[kwlug-disc] DailyTech - Concerned About Privacy? You're Probably up to no Good, Says Google CEO

[Lori Paniak]

I am guessing that a good, reliable DNS service that doesn't pull any
funny business is something one has to pay for - like any service.  

What are the best options?  If I'm at home, it seems the best is my
ISP's (Bell) DNS.  What if I'm on the road?  Or want to use it for
commercial purposes?  

As fallback I use 4.2.2.x, but I want to minimize abusing of "public"
resources.

I really dislike OpenDNS grabbing invalid lookups.  It is intrusive, but
that's their business model.  I'd rather pay to support a better model.

On Fri, 2009-12-11 at 22:29 -0500, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> Raul Suarez wrote:
> 
> >  What about OpenDNS? Any concerns? that's the one I use.
> 
> OpenDNS  redirects invalid lookups to their ad pages, similar to the DNS 
> broken-ness that Rogers perpetrates.  Of course, with the gratis OpenDNS 
> that's expected; viewing those ads pays for their service.  Google 
> claims they won't be redirecting invalid lookups (or performing any 
> blocking or filtering)[1], but I fully expect they'll correlate the IPs 
> making DNS requests with the sites they look up, and correlate that with 
> the vast database of user data they already have.  Bad enough Google has 
> a record of every search I ever made, now they'll be getting a record of 
> every IP address I visit.  not just Web, but also MX records, and every 
> FTP, XMPP and NTP lookup too.
> 
> FWIW, I've pointed my router's DNS back to my ISP.
> 
> --Bob.
> 
> [1] 
> http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/12/introducing-google-public-dns-new-dns.html
> 
> Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>         http://sobac.com/sobac/
> SOBAC Microcomputer Services              Voice: +1-519-669-0388
> 6 James Street, Elmira ON  Canada  N3B 1L5  Cel: +1-519-635-9413
> Software   ---   Office & Business Automation   ---   Consulting
> 
> 
> 
> Raul Suarez wrote:
> >  What about OpenDNS? Any concerns? that's the one I use.
> >
> >
> >  Raul Suarez
> >
> >  Technology consultant Software, Hardware and Practices
> >  _________________ http://rarsa.blogspot.com/ An eclectic collection
> >  of random thoughts
> >
> >
> >  --- On Fri, 12/11/09, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > From: Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc]
> > > DailyTech - Concerned About Privacy? You're Probably up to no Good,
> > > Says Google CEO To: "KWLUG discussion" <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>
> > > Received: Friday, December 11, 2009, 9:38 PM On Thu, Dec 10, 2009
> > > at 09:02:36AM -0500, Kyle Spaans wrote:
> > >
> > >>> Speaking of Nefarious Google, has anyone tried their public
> > >>> DNS? IP addresses of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, real easy to
> > >>> remember.  I pointed my router there yesterday, but I've
> > >>> experienced no observable difference
> > >> My friend benchmarked Google's vs his ISP's name servers and
> > >> "noticed" a savings of a few milliseconds per request! (Wowee!)
> > >> So I guess it depends on what your reaction time is like.
> > > :P
> 
> > > Given the transfer times from websites, I don't think response time
> > > is a good reason to go to Google DNS. People come up with these
> > > timings and I totally don't get why it is relevant to use the
> > > fastest DNS you can. Isn't "fast enough" good enough?
> > >
> > > I surprised myself last night by realizing that I don't mistrust
> > > Google DNS as much as I mistrust pretty much everything else they
> > > do. At least I can come up with a plausible explanation for this
> > > service: Google hates ISPs and is fighting them in the Net
> > > Neutrality wars. Whether through incompetence or malice, ISP DNS
> > > servers already mess up lookups for certain websites (hello
> > > Rogers!). So maybe a well-publicized DNS server that behaves like a
> > > real DNS server keeps the ISPs honest. (Or maybe I'm just
> > > rationalizing the nefariousness.)
> > >
> > > Also, I find it interesting that Google's credibility decreases
> > > among the tech geeks every time they release a new app.
> > >
> > > - Paul
> > >
> 
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