
Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire OpenDNS - randomname2
http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1667697
======
ljoshua
I sincerely hope that Cisco keeps the OpenDNS Home free offering around, as
it's by far the best filtering service for families I've used. Sign up, block
inappropriate categories through the service, and point your router to the DNS
IPs and you're done. (Oh, and grab the IP autoupdater.) Keeping the kids (and
adults) safe is my favorite aspect of OpenDNS.

From the "we just got acquired" FAQ:

> The free service will continue to operate. It’s part of who we are, and
> Cisco loves who we are. We wouldn’t have entered into this agreement if we
> believed our free service would be in jeopardy. On contrary, Cisco’s
> commitment back to you is to maintain OpenDNS’s DNS services exactly as it
> is today. In their words: “This level of service for all users is a
> priority.”

~~~
MichaelGG
Curious, what are the worries you're keeping kids safe from? I've got two
daughters, now 7 and 8, and since they were born they've had unmonitored,
unfiltered[1] IP connectivity. My parents did the same (well, with BBSes at
first). The only thing I've ever wanted to filter out is the "kids" stuff
since it's often so bad (e.g., Netflix for kids has lots of dumb shit, or
those Flash games my kids like so much are ... low quality.) What am I
missing?

(If auto updates are on, that pretty much eliminates exploits installing
malware. (Assuming no one's gonna waste a 0day to install some spam/ad junk.))

1: The only filtering is client side, an ad blocker so they don't grow up
accustomed to adverts. And just for general sanity - the web's rather
obnoxious otherwise.

~~~
ljoshua
In a word: pornography.

Occasionally, even with Safe Search turned on, images that I don't want my
children seeing will pop up under oddly innocuous searches. And it's easy to
accidentally stumble upon it, especially to untrained searchers.

Now I know people will have varying opinions about the subject, but I for one
(and I know I'm not alone) don't want to view pornography, and certainly don't
want my children viewing it, so a filtering service like OpenDNS is awesome.
Beyond pornography, there's a lot of other good stuff that you can restrict as
well, like hate/discrimination sites, dating sites, etc.--stuff that I don't
need and don't need my kids getting involved with an online dating site right
now.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I'm much more worried about my son stumbling onto a beheading than porn, but I
suppose to each his own. Obviously one good thing about any kind of imposed
filtering is that inspires the little ones to figure out how to bypass it...
which is at least good for their development in some ways.

~~~
vixsomnis
The Windows Live Family Safety filter that was installed on my first internet
connected computer taught me how to kill processes and manipulate startup
entries on Windows.

Oddly enough, my only experience with OpenDNS is from me convincing my parents
to let me try to set it up on the family router because I broke the other
control (which makes no sense from a protection / censorship perspective).

------
arca_vorago
1\. Don't link paywall articles like that, it's really annoying.

2\. Is it sad that while OpenDNS has been a handy stopgap for me while I get
other options in place, my first thought is "well, there goes OpenDNS..."

I spent quite a bit of my earlier tech days as a Cisco admin, so I have grown
to hate them with a fiery passion only reserved for entities that buck/subvert
standards and license companies to death because they have market dominance.

~~~
allenbrunson
> 1\. Don't link paywall articles like that, it's really annoying.

the management of this site has said many times that they are fine with
paywalled submissions.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9796231)

------
barlescabbage
David Ulevitch is one of the nicest people in Tech. Couldn't be happier for
him. This is great news

~~~
jedisct1
He definitely is, and he changed my life. Working at OpenDNS has been my best
life experience ever.

------
omh
Link via Google, to avoid paywall:

[http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&url=http://www.w...](http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&url=http://www.wsj.com/articles/cisco-
to-buy-network-security-company-opendns-1435668508)

~~~
blfr
I don't like the fact that mainstream publications (NYT, WSJ, Grauniad) show
up on HN this often, especially the paywalled ones, but at this point just
have your browser forge referrals for WSJ and always tell it you're coming
from Google.

There's refcontrol[1] for Firefox. There are other options for Chrome[2].

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/En-
us/firefox/addon/refcontrol/](https://addons.mozilla.org/En-
us/firefox/addon/refcontrol/)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9531941)

~~~
cpncrunch
I'm curious as to why people on HN upvote WSJ stories so much. The WSJ version
of this story has more upvotes than other publications. Do the HN readers who
upvote this paywalled stuff actually pay for WSJ subscriptions?

~~~
hkmurakami
It's because "people on HN" is not a monolithic group.

~~~
cpncrunch
Many more people on HN upvote WSJ stories over similar stories on other
publications. So "people on HN" is accurate, as it appears to reflect the
majority opinion here.

------
Someone1234
Wonderful, another product for Cisco to buy and ruin (see Linksys). OpenDNS
was good because it offered an alternative choice to Google's DNS and allowed
you to do basic parental control filtering at the DNS level (which is
surprisingly effective).

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Well not google images or youtube. Or am I wrong?

------
omh
This is an interesting buy for Cisco. The corporate/small business tier of
OpenDNS looks like a good fit with some of their products.

But do they have any other freemium services like the personal/family tiers of
OpenDNS? I can't think of any.

~~~
m-app
Cisco also plans to go big on IoT and this will integrate nicely.

------
declan
Congrats to David Ulevitch for building a great company and taking it to a
successful conclusion! Well done. I could tell he was on a good trajectory
when he hired away one of my more capable colleagues at a previous employer.
:)

------
jackgavigan
Damn, I thought OpenDNS would merge with CloudFlare and then take over Avast
to create a new cloud security giant... :-/

------
rahimnathwani
Congrats to the OpenDNS team. I hope you continue the awesome OpenLate meetups
([http://www.meetup.com/OpenLate/](http://www.meetup.com/OpenLate/)).

~~~
philip1209
Thanks! The plan is to continue them indefinitely!

(I started OpenLate)

------
xxdesmus
They'd be dumb to shut down the consumer DNS product. It's a goldmine of
useful security data they can funnel back into their other products. Also, DNS
doesn't cost much to run.

------
intrasight
OpenDNS is a great service. It has been my DNS server for at least 6 months
now. I've turned off Tumblr, Facebook, Techcrunch, WSJ, NYTimes, & many others
- but not Hacker News. Still, it has greatly minimized my web distractions.

------
nullrouted
Congrats to davidu and team, you folks made an awesome product and I'm excited
to see how Cisco can integrate it in their products as well as what they plan
on doing with it in the future.

------
stephengillie
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9804877)

------
wityak
This seems like a pretty great purchase. Is there anything other than Cisco's
licensing model that people truly don't like them for?

~~~
MichaelGG
The way they handled security when that guy made shellcode for IOS was pretty
reprehensible. Apart from flat out refusing to believe it at first, I believe
they tried to get him fired as well as using legal tactics.

And in licensing model, be sure to include adding checks to lock out fair
competiton ("genuine" checks). There's probably some other shitty things
they've done that I'm not recalling ATM.

But otherwise? Well I probably am partial to what I first learned. But I
recently tried Fortinet, and the configuration is so braindead stupid, I felt
bad for all the times I got annoyed with Cisco.

------
tzakrajs
I bet their employees are rich now and the culture is going to be even better
than ever.

~~~
danielweber
How many employees had 0.1% equity?

------
nifoc
Non-paywalled article: [http://www.securityweek.com/cisco-acquire-
opendns-635-millio...](http://www.securityweek.com/cisco-acquire-
opendns-635-million)

~~~
jdorfman
Thank you sir

------
mitkok
Sometimes I think there are literally people working for the shitty WSJ
posting here

------
danielweber
Cisco acquiring security companies? It's like the 1990s all over again. :)

------
higherpurpose
And there goes the "Open" part of OpenDNS. With Cisco's strong ties to the NSA
and with its general attitude of supporting censorship in many countries
around the world, I'd stay away from using OpenDNS' servers from now on.

I think [https://www.opennicproject.org](https://www.opennicproject.org) is a
nice alternative.

I'd probably be very vigilant about their future contributions to Libsodium as
well.

~~~
lcswi
What was open about it? I always felt weird with the combination of 'open' in
the name and then tracking and advertising heavily.

