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#1
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 Can someone just put: www.spam.com/*.* |
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#2
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
Bret,
The HOSTS file only accepts/works with/filters on *domain names* (the name of the server). From your examples only the first entry is therefore valid, the others are not. Furthermore, if you put that first entry into your HOSTS file (followed by a 127.0.0.1 (or alike) ofcourse) than you catch *everything* attempt to access that server, no matter what the path to the resource is. And yes, that means that if you by accident do like "spammer10" than you would be out of luck, as its an all-or-nothing kind of filtering. Regards, Rudy Wieser -- Origional message: schreef in berichtnieuws ... Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 Can someone just put: www.spam.com/*.* |
#3
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Mon, 20 Feb 2017 09:58:40
+0100, "R.Wieser" wrote: Bret, The HOSTS file only accepts/works with/filters on *domain names* (the name of the server). From your examples only the first entry is therefore valid, the others are not. Furthermore, if you put that first entry into your HOSTS file (followed by a 127.0.0.1 (or alike) ofcourse) than you catch *everything* attempt to access that server, no matter what the path to the resource is. And yes, that means that if you by accident do like "spammer10" than you I've found that spamme10 sends the best spam. would be out of luck, as its an all-or-nothing kind of filtering. Regards, Rudy Wieser -- Origional message: schreef in berichtnieuws ... Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 Can someone just put: www.spam.com/*.* |
#4
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 23:43:10 -0600, in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
wrote: Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? You have the answer. Another way of answering it from the side is to use the MVP HOSTS file. http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm Here is the file. http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt Yet another way to do what you want to do is to use Acrylic. http://superuser.com/questions/13559...ows-hosts-file Here is Acrylic. http://mayakron.altervista.org/wikib...id=AcrylicHome There's also DNSAgent apparently. https://github.com/stackia/DNSAgent |
#5
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
bret pedro wrote:
Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 Can someone just put: www.spam.com/*.* No. Hostnames (optionally with domains) must be listed. Most users employ the hosts file to define hosts and include the domain although the domain is only needed if the host is elsewhere (other domain). You will need 3rd party software that provides URL filtering and which permits wildcard masking. In your example, and provided you completed the definition (you forgot the IP address to which the host reference will get redirected), www.spam.com/*.* is meaningless. You would filter on www.spam.com, not on some [sub]path under that domain and definitely not by using a mask akin to a filespec. It is a *hosts* file. You would add: 127.0.0.0 www.spam.com in your hosts file. However, that only helps to block DNS requests so is only useful in a web-centric client that might connect to that source. The hosts file is not applicable to e-mailed spam since you were not the receiving e-mail server that accepted the message. The hosts file will not help to eliminate e-mailed spam whether you use a local e-mail client or your e-mail provider's webmail client. You were not the endpoint in the transmission. The e-mail server was. For most users, the hosts file only has value in blocking unwanted content in a web client, like a web browser. However, you must specify hostnames, not domain names. www.spam.com will work but spam.com will not. That is why pre-compiled hosts files, like the MVPS one, have around 52 entries just for doubleclick.com, one for each host the domain uses to issue their content. Entering doubleclick.com in your hosts file will not block web content originating from rd1.doubleclick.com. If you want to block on domains (instead of hosts which is what the hosts file does) then you need to add something that provides URL filtering. I use Avast free and it has a URL filter. Alas, Avast has swayed on that featu in some versions it is there, in other versions it is missing. So I cannot rely on it being available in every future version of Avast. Guess they don't consider URL filtering as anti-security or anti-privacy protection. I also use OpenDNS (with Google DNS as a backup) instead of my ISP's DNS server. I have an account at OpenDNS (you can still get a free one but, I believe, you now have to do a trial of their service, decided not to use them, and they convert you to a free account as a reward for trying their service, so getting a free account there now is a bit obtuse). In my OpenDNS free account, I can define up to 50 URL filters. I can specify a domain, a particular host at the domain, and even wildcard either the host or domain portion of the URL filter. This is domain URL filtering. You don't specify some [sub]path under there. Using OpenDNS with an account means you have to keep it updated with whatever is your current IP address. That allows them to know which account, if any, to apply its settings when you connect to them to issue your DNS lookups. If you have a static IP address assigned to you by your ISP (usually at extra cost since it may require getting a business-tier account) then you can configure your OpenDNS account with that IP address. If you get a dynamically assigned IP address from your ISP then you need to use a DNS updater client which reports a change of your IP address into your OpenDNS account. The updater will also update at 28-day intervals since free accounts will expire if not updated in a month. Another benefit of using OpenDNS is that you can assign a hostname to your own computer without having to register a domain (although you can bring one to OpenDNS if you want to use that) or have to get someone to home your domain in their nameserver. Instead of having to remember your IP address (which can change if dynamic), you can remember its name. OpenDNS also provided DDNS (Dynamic DNS) services. As I recall, the limit is 2 hostnames per free account (used to be 5 but they reduced their services for free accounts). OpenDNS is not the only DNS filtering or DDNS provider. No-IP is another. There are more. I know users that configure their DDNS setting in their router to use OpenDNS or another DDNS provider. The problem there is that the router only updates the account when its WAN-side IP address changes, and that could be a lot longer than a month's expiration on free account (even for dynamic IP address since non-dialup users often keep their IP address assignment for months). Router-based DDNS support works with static IP addresses. If you have a dynamic IP address assignment, you'll want a DNS updater client running on one of your intranet hosts to update your free account before it expires from being idle too long. Issuing DNS lookups to your account does not count as accessing your account. You must login using a local client (DNS updater) or use their web site. Loggin in is what measures how long your account has been idle. Note that DNS filtering in the hosts file, URL filtering, or DNS filtering only works when you issue DNS lookups, like a reference to www.spam.com. None of this works if the reference is to an IP address because that means DNS was never involved. DNS is to lookup a host to find its IP address. If you start with an IP address, you don't have to look it up. www.spam.com = 34.198.59.158 and 52.54.255.92. If a reference uses those IP addresses, none of the above methods will filter out that source. You retrieving e-mail does not involve DNS (other than for your local e-mail client to connect to your e-mail provider's server to get your e-mail). The content of the e-mail is sent to you within a DATA command in a session between your e-mail client and the server. There is no DNS lookup involved in the transfer of the e-mail's content. So putting www.spam.com in a hosts file, URL filter, or using a DDNS account will not stop you from getting their spam. They will, however, eliminate that e-mail spam that you do receive from connecting out to their images or ads via hyperlinks inside their spam message. You still get the spam but it cannot connect out to retrieve their additional content. So you end up getting neutered spam. |
#6
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 23:43:10 -0600, wrote:
Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com 127.0.0.1 www.spam.com would block access to www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 and www.spam.com/*.* But not www.hi_there_I_have_cheap_viagra.spam.com HTH []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
#7
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
In message , Shadow
writes: On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 23:43:10 -0600, wrote: Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com 127.0.0.1 www.spam.com would block access to www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 and www.spam.com/*.* But not www.hi_there_I_have_cheap_viagra.spam.com HTH []'s I think bret_pedro might have been asking, could you have 127.0.0.0 *.spam.com or even 127.0.0.0 *spam.com ? -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf The first banjo solo I played was actually just a series of mistakes. In fact it was all the mistakes I knew at the time. - Tim Dowling, RT2015/6/20-26 |
#8
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Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file?
On Fri, 24 Feb 2017 07:26:11 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: In message , Shadow writes: On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 23:43:10 -0600, wrote: Can Wildcards be used in the HOSTS file? For example Instead of putting in all five of these: www.spam.com 127.0.0.1 www.spam.com would block access to www.spam.com/spammer1 www.spam.com/spammer2 www.spam.com/spammer3 www.spam.com/spammer4 and www.spam.com/*.* But not www.hi_there_I_have_cheap_viagra.spam.com HTH []'s I think bret_pedro might have been asking, could you have 127.0.0.0 *.spam.com or even 127.0.0.0 *spam.com No. You would need a firewall for that, or proxy software. Hosts file blocks "hosts", and *.spam.com is not a host. []'s -- Don't be evil - Google 2004 We have a new policy - Google 2012 |
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