TVI Express, even their webhost is a joke!

How do you know what webhost TVI Express is using? You do a tracert (i.e. traceroute) on it. Traceroute traces the route of IP packet from you to the host you are tracing. So what do you get when you do tracert on tviexpress.com?

Following is actual capture from my tracert to tviexpress.com. I am going to remove a couple host names and IP addresses as I don't want my own location shown, but it would not affect the result.

C:\>tracert tviexpress.com

Tracing route to tviexpress.com [72.20.25.19]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    74 ms    70 ms    91 ms  XXX
  2    82 ms    73 ms    75 ms  XXX
  3    99 ms    70 ms    72 ms  XXX
  4    93 ms    80 ms    87 ms  XXX
  5   134 ms    87 ms   113 ms  XXX
  6   143 ms    97 ms   137 ms  XXX
  7    87 ms    96 ms   108 ms  XXX
  8    70 ms    99 ms   121 ms  XXX
  9    83 ms   147 ms    80 ms  207.88.15.38.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.15.38]
 10    87 ms    88 ms    88 ms  ge-11-3-1.mpr4.sjc7.us.above.net [64.125.12.181]

 11   136 ms    99 ms    99 ms  xe-3-0-0.er2.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.30.177]
 12   111 ms   105 ms    78 ms  ge-3-0-0.mpr2.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.26.201]

 13   111 ms    99 ms    76 ms  ge-3-1-0.mpr2.sjc2.us.above.net [64.125.30.134]

 14   108 ms   116 ms    94 ms  so-1-0-0.mpr4.lax9.us.above.net [64.125.26.29]
 15   110 ms    97 ms    87 ms  xe-1-1-0.er2.lax9.us.above.net [64.125.31.101]
 16    85 ms   140 ms    84 ms  64.124.161.210.allocated.above.net [64.124.161.2
10]
 17   117 ms   102 ms   121 ms  edge08-ge.lax1.staminus.net [72.20.0.8]
 18   117 ms   118 ms    93 ms  aggr-sw2-ge.lax1.staminus.net [72.20.0.44]
 19   436 ms   114 ms   209 ms  imajhost.com [72.20.25.19]

Trace complete.

So you got to staminus.net, then to imajhost.com... Wait... imajhost.com?

So what would happen if you go to imajhost.com? You can see that it's a webhost in Turkey! Diyabakir is in TURKEY!

So what about the TVIExpress.com? Don't worry, it is still there. TVIExpress is using what is known as multi-hosting. At the same IP address, the server is hosting MULTIPLE websites. Depending on the incoming http request, the server knows what website to display.

So it's clear that TVI Express is too cheap to pay for a dedicated server with its own IP address. It is actually sharing IP address with multiple hosts.

What is really interesting is the server is at Staminus.net, but a check through their website shows they ONLY offer dedicated servers, and they don't do multi-hosting, so someone is using Staminus server and backbone and reselling it as multi-host, and one of the customers is TVIExpress.com  Who is this someone? No idea.

Another interesting item to note... domaintools said TVIExpress.com has changed servers TWELVE TIMES over last two years. http://whois.domaintools.com/tviexpress.com

One last item... Spammers are pushing TVIExpress.com, and that made uribl.com add tviexpress.com to a blacklist it maintains.

What is the website reliability now, vs. back in October 2009? As we don't know when they switched to what server, it's impossible to say which moves are to improve reliability. But the point is... cost for a dedicated server at $100 or so per month is minimal, yet TVI Express is still using a shared server. WHY are they still so cheap?