We first announced DNSCrypt in December. And the response to the new service, which is a first-of-its-kind way to easily secure all of your DNS traffic, was inspiring. Within just days, thousands of people came forward to beta test DNSCrypt. IT security professionals, academics, remote and traveling workers from all walks of life and people who simply connect to the Internet at a coffee shop or airport from time to time. Since our launch, 10′s of 1000′s more have downloaded DNSCrypt for Mac and are running it today. The wide-scale embrace and enthusiasm affirmed what compelled us to build DNSCrypt in the first place: that there’s a gaping hole in security today that DNSCrypt can fill.

But we’ve only scratched the surface of what we want to do, and we’ve not yet delivered a version to our friends running Windows.

We first released a version for Mac, and that prioritization decision was met with many questions about our logic. I’ll shed some light here. Simply put, we’re almost exclusively a mac and unix shop here at OpenDNS and our developers were most comfortable building for what they know. But most of the world still runs Windows, and in order for DNSCrypt to have the greatest global impact and really, really increase privacy and security on a massive scale, a Windows version must be built.

That’s where you come in. We’ve ported the core DNSCrypt code over to Windows, but we’re not a Windows shop. We aren’t .NET hackers. And we need some help to get there. In fact, (literally) millions of Internet users want to use DNSCrypt on Windows today. The work we need help with will be felt by millions of people.

It’s not often in your career that you’ll be extended an opportunity like this. As a matter of fact, this could be the only opportunity you’ll ever have to make this sort of impact. You build this software, and you’re a hero.

It’s OK if you have another full-time job. We’re happy to have you on a contract or part-time basis. Or if you don’t have a full-time job and want one at OpenDNS, we’d like to talk about that opportunity, too. Because you’re a world-class developer. And because like us, you truly care about making the Internet a better, safer place and being a part of one of the greatest innovations Internet security has seen. Ever. Our compensation, benefits, and perks are first class. And, whatever development environment you need, you got it.

So email me. david at opendns dot com. Do it. Point me toward your credentials and tell me why you’re the man or woman for the job. Show me what you’ve built.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Technology user groups are awesome. That’s why OpenDNS is announcing a new program dedicated to celebrating the innovation and education taking place at user groups everywhere, and making life a little more delicious for their members. Even though programmers, engineers, IT professionals and SysAdmins are notoriously over worked and under appreciated, many still somehow find time to gather together, share insight and explore new tech tips on a regular basis. There are thousands of user groups around the world that are independently organized and run where people join to share hard-won knowledge and experiences and have a blast doing it.

Each month, OpenDNS wants to buy dinner for a different user group that’s focused on technology. It makes no difference to us whether your group discusses hardware or hacking, speaks JAVA, PHP or Ruby, prefers servers or the cloud, or is a Mac or a PC (or Linux/Unix/Other for that matter). All we care about is that you’re well-fed while you’re talking tech and that you’ve got plenty of caffeine to keep the discussions lively. And, we’ll provide plenty of sought-after OpenDNS stickers to pass around and a few t-shirts to give away!

If you’d like OpenDNS to help feed the hungry crew at your next meeting, just give us the basic details - how often you meet, how many members, focus for the group, helpful links, etc. – and we’ll take care of the rest. In addition to providing some hearty chow, we also want to feature your user group in an upcoming issue of the OpenDNS newsletter, so we can highlight your awesomeness for the masses. This is your chance to share details of your group with millions of OpenDNS users so go ahead and boast.

One of the best things about the OpenDNS Domain Tagging system is that it’s a community effort, and anyone who uses OpenDNS has the opportunity to get involved and make the Internet safer. Each day, the Domain Tagging Community is submitting, voting on and moderating thousands of domains into neatly organized categories. This makes it easier for parents, teachers, business owners and other OpenDNS users to get easy-to-use and comprehensive content filtering. You can read a quick synopsis of OpenDNS Domain Tagging here.

We’ve always tried to make the process of Domain Tagging so easy that anyone – from IT Pros to parents to academics – who wants to get involved can do so easily while committing as much or as little time a they’d like. And now we’ve taken that one step further.

Behold! The Domain Tagging Firefox Toolbar!

Until just recently, voting on domains was done by visiting the OpenDNS Domain Tagging community page.  Now, with the help of the Domain Tagging Firefox Toolbar, anyone can easily vote on domains on the fly!  The process is easy.

1. Get the OpenDNS Domain Tagging Firefox Toolbar.
2. Choose how you’d like to vote on domains. You can either tag the domain you’re currently visiting or you can get more involved by switching to “Random Domain” mode.
3. Once you’re on the domain you’d like to tag, select from one of the 56 categories available from the drop-down menu.
4. Click “Vote Yes.”
5. Pro tip:  Clicking the “Auto-Cycle” checkbox will automatically take you to a new website to vote on once you cast your vote!

That’s all it takes to make the Internet safer! Once a domain gains enough votes, it moves its way into a separate queue where it is then reviewed and finalized by the OpenDNS team and our worldwide army of OpenDNS Domain Tagging Moderators.  The more votes you cast, the more you help to strengthen the OpenDNS Community and sharpen the content filtering blade.

It’s important that before you use the toolbar, you read through the category descriptions to make sure that you fully understand them and read through the toolbar info page for smooth sailing.

So come on down and cast some votes!  The more you vote, the more you help.  And the more you help, the stronger OpenDNS gets for 30+ million OpenDNS users around the world!

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its senate-version counterpart, PROTECT IP (PIPA), are poorly thought-out, ineffective measures that completely miss the mark in their aims to address Internet piracy and copyright infringement. And yesterday, the amassing opposition to these bills won a small victory: Senator Leahy, one of the main sponsors of PIPA, blinked. He backpedaled. Senator Leahy officially committed to an amendment that would investigate the effects of his bill before it’s instituted:

“Through this process, [I] have continued to hear concerns about the Domain Name provision from engineers, human rights groups, and others. I remain confident that the ISPs — including the cable industry, which is the largest association of ISPs — would not support the legislation if its enactment created the problems that opponents of this provision suggest. Nonetheless, this is in fact a highly technical issue, and I am prepared to recommend we give it more study before implementing it.”

It would seem the most knowledgeable people in the world about the Domain Name System and how the proposed technology would impact the Internet — whom are vocal in their opposition to the bills — are finally getting through to Leahy and other legislators. This list of folks includes us, the world’s largest DNS provider. OpenDNS stands firmly against SOPA and PIPA. I’ve spent time in Washington D.C. in an effort to educate decision makers about the detriments that lie ahead should the bills pass. I’ve authored and signed letters. I’ve blogged and spoken out. And our efforts are working.

It’s critically important that Leahy follows through on his commitment, and that everyone in the technical community continues to use their expertise to educate non-technical government officials associated with the bills. Because while Leahy appears to be acknowledging that his bill is imperfect, SOPA co-sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith is standing his ground. “It is amazing to me that the opponents apparently don’t want to protect American consumers and businesses,” he told Reuters. Sadly, his rhetoric couldn’t be further from the truth. Hopefully someone on his staff will show him this blog post to point out the ridiculousness of his bill.

So, a small victory, but for now the battle against both bills rages on.

If you want to get involved, AmericanCensorship.org is an excellent resource.

One of our most important goals at OpenDNS is educating people on Internet dangers so they can make informed choices on how to best manage their networks. Last week we released a phishing quiz, hoping we could show people just how difficult it is to spot the difference between a phishing site and the real website.

The quiz was designed to be difficult, but our users were hoping for something more than a challenge. The comments poured in, encouraging us to create a powerful educational tool that you could use to help teach people how to avoid getting phished.

You had our attention. Many of you, who know that cyber criminals can create exact replicas of real sites by simply copying the image and hosting it at a different domain, were frustrated that the quiz didn’t include URLs. Others, hoping to use the quiz to teach friends and family about the dangers of phishing, asked us to create something that showed why seemingly legit sites were actually phishes.

So, we incorporated your feedback into a new version of the quiz. We hope you’ll find this to be a useful tool to help people learn the dangers of phishing, and how to avoid them. As always, the easiest way to avoid getting phished is to use OpenDNS. That’s because OpenDNS runs PhishTank, the world’s largest community-powered online clearinghouse for phishing, and uses it to automatically block phishing sites for all OpenDNS users.

Take the quiz now!

Update: We’ve created a new version of the phishing quiz that now includes URLs and feedback on why some seemingly legit sites are actually phishes. Take the quiz again to see how well you do.

Could you be duped by a phishing scam? Most of us familiar with the usual phishing tactics tend to think we’re skilled at recognizing scam sites. But as phishing becomes increasingly sophisticated, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish real sites vs. scams.

If you’re using OpenDNS, you and yours are protected from phishing sites. We use data from PhishTank — which we operate — the largest clearinghouse of phishing data online. But even with OpenDNS, the single best defense against phishing is education. Knowing how to spot a phish means you’re less likely to click a phishing link in the first place.

With the holiday season upon us, what better time than now to brush up on phish-spotting skills? We crafted a quiz that asks you to identify whether 10 homepage images are those of real or phishing websites. Consensus is that showing the URLs for the sites makes the quiz too easy, so we’ve hidden them.

A quick refresher on spotting phishing before you get started:

Take the quiz now!

We have something new we’ve been cooking up and we need some help testing it. Interested in helping shape and vet a new OpenDNS technology, poised to positively impact everyone who uses the Internet?

OpenDNS is calling for participation in a technology preview, seeking people to help us test a new (exceptionally awesome) service and provide feedback. And make sure it’s in prime shape before it’s tasked with serving the world at-large.

In exchange for helping us with feedback you’ll receive our gratitude and you’ll know you’re doing your part in helping build a better service for users all over the world.

Rules to participate are simple:

1. You need to be computer savvy. This is new code, and might have bugs.
2. We aren’t ready to share with the world yet, so you need to keep everything we share with you confidential — that means no tweeting, blogging, forwarding, etc.
3. That’s it.

It’s a story we’ve heard time and again. Public school budgets are smaller than ever, and the funds devoted to improving technology (and security) get cut in half, and then cut in half again. Network administrators at schools are forced to piece together legacy hardware and out-of-date software with some clever work-arounds in order to keep kids protected from malware, phishing and unsafe content.

Unfortunately, this often results in security loopholes and inconsistent filtering policies for kids (who are usually tech smart enough to figure out how to get around them) and a whole heck of a lot of work for network administrators.

OpenDNS is changing all that. With OpenDNS, schools can can turn filtering and malware protection into cost-savings initiatives instead of cost centers, and they can ensure that protection is universal across an unlimited number of locations. And this isn’t just speculation on our part – we shared a new milestone this morning that proves it’s reality. We announced that 90 percent of public K-12 schools in Maine are using OpenDNS. For us, it’s a huge honor and privilege to be given the responsibility of protecting nearly every kid in Maine. But for the state of Maine, it’s a lot more.

We tip our hat to Maine for being on the cutting-edge of technological innovation, lifting the burden of appliance management and limiting the dangers of security loopholes. And we send a very big congratulations to the team at Networkmaine, the organization that operates and maintains all network infrastructure for Maine’s K-12 schools and libraries, who identified that using OpenDNS would not only allow the state of Maine to significantly improve the security it uses to protect kids, but that universal deployment would put them at the forefront of keeping kids safe online.

Last year we announced that 1 in 3 public K-12 schools in the U.S. were using OpenDNS, and although we celebrated the milestone, we went to work right away to make OpenDNS the choice of all schools. We added the academic fraud category for content filtering and created the K-12 forums in our community section. And we’re not done yet. If you have ideas for how to make OpenDNS better for schools, tell us what you need. David and our engineers are closely monitoring the IdeaBank, where you can share suggestions for product improvements, and we’re always listening at Success@OpenDNS.com.