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Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

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Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#61

Questions I couldn’t find answers to in the post or linked info about the Trusted Resolver Program: What’s in it for the Cloudflare & NextDNS? Are they getting paid to handle this traffic or paying to have the opportunity to access this data? Can users outside the US opt-in? The comment about having “no plans” to enable this outside the USA seems a bit disingenuous. Hard to believe they built this program / feature a…

> The comment about having “no plans” to enable this outside the USA seems a bit disingenuous

The comment actually very clearly says "we do not have plans to roll out the feature in Europe or other regions at this time".

Also I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand yeah, encryption is great and someone sitting between me and my ISP will no longer be able to monitor my DNS queries. On the other hand I don't feel like this is protecting me from anything at this time. Instead of trusting my ISP, I have to trust Cloudflare. And in the meantime my ISP still knows where I am connecting to, between looking at the IP and the SNI (they mention ESNI but we're not there yet and it still just a partial fix).

DoH (in general, not Mozilla's problem) just enables any piece of software or hardware on my network to bypass any security controls I have in place. No more filtering DNS with things like PiHole, no more blocking DNS port on your firewall. This tends to work out great for Google and any random IoT device manufacturer. I could cover this with more enterprisey setups but that's the last thing I want to do at home.

So the average user probably sees no difference either way, nothing lost, nothing gained. But for me it's a clear regression because I lose the little control I had over that traffic and I just spread more data around to yet more companies. Some may even be in legal jurisdictions that are even less trustworthy than where my ISP is located.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#62

If you are a network administrator and want none of this, look at that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/canary-domain-use-appli... Basically, make use-application-dns.net. return an error (any kind will do). Filter it in your recursor for example. Having the browser change a fundamental behaviour that used to stand for decades is highly problematic. If nothing else, it is the network administrator who should hav…

I wonder if we’ll start to see Comcast and other large snooping ISPs start to filter the resolution of this domain in the name of stability...

If they do that, Mozilla will probably immediately update the check or remove it all together.

I don't understand why systems administrators don't just use their existing policy management to disable DoH if it really causes an issue. There's a group policy specifically for DNS over HTTPS [1]

The only reason I can think of is that they can't because of BYOD or Firefox being part of the company's dark IT. The DNS workaround doesn't help much in those cases because the underlying problem is a lack of oversight, not an issue with Firefox.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla/policy-templates/blob/master/READ...

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#63

Can someone please explain why there can’t be a DHCP or RA option for which DoH server to use? Why are we going out of our way to make sure the sysadmin has to configure each and every piece of software on each and every single PC rather than just set it one in a centralized location, like every other networking option? DoH will leave my machines unable to resolve all my internal domain names, right?

I'm not sure how firefox could implement this entirely on their end. There would need to be cooperation on the OS (or dhcp client) side to expose that option somehow.

We're in this mess because OSes haven't acted and Mozilla has had to take matters into their own hands. Unfortunately any solution that requires cooperation from other software is going to take a lot longer to land.

I do hope it happens eventually, and I'm sure that when it does Mozilla will change Firefox again to respect that.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#64
post #28

Why are people so down on DNS over HTTPS? DNS is the primary way governments control and spy on web access.

I think part of the negativity you see is network admins working in businesses. Their opinion is that it's a way for people to get around corporate firewalls. Kinda blind to the idea that if a browser can implement DNS over HTTPS then anything can. Especially since there's some of ways that Mozilla have implemented for a local area DNS server to override its settings. There's also another camp, if you remember the "i…

I'm not a network admin working in a business, but I am the network admin of my home network, and I really do not want applications starting to effectively contain their own VPN clients and subverting my control.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#65
Until recently, I was working at CZ.NIC and people who are working on Knot DNS resolver were in the next office. The easiest way to get them crazy was to mention DNS over HTTPS. They hated it passionately.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#66

If you are a network administrator and want none of this, look at that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/canary-domain-use-appli... Basically, make use-application-dns.net. return an error (any kind will do). Filter it in your recursor for example. Having the browser change a fundamental behaviour that used to stand for decades is highly problematic. If nothing else, it is the network administrator who should hav…

>Having the browser change a fundamental behaviour that used to stand for decades is highly problematic.

No, this is far too broad of a statement. Browsers pushing for TLS, deprecating the old SSL versions and now the old TLS versions, deprecating SHA1 use in certificates, going from quirksmode to a living html standard (not without problems such as Google's over-influence), etc all have been a net positive, but there was breakage too.

Now, DNS - a really antiquated protocol written at a time when security played no role and everybody was assumed to be a good actor and (next to) nobody bought shit online or banked online or dated online or got medical advise online - is somehow the holy grail that MUST NEVER change? Because... "it works" (only superficially, without proper security) and status quo. I don't buy it.

We may discuss DNS and alternatives/add-ons (such as DoH, DoTLS, DNSSEC, DNSCrypt, etc) and their pros and cons, but rejecting any kind of innovation isn't something I am willing to do.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#67
post #2

I think this is generally a good thing. Two questions I've often seen surface on HN though weren't answered: 1. Isn't this better implemented at the OS level? 2. Isn't centralisation to two DoH providers more centralised than five large ISPs? Others are probably better suited to answer, but the answers I can think of: 1. Yes, but it is not, so this solution is second-best. If Operating Systems decide to tackle this p…

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Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#69
post #34

Why are people so down on DNS over HTTPS? DNS is the primary way governments control and spy on web access.

1) Instead of proposing changes to the C resolver or a caching resolver the user might run they modified their application to ignore the operating system configuration which is just kind of crappy. Its probably the easiest and most reliable way to block things you don't like and now it doesn't work in firefox. 2) They are the singular (maybe there's one other now heh) resolver operator whereas with DNS anyone (even y…

As for 1, if you're choosing to use a special resolver to do content filtering, you can disable DoH yourself. That's suboptimal but in my opinion it's better than not dealing with the broken DNS of the general public.

As for 2), it's not hard to run a DoH server yourself. In fact, it's much safer because it doesn't allow for amplification attacks like traditional DNS. The same goes for DNS over TLS (over TCP).

I agree with you on your third point though. I'd much rather have seen DNS over TLS being built into Firefox, especially as most DoH providers built into Firefox also provide DoT. DoT is easier to set up as well because you don't need any specific DNS server software (just have an nginx proxy the TCP connection to your existing DNS, it's about 10 lines of config).

I discovered that Android's "private DNS" functionality uses DoT. I feared they'd use DoH but luckily I was proven wrong.

Re: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs

#70
post #61

Questions I couldn’t find answers to in the post or linked info about the Trusted Resolver Program: What’s in it for the Cloudflare & NextDNS? Are they getting paid to handle this traffic or paying to have the opportunity to access this data? Can users outside the US opt-in? The comment about having “no plans” to enable this outside the USA seems a bit disingenuous. Hard to believe they built this program / feature a…

> The comment about having “no plans” to enable this outside the USA seems a bit disingenuous The comment actually very clearly says "we do not have plans to roll out the feature in Europe or other regions at this time ". Also I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand yeah, encryption is great and someone sitting between me and my ISP will no longer be able to monitor my DNS queries. On the other hand I don't fee…

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