My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8 • Hacker News Board

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#491

Post by kllrnohj » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

srcmap wrote: post #464

kllrnohj wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. This doesn't change that? It's a google streaming device that in order to function at all requires a connection to google's data centers. Why does it matter if that connection happens via 8.8.8.8 or some other IP resolved by a different DNS server? What is the actual, practical difference of that? It's still connecting to Google in order to prov…

"Why does it matter if that connection happens via 8.8.8.8 or some other IP resolved by a different DNS server?" By controlling the DNS server, user can early point doubleclick.net, google analytic to 0.0.0.0. That might be why google wants to control that in the Chromecast. It is a continue war between Jedi the Hackers and the Empire. The young Anakin Skywalker - Do no evil Googlers have felt the (share holders) pow…

Which you can do by routing 8.8.8.8 anyway.

But you seem to have forgotten this device exclusively runs Google software on it. Why would they be using doubleclick.net on a device with no user input or interaction? Why wouldn't they just build the analytics into the OS?

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#492

Post by hopler » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #344

calibas wrote: post #170

This should bother people here more than it does. The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. They've made it quite clear through their actions that they're not supporters of a free and open Internet: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l... If people don't push back against these kinds of things, Google will continue to abuse their power. There shouldn't be an army o…

> The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. This doesn't change that? It's a google streaming device that in order to function at all requires a connection to google's data centers. Why does it matter if that connection happens via 8.8.8.8 or some other IP resolved by a different DNS server? What is the actual, practical difference of that? It's still connecting to Google in order to prov…

Chromecast is a device that receives a URL from my phone, loads that URL content, and plays the video.

Why does it need to depend on Google Cloud at all? Sure, Google connectivity can enhance it, but you don't need Cloud to make a device like this useful.

Same thing with the Title routers, where your local network collapses if the Cloud has a problem.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#493

Post by hopler » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #398

calibas wrote: post #170

This should bother people here more than it does. The last thing the Internet needs is even more dependence upon Google. They've made it quite clear through their actions that they're not supporters of a free and open Internet: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l... If people don't push back against these kinds of things, Google will continue to abuse their power. There shouldn't be an army o…

Last year I ditched Android and unplugged my Chromecasts. Google's no longer not-being-evil, and I want nothing more to do with them.

Do you have an alternate streaming system ?

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#494

Post by hopler » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

calibas wrote: post #472

ehsankia wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't create tools for censorship in China and support a free and open Internet What does following local laws of one specific country have to do with the open global internet? You do realize that Chinese internet is already behind a firewall, and is not open, right? > Google went out of it's way to protect Chinese dissidents And we have absolutely facts about what they were working on with Dragonfly, except le…

You're acting like your guesses are just as good as The Intercept's investigation, and all to defend Google! Why are you doing PR for them?

Whether Google is in China or not, China Internet is not free and open.

That's simply not Google's choice. The people with guns and tanks in China decide that. Judge Google by what they do the Internet where they have power, with browser tech and HTTP standards and AMP and DNS and YouTube and whatever.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#495

Post by nirvdrum » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

pault wrote: post #316

nirvdrum wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Chrome does this as well. Its DNS prefetch feature will ignore your local hosts file and configured DNS servers. It creates annoying problems if you have a VPN where some hosts resolve differently than they do publicly. Granted, in this case if you block Google's DNS servers from routing, Chrome will use your system's name resolution configuration.

Holy synchronicity! I just ran into this this morning when trying to null route a hostname on my co-workers computer and nobody could figure out why chrome could still resolve the IP after we changed the hosts file.

It was disheartening how much time I spent tracking this down. I generally use Firefox, but since the web is bifurcated, I need to be able to access some sites with Chrome.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#496

Post by nirvdrum » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #328

nirvdrum wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, Chrome does this as well. Its DNS prefetch feature will ignore your local hosts file and configured DNS servers. It creates annoying problems if you have a VPN where some hosts resolve differently than they do publicly. Granted, in this case if you block Google's DNS servers from routing, Chrome will use your system's name resolution configuration.

This is extremely annoying. The VPN will switch DNS servers and macOS and Safari work fine, but Chrome will not find internal servers. I assumed it was just a cache, but this makes sense.

I was astonished at how this was handled on the issue tracker. It was closed as "works as designed" even though the design was the problem.

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=432236

(I'm obviously a bit biased on the matter because it affected me and cost me a silly amount of time to track down.)

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#497

Post by calibas » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

hopler wrote: post #494

calibas wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're acting like your guesses are just as good as The Intercept's investigation, and all to defend Google! Why are you doing PR for them?

Whether Google is in China or not, China Internet is not free and open. That's simply not Google's choice. The people with guns and tanks in China decide that. Judge Google by what they do the Internet where they have power , with browser tech and HTTP standards and AMP and DNS and YouTube and whatever.

They do have power here, all they need to do is not secretly partner with an oppressive regime to assist them with censoring the Internet. That's quite easy to do, hell, I'm doing it right now...

All you've done is framed the situation in a way that makes it seem like Google isn't responsible for it's own actions.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#498

Post by Arnt » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #319

Arnt wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you happen to be the admin at the meeting venue that discarded my SRV and DNSSEC lookups? What were the reasons you did this, if so?

Use the guest WiFi, that's what it's there for.

Does that have a sensibly working resolver?

In my haphazard experience, the networks that block access to UDP port 53 are more than likely to have gelded broken name servers that e.g. serve empty NXERROR results for anything but A/TXT, and receptionists that say, "uh, let me check" and then check that their browser can open the google home page. (Insert invectives here.)

I've seen be fixed. Once. One meeting I attended started with a quite broken network, but it was an IETF meeting, and the IETF tools team reconfigured the AP channel layout, the DHCP server and the caching name server at that hotel and after that it was fine.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#499

Post by _bxg1 » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

hopler wrote: post #493

_bxg1 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I ditched Android and unplugged my Chromecasts. Google's no longer not-being-evil, and I want nothing more to do with them.

Do you have an alternate streaming system ?

Mostly I use my PS4/smart TV. I have no doubt that data is also collected, but somehow it makes me feel slightly better.

Re: My Chromecast Ultra would not start until I began answering 8.8.8.8

#500

Post by bashinator » Sat, Feb 16, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #379

bashinator wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an artificial dependency. There is no good reason why this device should require a specific nameserver. Here are some reasons I can think of that this would be required: * Getting device metrics for Google's internal use * DNS lookups that are only available from querying google directly - in other words, recursion is disabled for some records needed by the device The first case should be entirely optional, t…

I spent some time researching consumer hardware that consistently sacrificed usability for architectural purity. I'll update this reply as soon as I find an example.

I'm trying to figure out how this use of DNS would improve usability for the device owner, and how implementing the DNS client in a standard way could be considered "architectural purity".