Strange URL Configuration: domain.com at 12345

[Tilman Schmidt]

At 06:26 29.05.00 +0000, Ron Parker wrote:
>I received spam today with a response url:
>
>     http://www.rankingtothetop.com@1078106110/
>
>Funny thing is, this works!  My questions:
>
>1. How does this work (i.e., I enter this into my browser and the page
>comes up).

The part after the @ determines the server. If this is a decimal number
many resolvers interpret it as a numeric IP address. The part before
the @ is just sent along as the username in the HTTP request and
probably ignored by the server.

>2. How do I decipher this to find out what the IP is for this site (or
>real domain name) or ISP so I can complain about the spam.

1078106110 = 0x404297FE = 0x40.0x42.0x97.0xFE = 64.66.151.254

A reverse lookup yields SERVFAIL consistently, and I suspect this is
intentional, given the names of the servers for the reverse domain:

151.66.64.in-addr.arpa.  5d16h47m13s IN NS  NS.SITEPROTECT.COM.
151.66.64.in-addr.arpa.  5d16h47m13s IN NS  NS2.SITEPROTECT.COM.

whois.arin.net says the address belongs to:

Hostway Corporation (NETBLK-HOSTWAY-03)
    216 W. Jackson Blvd. Suite 325
    Chicago, IL 60610
    US

    Netname: HOSTWAY-03
    Netblock: 64.66.128.0 - 64.66.159.255
    Maintainer: HSWY

    Coordinator:
       Network, Administrator  (AN94-ARIN)  noc at HOSTWAY.NET
       312-782-7875

Hope that helps.

-- 
Tilman Schmidt          E-Mail: Tilman.Schmidt at sema.de (office)
Sema Group Koeln, Germany       tilman at schmidt.bn.uunet.de (private)