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DNSSEC Comes To .Net Zone Today

wiredmikey sends news that as of today VeriSign has enabled DNSSEC on the .net zone. This is one milestone in a years-long process of securing the DNS against cache poisoning and other attacks. Next step will be for VeriSign to sign the .com root early next year."Having DNSSEC enabled for .net domains... [is] important as it represents one of the most critical implementations of DNSSEC technology, since .net serves as the underpinning for many critical Internet functions. The largest zone to be DNSSEC enabled to date, .net currently has more than 13 million... domain name registrations worldwide."

17 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:More security in what way? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The USA is your boogieman.

    but hey, it's popular to hate them, lets go for it! They are magically worse than everyone else (many of whom do exactly the same, some are better, some are worse) because they have power and you aren't with them.

    Grow up. They'll drop down a few pegs in the next 10-20 years, and the EU, China or both will become a more formidable power. Don't worry. I hope you are in one and can enjoy the other side of the idiocy you are propagating.

  2. Re:Typos by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Funny

    As opposed to what? The good ol' days when editors read the articles and proof-read submissions? When men were real men, and small furry creatures, etc etc.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  3. Has been sued almost immediately. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like the lawyers of Microsoft were anticipating this move and were itching for a fight. They have sued the entire internet for infringing on their trademark .Net

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Re:More security in what way? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was thinking more or less the same thing.

    The point is that a good domain name system implementation needs to be secure against protocol attacks. DNSSEC secures it against hackers, but makes it more vulnerable to political attacks. Because DNS was designed to be centralized.

    The problem with currently emerging alternatives is that they're designed to be decentralized, making them vulnerable to protocol attacks. However, a good p2p implementation would use an underlying hierarchy based on the anonymity of the name authorities, and they would be able to establish further authority points. But that protocol isn't even invented yet as far as I recall, and it would require a hell lot of thought and encryption.

    In any case, more cryptographic security is better, not worse. If you want someone to blame, it's the inventors of DNS for establishing a US-based name authority. Oh wait, the Internet was invented in the US, by none other than the DARPA. Go figure.

  5. Re:More security in what way? by icebraining · · Score: 3, Informative

    Damn, you're dumb. He's calling for a decentralized system, which doesn't rely on any government, including the EU and China.

  6. Certificates in DNS. by Timmmm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does DNSSEC allow storing SSL certificates in the DNS records? It would seem that this is an awesome way of getting free SSL certificates.

    Also, I doubt anyone bothered with this, but does DNSSEC have any way of saying "this domain should only be contacted with SSL"? That would prevent SSL stripping MitM attacks.

    1. Re:Certificates in DNS. by amorsen · · Score: 3, Informative

      DNS is just a database. You can store anything you want in it. If you're storing something you want lots of people to care about, it's best to get a dedicated record type for it, but if you just want to play around you can use TXT records. There is a record type for certificates.

      So yes, you can do

      www.example.com IN TXT "this server should only be contacted by HTTPS. Do not gopher!"

      but web browsers are not likely to ask for that record. Feel free to develop a browser which does or ask the browser developers to include this feature.

      --
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    2. Re:Certificates in DNS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does DNSSEC allow storing SSL certificates in the DNS records? It would seem that this is an awesome way of getting free SSL certificates.

      Also, I doubt anyone bothered with this, but does DNSSEC have any way of saying "this domain should only be contacted with SSL"? That would prevent SSL stripping MitM attacks.

      There are CERT records that can have X.509 (SSL/TLS) certificates:

      http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4398

      Just like a browser can do a look up for the A record of a web site, it could also look up the CERT record if it was so inclined.

      With DNSSEC it is now possible to check the veracity of the CERT RR to prevent man-in-the-middle accounts. DNSSEC could be used as a substitute for certificate authorities.

    3. Re:Certificates in DNS. by rduke15 · · Score: 2

      With DNSSEC it is now possible to check the veracity of the CERT RR to prevent man-in-the-middle accounts. DNSSEC could be used as a substitute for certificate authorities.

      This is news for me, and extremely interesting. Are there any browsers/mail clients/whatever supporting this? Anything worth reading about it? Instructions on how to implement it and make some experimental use of it?

      Can we lobby for this to be implemented in browsers, email, and the rest?

      Currently, you either have to pay some CA, or be your own CA which nobody trusts, and have everyone install the cert or constantly click through the warnings
      maze.

    4. Re:Certificates in DNS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Coincidentally, today this working group became official:

      http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/keyassure/current/msg01078.html

      Objective:

      Specify mechanisms and techniques that allow Internet applications to
      establish cryptographically secured communications by using information
      distributed through DNSSEC for discovering and authenticating public
      keys which are associated with a service located at a domain name.

  7. Re:More security in what way? by Desert+Raven · · Score: 4, Informative

    You really don't know what DNSSEC is, do you?

    What DNSSEC does: DNSSEC provides a means for an end-user to determine the authenticity of the DNS data they receive by proving that only someone in control of the domain could have served the record.

    What DNSSEC does not do: DNSSEC does not provide for the security of data being exchanged between systems.

    With DNSSEC, each domain admin holds their own private keys. Nobody else should ever see them. Chain of authenticity is provided by each parent domain signing the delegation records provided by the child domain.

    So, for the "government" to "exert control" over your domain, they would have to completely spoof every parent of your domain. This would affect not just your domain, but all domains in that TLD. Pretty sure if everyone in .com all broke at the same time, someone would notice. In short, this makes it harder for someone to take control of your DNS. If the "government" wanted it to be easier, they never would have allowed the root to be signed.

    And let's face it, DNSSEC was not designed for you. DNSSEC is designed for businesses, banks and other large entities who are trying to protect their customers from being spoofed. It is just another tool like SSL. And, IMO, anyone who uses SSL certs should use DNSSEC. If you don't use SSL, it's highly unlikely you need DNSSEC.

    But hey, if all you want to do is spew ridiculous conspiracy theories, never mind, rant on.

  8. Actually, they enabled it yesterday by Desert+Raven · · Score: 2

    Actually, .net was enabled sometime around 16:00 GMT yesterday. They just didn't announce it until today.

    I was doing testing of a DNSSEC system yesterday, and one of my test cases change state on me unexpectedly. (Signed zone in an unsigned parent)

  9. Re:More security in what way? by PseudonymousBraveguy · · Score: 2

    DNS has allways been more or less centralized, and was allways controlled by the US. The US can already disable domains as they please, DNSSEC or not. The only difference with DNSSEC is, that it now impossible to change DNS data without having access to the keys. This makes DNS more secure for everyone, including private individuals.

  10. Re:More security in what way? by plcurechax · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was thinking more or less the same thing.

    The point is that a good domain name system implementation needs to be secure against protocol attacks. DNSSEC secures it against hackers, but makes it more vulnerable to political attacks.

    You do know that DNS root servers are located (and co-located) around the world (20+ countries I believe off the top of my head), and they are all equal. The only US-centric part is that the designated maintainers (ICANN and IANA) are US based organizations, in large part due to historically originating in the US, and this does have the benefit being one of the best legal protection for free-speech in the world.

    If you want an alternate system, edit your DNS root hints file.

    Join the Internet Society, ICANN, and your national domain registrar if you want to make difference.

  11. doing away with DNS? by kj_kabaje · · Score: 2

    Yesterday I thought we were planning on getting rid of DNS... huh.

  12. Re:Typos by Abstrackt · · Score: 2

    As opposed to what? The good ol' days when editors read the articles and proof-read submissions? When men were real men, and small furry creatures, etc etc.

    Ah, the good ol' days... when the men were men, the women were men, and the girls were FBI agents.

    --
    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  13. So? by pavon · · Score: 2

    And yet when the US government asked VeriSign to revoke domain names, all the root servers mirrored that decision. Just because DNS is distributed doesn't make it the least bit decentralized.