Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>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.



> but rejecting any kind of innovation isn't something I am willing to do.

I don't think the post you're replying to is really saying "no innovation". I think it's more subtle.

The "problem" with DoH is that you need to look at it with several different hats, and I feel very few people make it clear how they're complaining about DoH.

* From a consumer perspective DoH is a good thing (mostly)

* From an traditional/enterprise/business-like environment perspective it's inserting itself in the middle of the stack and may cause headaches with a few things (not limited to leaking internal names to external resolvers), unless it's just blanket disabled/forced to a local server (which may not always be practical for different reasons) - currently

Ultimately who do we have to blame for this but ourselves? Organisations have tried to get encrypted DNS off the ground in traditional DNS infrastructure and clearly failed to meet the required timeline.

I personally feel like the problem, just like with IPv4, is that traditional DNS infrastructure is "fine" (i.e. it works). We don't have a great motivation but we do have fear of breaking the many many many boxes which are un-upgradeable/critical.


The elephant in the room is that many networks need to have content filtering, and you are proposing nothing useful. DoH torpedoes content filtering to its very core and, fortunately, the knob Mozilla provides can (hopefully) be utilized. That's all there's to it.


>The elephant in the room is that many networks need to have content filtering

First of all, we're talking about domain filtering, not content filtering.

And no, they want domain filtering, hardly anybody needs it, and there are better solutions than NXDOMAIN, such as actual content filters.

>and you are proposing nothing useful.

Why would I need to provide "something useful"? mozilla already described the many ways this can be disabled, from browser preferences, to automated checks for known disable-me domains, etc.


I need domain filtering: if the domain serves malware I want to block it, not just the known malware coming from it. If a domain serves porn, I want to block it on my kids computers (and mine) not just the content that is recognisable as porn. If a domain is used by malware I want to block it, and probably use the domain to determine the server, and block that too (too because the domain can move IP).


All of that can be implemented on the client (e.g. as a browser extension) without breaking the Internet. That's the only reliable way to do it anyway. MITM DNS filtering is easily bypassed and only effective against lazy malware.


> If a domain serves porn, I want to block it on my kids computers (and mine)

FWIW, my entire peergroup grew up without anyone installing content filters on their computers, and porn was already widely available back then.


This is quite a radical position, but there are no legitimate use cases for content filtering.

What use cases do people have in mind?

* State censorship. Totalitarian.

* "Parental controls". Child abuse. Learn how to build trust in your children instead.

* Corporate filtering. Find other ways to motivate your employees than blocking Facebook.

The problem with this implementation is that it doesn't go far enough. I want software to actively fight against the idea of content filtering.


How about wanting to filter advertising, or filter content for myself - I block imgur via DNS for example, or block domains used by trackers and malware creators?


uBlock Origin works well. But you have a good point — you should be able to impose content filtering on yourself. And Firefox supports that.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: