I'm not so concerned about any privacy aspect, but rather that this might limit the ability of a user to see what a user in another country might see - i.e. the universal web experience. I do not want to be further spoon-fed what is assumed to be approprite for my country and stupid assumptions about what I want to see based on where I am. If I want to visit www.google.de instead of the US site, I shouldn't have anything getting in my way. I realize that many sites already use IP lookups to supposedly add geographical awareness. I've seen it. I don't like it. It's often wrong. (Corporate backhauls through a central connection point and mobile device identification are almost guaranteed to be wrong.) Why make stupid web site behavior easier to implement?
Apart from the basic annoyances of attempted geographical identification by IP, the more disturbing part is that this mechanism would make it just a little bit easier to censor web access by denying or misresolving DNS requests from certain geographical locations.
Google aims to speed up DNS requests
Summary
Google and Neustar UltraDNS have proposed a extension to try to build some geographic awareness into the Domain Name System.
Topics
Google and Neustar UltraDNS have proposed a extension to try to build some geographic awareness into the Domain Name System.
The proposed extension, called Client IP information in DNS requests, would send along the first three quarters of a user's IP address along with a DNS request. The last quarter would be cut off to preserve some privacy, but the first part should be enough to geographically target the answer in some cases, Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.
As designed, it would, for example, return the address for Google's Dutch server, not Google's California server, to a user in the Netherlands who needs to reach it.
For more on this story, read "Google proposes geo-smart Internet speedup" on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 7 Talkback(s)
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SID S-1-11st Feb 2010 -
Doesn't this article only address DNS?
I think you're talking about geographic awareness on another level from what this article is talking about. I believe the idea here is to make sure you get your resolution from the closest DNS server. If you type in 'www.google.de', you're still going to get sent to Google Germany, but the DNS server that resolves that domain name for you would be the one that is closest to your location.
ejhonda1st Feb 2010 -
I think you are talking about a Different Issue
The Google idea is stricly for DNS, NOT for the whole web server. So if you go to http://www.google.de, that server's IP address IS what you are going to get. But the DNS server that returns it to you will be local (to wherever you are).
That WILL speed up DNS lookups. Maybe even by enough to compensate for all those extra DNS lookups imposed on us by all those ADS on the websites!
mejohnsn1st Feb 2010 -
RE: Google aims to speed up DNS requests
Once again Google is trying to pick-up information about user thrawing away the privacy rules.
Who will shot them down ?
didier.m.rousseau@...1st Feb 2010 -
RE: Google aims to speed up DNS requests
Surely this doesn't change your request..
google may have google.de hosted in germany, and allow a mirror in USA.
If you are in USA and ask for google.de it will give you the USA site, and if you are in germany it will give you the germany hosted site..allowing faster connect to local servers.
you wouldn't request www.google.de and get www.google.co.uk
mostlyharmless991st Feb 2010 -
RE: Google aims to speed up DNS requests
The basic idea is good, but I don't think reserving the last couple of digits is enough to preserve user privacy. Instead, they should encode location information using a method similar to the "location server" Openwave Systems was trying to see a few years ago, the "Location Enabling Server" (Google "openwave location enabling server").
Of course, I realize it cannot be exactly the same method, since the whole point is that DNS inquiries be resolved quickly (among other reasons). But the key idea is sound, and should be quite applicable here.mejohnsn1st Feb 2010 -
RE: Google aims to speed up DNS requests
Actually, after reading both this article, the earlier CNET article it links to, AND the RFP, I see that both articles have confusing wording: at first, it does sound like it is just as you say (and just as I thought at first): DSN only.
But in fact, they are really talking about propagating to Resolvers a capability currently supported only at the top of the DNS chain, the Authoritative Server level. Namely, the ability to return different IP addresses for the same name, depending on the geographical (or topological) proximity of the client (user) IP address to one of the several IP addresses representing the same server.
So now that I have figure that out, I am beginning to have misgivings about it, too. How will they guarantee that the two different IP addresses for the same server really do represent the same thing? Mirroring isn't THAT reliable.
It also leaves too much room for dictatorial governments (think China) to play with the packets and return IP addresses that do NOT really represent the same thing, just the censored version.
And who is really thinking about the security implications? Won't this make forging server names even easier?mejohnsn1st Feb 2010
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