QUESTION :
I am seeing a lot of entries like this in my Netgear DGN 1000 log for the last few weeks:
Wed, 2015-11-04 20:36:56 - TCP Packet - Source:192.168.0.2,63272 Destination:68.232.44.114,80 - [BLOCK]
From http://www.whois.com/whois/68.232.44.114 I have learned that the server is owned by EdgeCast Networks, Inc.
Why is this happening?
ANSWER :
EdgeCast is a Content Distribution Network (CDN). They host servers sprinkled in major cities around the world and have a system for serving you files from the server that’s nearest to you, so you always get the highest bandwidth and lowest delay.
Many of the websites you visit every day host a lot of their files, especially photos and videos, on CDNs like EdgeCast. So this is just a normal part of modern web browsing.
Other third-party CDNs include Akamai, CloudFlare, and many more.
Many of the biggest-name websites run their own CDNs, like Google’s 1e100, Yahoo’s yimg, YouTube’s ytimg, Facebook’s fbcdn, and many more.