Indian government to launch their own DNS Server

[Sushubh]

dns server: DNS server to be launched soon to protect users from malware - The Economic Times

India to have own DNS for safe browsing - The Hindu

“We are expecting it to be ready in next three months, and we will be doing a proof of concept (PoC) starting next week,” the official said, adding that the new system would be completely secure and always available with faster response.

seems like a stupid thing to do. i mean bsnl is injecting ads in user's browser sessions... that does not bother them. but they want to bypass ISPs to get people to use their own DNS servers! remains to be seen if this would be forced on BSNL/MTNL and private operators or not. encrypted dns becomes even more important now.

this would be the simplest way to instantly block domains that government does not like. i wonder if it can even be used to inject modi banners all over the web.

 

[VivekA]

The Great Firewall of India...

 

[Sushubh]

Seriously, I do not even get it. What are they thinking? DNS is not something that government should be running. ISPs are the best entities to manage it. Of course, since they don’t, consumers rely on third party services like google, cloudflare, opendns etc.

I mean from the looks of it, they are just going to launch something with BharatDNS branding. Modi Ji would do a big event. Get photos clicked. Some absurd statements would be made on how this would secure data transfer in India and what not.

The whole thing is batshit crazy.

 

[dextermorgan]

The Great Firewall of India...

exactly. down the line there will be "circular" directing all ISPs to use bharathDNS to stop [Insert bad things] (child abuse, national security, terrorists, malware, banking scams) you get the idea

 

[amish]

Time to switch to DNS over HTTPS!

 

[Deleted member 63558]

OMG. Two Possibilities Here:

1. They want to read / analyse the users browsing and other information.

2. They want to control the Internet (thinking of DNS as a solution).

This is truly a Surveillance and Privacy Attack on the Indians by this Government.

 

---

[r19]

I wonder if they'll start to block VPN IP soon. I mean some forums ban them to prevent spam, and I really can't get through any IP. So I'm guessing Indian govt should be able to ban all VPN too, and combined with this, it can be full surveillance

 

[dextermorgan]

^ jio is already blocking some VPNs

 

[unAadhaarit]

We are not surveillance state but we are putting all the mechanisms in place for doing so. We would like to keep a log of sites you visit, prevent you from accessing the websites that we find objectionable for whatever reasons, and all this while protecting you from malicious sites and yourself.
If malware is the real reason then they should provide free anti-malware, anti-virus, etc.

 

[Sushubh]

You haven't seen...

Cyber Swachhta Kendra

The 'Cyber Swachhta Kendra' (CSK) is operated by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) as part of the Government of India’s Digital India initiative under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

www.cyberswachhtakendra.gov.in

 

[dextermorgan]

We are not surveillance state but we are putting all the mechanisms in place for doing so. We would like to keep a log of sites you visit, prevent you from accessing the websites that we find objectionable for whatever reasons, and all this while protecting you from malicious sites and yourself.
If malware is the real reason then they should provide free anti-malware, anti-virus, etc.

Telanagana is already looking like a brother to USA in facial surveillance

The database, known as the ‘Integrated People Information Hub’ (IPIH) offers a “360-degree view” of citizens, according to police commissioner M. Mahender Reddy as reported in Telangana Today.

The IPIH is being promoted primarily as a smart policing mechanism in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), according to the tender. The technical architecture talks about the linking of CCTV footage, fingerprints data, call data records (CDR) using entity matching and other data mining algorithms. Other variables for the system include a citizen’s name, father’s name, mother’s name, spouse’s name, address, date of birth, mobile number, contact number, driving license, voter ID, Aadhaar number and a crime number.

These separate data points help identity and group the records of a citizen or crime history of a citizen as well as identifying the relationships the person shares with others. All of this data has already been collected by the state government right after formation of Telangana through a large scale survey called ‘Samagra Kutumba Survey’ – a mini-Census if you will.

Designed to be used by every department in the state, IPIH defies the logic of the ‘Principle of Least Privilege’. A popular credo in the field of information and cybersecurity, this informal rule quite simply states that any software, program or user should be able to access only the information and resources that are necessary for a particular and legitimate purpose.

you know this gif of chinese surveillance. Its already happening in telanagana


Source

 

[unAadhaarit]

TIL.
The future is already here, only unequally distributed.

 

[varkey]

If you have a OpenWRT / LEDE capable router go for DNS over TLS, I just configured my LEDE router to do this today. Pretty straight forward

DNS Over TLS on OpenWrt 18.06 and 19.07 – Craig Andrews

candrews.integralblue.com

No more ISP DNS servers (or the government's)! 😀

 

[unAadhaarit]

On Windows you could use this Simple DNSCrypt A simple management tool for dnscrypt-proxy

 

[Deleted member 63558]

I just wanted to ask except for testing, what would be the cause of people using this DNS?