Google Launches Public DNS Resolver

AdmiralXyz writes "Google has announced the launch of their free DNS resolution service, called Google Public DNS. According to their blog post, Google Public DNS uses continuous record prefetching to avoid cache misses — hopefully making the service faster — and implements a variety of techniques to block spoofing attempts. They also say that (unlike an increasing number of ISPs), Google Public DNS behaves exactly according to the DNS standard, and will not redirect you to advertising in the event of a failed lookup. Very cool, but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit."

Comments

Why?

[sopssa]

But why would one change to use Google's DNS? If you're technical enough and care about such, you're way better off setting up your own recursive DNS server.

Google is just datamining from DNS requests here, it's another source of information. At least with your own ISP you can reasonably think that theres no datamining going on (excluding US ISP's, of course, who serve ads on non-existing domains for their users anyway)

Re:Why?

[slashkitty]

Uh, yeah. Comcast switched ads on non domains.. and i'm sure they are datamining it too. Unfortunately, I trust google more than comcast more than some independent group with open dns.

Re:Why?

[Nadaka]

You know what? If I did what comcast has done with intercepting DNS requests and corrupting DNS responses, I would be committing 2 or more federal felonies, for profit no less. I would like some justice.

Re:Why?

[zunger]

That depends on whether you're running a Linux box at home in a "reliable enough" way to be functioning as a server. And in the example you give, as your primary machine as well. While I realize that many /. users do this, I would certainly say that most people don't.

I actually stopped doing it several years ago. I concluded that I have to maintain enough complex systems at work; I don't see any need to be a sysadmin for a complex system that requires nonstop patching and understanding of 30-year-old system internals at home, too. Plus the desktop environment was frankly primitive compared to modern machines. So I ditched it and started running OS X. (And I should say that I'm an experienced Linux sysadmin and engineer professionally, so this was not the "I don't know how to use it and it appears to have been designed by badgers" issue)

It's definitely true that, if you're already doing all of the work to run your own system at home, adding a DNS server isn't a big deal. But that's really a hobbyist thing to do. If your home system is primarily for the purpose of getting things done, rather than for playing with systems, it's an enormous amount of extra work. Yet having faster DNS lookups is still a win.

8.8.8.8/4

[Xacid]

"To try it out:

Configure your network settings to use the IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as your DNS servers..."

Simple enough to remember which is great. Also - could this be used to circumvent some of the internet security at some workplaces where they seem to run a blacklist of specific sites?

Re:I guess it is good news...

[sopssa]

Congratulations, this would then be the first free service that I know of which doesn't do redirect ! ;-)

I guess they're using that as a selling point and to come of "nicer". If they're just after datamining the DNS requests, this service can happily run on negative income, because it improves Google's other things and provides them even more data.

Google is datamining everywhere and everything already.

Not everyday

[dmayle]

Forget everyday use, but on public wifi, I'm all about this!

Questions?

[whisper_jeff]

...but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit.

No there aren't. You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past decade to have any questions about their motives. It's dead simple - they want to know what people are looking at so that they can better target people with advertising thereby increasing the value of their service. In return for offering various free services, all they ask for is some information on you so that they can better target advertising that interests _YOU_. It's not rocket science - it's just incredibly effective marketing.

Re:Questions?

[nine-times]

And sorry, but just to complete the thought, there's a very good reason why Google would want to do this even if they don't get any data mining or ad revenue in any direct way: Think about all the other services (OpenDNS or ISPs) that redirect failed searches to their own search page. Every time that happens, that's a search that doesn't go through Google. As far as Google is concerned, you getting a proper response of "This page doesn't exist" is good for them, because they know your next stop will be Google.com.

Why not do both?

[FranTaylor]

Set up your own DNS server and point it at google's.

Then you can take advantage of your cache and their cache.

google could do us a great service by also making it available on some other port, that way we can get around the ISP interception of DNS requests.

and there's the other motive for Google.

[FooAtWFU]

If you're on $garbage_DNS and you're served an advertisement/search page instead of NXDOMAIN, you (or your browser's auto-search) won't search Google. For that matter, just having something like this around will discourage $garbage_DNS.

Google cares about the Internet. It's where they make their money.

Re:Don't get me wrong, I love Google.

[TrippTDF]

I'm not fearful of the current Google, I'm fearful of the Google when we're three generations of leadership down the road and someone with fewer scruples is at the helm. What we need now more than ever is rock-solid privacy laws in this country that put looking at someone's data on par with searching their home... it can be done, but you need to get warrants and have a damn good reason to be doing it.

There is a lot of amazing advantages to having your data aggregated the way that Google has it, and it's not rocket science to manage the downsides.

Re:At least they have a clear privacy policy

[TheModelEskimo]

Uh, actually it's their service and the ToS changes anytime they want it to. This is also known as a phased takeover, in case you haven't noticed other corporations *starting out* with a beautifully ethical ToS before.

So, are you volunteering?

[KingSkippus]

So Google fanboism has gotten to the point where people are HAPPY about getting more targetted ads?

No, but we're smart enough to realize that no one is going to pay out of pocket to provide all the services that Google does for free with no revenue model at all, not even to pay for the infrastructure servers and network necessary to do it.

I'll make you a deal. Multi-billionaire technology philanthropist that you seem to be, you set up a company to compete with Google, one that provides all that they do and that has exactly zero sources of revenue, and I'll willingly become your fanboy.

The practical situation is that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. When Google came along, we were headed towards every web site--especially search engines and directories--pushing out more and more pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, graphics-heavy, annoying ads, and they changed that. God forbid any of them actually contribute back to the community in the form of numerous open source projects and free services.

Google changed all that by providing a much more customer-friendly "less is more" philosophy, and their customers have supported their efforts in a very free market-friendly way. So while you can take potshots at targeted advertising if you want, I honestly can't think of a less obtrusive and relatively harmless revenue model that can support all that Google does and how much they are contributing to advancing technology.

While I'd love for someone to volunteer to do all that Google does without making money for it, given that that's not going to happen, yeah, targeted advertising is about the least annoying way I can think of to get the bills paid and continue providing service.

Better Google than your ISP

[Charles Dodgeson]

Google is datamining everywhere and everything already.

When I first read about this, I immediately thought about datamining. But after another second, I figured that I would prefer Google to have this information than Verizon (where my caching DNS server currently forwards to). It is true that Google is better at datamining, but do keep in mind that whoever is providing your DNS service has the information about your DNS requests.

Another difference between Google and your ISP is that your ISP knows who you are from your IP address. So they can link DNS resolution requests to specific, named, customers. Google can't do that directly.

Re:I guess it is good news...

[Hucko]

I think that Google gets the free pass because they have so far shown themselves to be the least intrusive, paternalistic and/or come the closest to giving us what we want. And they stand out a fair distance from the rest of the bunch.

Most of us acknowledge that there isn't a free lunch, so Google *so far* has been enabling the internet to function on its technical capabilities while making a profit. Surely you recognise that a lot of business models block the capabilities of technology to bolster their profits? Google seems to take the opposite approach. This often leads to businesses complaining about their methods, but consumers/customers/collaborators are enabled.