Tracert public address before internal address

Question

So, I have been having problems with Frontier's 74.40.74.40 and 74.40.74.41 DNS servers essentially hijacking certain websites like Google over SSL (gives security warning) and have been trying to figure out how to diagnose this.

I have tried to change DNS settings on my modem & router, but when I do that I lose internet connection after a few minutes. I think my ISP needs those two DNS servers otherwise, it will completely lock me out.

So far I have changed my DNS settings on my computer to Hurricane Electric and another to Google public DNS. Seems to be working fine.
I wanted to be able to change the settings on the router level so that I wouldn't have to go through the hassle of setting ever device but that doesn't seem likely.

Been searching the internet for answers, nothing yet.

On top of that all, I did some tracert's. The results are a bit odd. I notice that the public address of the website is the first hop before the private internal address. I have never seen this before. I have always seen private address first then all the rest from me to ISP routers and out into the world.

Tracing route to stackexchange.com [104.16.119.182]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  104.16.119.182
2     3 ms     6 ms     2 ms  192.168.1.1
3    53 ms    38 ms    26 ms  172.77.164.1
4    27 ms    28 ms    28 ms  ae9---0.car01.tgrd.or.frontiernet.net [74.42.149.145]
5    33 ms    34 ms    37 ms  ae2---0.cor02.bvtn.or.frontiernet.net [74.40.1.181]
6    32 ms    64 ms    32 ms  ae0---0.cor01.bvtn.or.frontiernet.net [74.40.1.185]
7    31 ms    31 ms    32 ms  ae4---0.cor01.sttl.wa.frontiernet.net [74.40.1.221]
8    32 ms    33 ms    32 ms  ae0---0.cbr01.sttl.wa.frontiernet.net [74.40.5.122]
9    32 ms    33 ms    40 ms  edge01.sea01.as13335.com [198.32.134.61]
10   302 ms   260 ms   318 ms  104.16.119.182

Trace complete.

What I am trying to figure out is why it is routing like this and how I can actually use a router level DNS servers without losing connection. I can do fine with reconfiguring DNS servers on computer level but that requires doing it on other people's devices.

The modem is some old Westell 6100 (?) and router is Belkin if that information helps.

Answer 1

If the hosts can use Google pub dns then the router should be able to, too. Your ISP can't possibly differentiate between your hosts and your router (or it'd be a real hassle).

As for the trace: you can see private addresses in the trace when they are internal to your provider, and your provider is careless enough to route them for you.