimmerman link is fixed, sorry.

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Election And Space

25 Comments

Briefly, I don’t think a Biden win is great news, particularly given that Bridenstine has stated that he won’t serve in a Biden administration even if asked. But someone asked me on Twitter what it means for the Artemis Accords, and that will at least partially depend on who the new Secretary of State will be. I’ve heard rumors that Romney might be up for the job, as someone who would be easy to get confirmed, but that would be bad news indeed, given his opinions about space. I wrote about it during the 2012 campaign, and thought that my readers might find it of interest.

As far as a new administrator, an obvious choice would be Lori Garver, but I don’t think she’s confirmable, regardless of how the Senate ends up, just because of enmity from the space porkers like Shelby. Whether she becomes administrator or not, we can be sure that there will be a much bigger emphasis on climate for NASA.

[Afternoon update]

The transition team has been announced. Pam Melroy is the point person for NASA. If she ends up being administrator, we could do a lot worse, and have.