Cloudflare Launches 1.1.1.1 Consumer DNS Service With a Focus On Privacy (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli writes: Today, Cloudflare announces a new consumer DNS service with a focus on privacy. Called '1.1.1.1.' it quite literally uses that easy-to-remeber IP address as the primary DNS server. Why announce on April Fool's Day? Because the IP is four ones and today's date is 4/1 -- clever. The secondary server is 1.0.0.1 -- also easy to remember.

The big question is why? With solid offerings from Google and Comodo, for instance, does the world need another DNS service? The answer is yes, because Cloudflare intends to focus on both speed, and more importantly, privacy.

Comments

Tried it, it's fast

[admin7087]

Looks good so far. The Piratebay is not censored (but is usually in my country), for example.

Does not compute

[Anonymous Coward]

Cloudflare is an American company which was funded as and began its life as a "honey-pot", where the owners realized that the only way to extend its reach was to grow and style it as a genuine business.

As an American company they also have to respond to and carry out orders from the NSA and CIA if there is a court order present (which there always is -- they have their own "courts").

There is a lot of power in being able to tell who is looking at what website, and being able to possibly redirect them elsewhere when needed. If you think for a second that your browsing is private and that this service will not be used for shady purposes, then you are kidding yourself.

OpenNIC and DNSCRYPT

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this better than OpenNIC and DNSCrypt? Remember that Cloudfare is the company that has a CEO that "woke up in a bad mood" and decided to ban a domain from their service. Yeah, it was a bunch of Nazis, but it shows that they're not really committed to freedom ... just freedom for points of view that don't irritate them.

Why trust CF?

[hrbrmstr]

Not casting aspersions, but I've yet to see a reason why I (or anyone) should trust CF. The "KPMG" 'audit' reason is absolutely not sufficient, too.

The service is free and lures folks in with "fast". When a service is free, you're the product (see recent FB kerfuffle).

And, no IPv6 endpoint seems like a big missing component when "competitors" have it.

Re:Why trust CF?

[thegarbz]

When a service is free, you're the product

Not always. You have to have something of value from you along with a buyer for you in order for you to be the product. Cloudfare isn't.

Sometimes when a service is free for you, you're lucky to ride on the paying service of others.

Follow the money. Sometimes there is a free lunch.

Classic lack of "root source of trust" problem

[joe_frisch]

With this and all other attempts to provide privacy or security, what chain of trust allows me to believe that this is actually private or secure.

Surely there are many organizations with the resources to flood Slashdot with posts assuring me that this, or any other service, is secure.

Is TOR secure, or a NSA honeypot? How could I possibly know? Without personally having deep technical expertise, how can I trust anything.

An comments about tinfoil hats could be legit, or yet more planted posts.

We need a root source of trust or everything else falls apart.

DNS Watch

[nmb3000]

How is this better than DNS Watch? They are a free, not ad-sponsered, privacy-focused DNS provider with goals of neutrality and anti-censorship.

Cloudflare is basically the Big Brother gatekeeper of the Internet at this point, with strong ties to the US. Them claiming "privacy" as something they care about is pretty absurd.