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A company whose business model isn't based entirely in analyzing user data in order to sell them the most things. Remember: these data don't have to be tied to

A company whose business model isn't based entirely in analyzing user data in order to sell them the most things. Remember: these data don't have to be tied to your account. Google can use your ip address to glean your (approximate) location, and then use the websites you visit to better tell what kind of people live in that area. Even if they don't store the websites themselves, they can categorize the websites and store a category breakdown. They can find out what demographic you belong to from your account, and then associate the websites you visit with that demographic rather than that account. Lots of data that can be stored even if they're not directly associated with your account or the individual websites you visit.

mehrdadn 8y ago
> A company whose business model isn't based entirely in analyzing user data in order to sell them the most things. Really? That's the only bar? So you're going to trust any company who isn't in this business without even reading & comparing their privacy policy or looking at their past history? I also have to say I don't understand what you guys' true fear (read: threat model) is. It seems like for Google your criterion is "if they could potentially keep such data, they're automatically dangerous (doubly so if their name is 'Google')", whereas for anyone else not in the advertising business your standard suddenly changes to "I don't care what data they have, as long as I don't see evidence of active misbehavior". To me this sounds like what you really fear is personalized advertising itself rather than an actual privacy or security breach, which doesn't entirely make logical sense considering what the dangers of each of them are.
- earenndil 8y ago
  > So you're going to trust any company who isn't in this business I never said that. I said that I'm not going to trust a company that has this business model. That by no means implies that I'm going to blindly trust a company with another business model, rather that trust in such a company is possible.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    OK, then you didn't answer my question either. I was not asking "which companies would you not trust, and by what rationale"? The question I asked was: "Whom do you believe would keep your DNS data private, and by what rationale do you find them more believable than Google?" Telling me you wouldn't trust someone who meets some disqualifying criterion isn't useful if you have so many disqualifying criteria that you wouldn't trust anybody, which frankly is the impression I get reading people's comments on this issue. If you have an actual company that you would trust, and a clear rationale for doing so, that's where we can have a real discussion.
    - pdkl95 8y ago
      > Whom do you believe would keep your DNS data private You presupposing that it is necessary to send all DNS traffic to one entity. I run a local recursive nameserver (unbound) instead of sending all of my queries to a different nameserver. Combined with aggressive caching, any particular DNS server (from .ROOT-SERVERS.NET down to the specific authoritative nameservers for a specific domain) is only able to view a tiny subset of my browsing behavior. Most of the time the query to the final authoritative nameserver is to be followed quickly by a TCP SYN packet that reveals roughly the same information. Yes, running the full recursive resolver locally can be very slightly* slower than asking e.g. the local ISP's server that probably has the query cached. Fortunately, local caching limits this (very minor) problem to only the first request for a domain.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        Running a recursive resolver isn't really that great from a "trust no one" perspective, because the .com nameservers are getting a decidedly not tiny subset of your access activity.
        teddyh 8y ago
        QNAME minimization is about to fix that.
        8y ago
- mhneu 8y ago
  Threat model: "surveillance capitalism". Anyone in the ad business has a strong incentive to surveil you to sell or use the data. That's a difference between Apple and Google - Apple is at least partially in the hardware business. Google is in the ad business - the surveillance business - full stop. And I say this as a fan of Google and someone who still uses their public DNS. But it's not surprising that people wonder how they use data. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_... But for every article about Facebook's creepy stalker behavior, thousands of other companies are breathing a collective sigh of relief that it's Facebook and not them in the spotlight. Because while Facebook is one of the biggest players in this space, there are thousands of other companies that spy on and manipulate us for profit. Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff calls it "surveillance capitalism."
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    No, surveillance and ads aren't "threats" in and of themselves. Being surveilled or shown ads doesn't itself harm you (modulo wasting your time/brainpower, but by that logic getting an email or a phone call is also a threat). What would be a "threat" is potential harm occurring as their consequence. In the case of NSA surveillance, for example, people are worried about innocent people getting caught for the wrong reasons and due process not being followed, resulting in wrongful legal/physical/etc. harm to the wrong person. Or in the case of Equifax, one possible harm is your SSN leaking and being used for ID theft (financial harm, until if/when you prove your innocent). Now what I'm not seeing is exactly which company's DNS is avoiding what credible harm that people here believe is potentially likely to result from using Google DNS. As far as Google (or any company, really) internally is concerned, the fact that they are merely "using" the data for themselves (to show you ads, or whatever) is not itself a harm to you. (And maybe worth mentioning, they have used a lot of information to make life a lot better for everyone, like location for traffic data.) The harm would be if they used it to (say) discriminate against you in advertising goods/services, or to harass you, or if they did not secure it properly and your data leaked, etc. None of these are things I'm aware of happening inside Google, but if you know of evidence of this happening, I would love to know. As far as Google is concerned externally, the only threat you seem to have hinted at here is that you believe they are likely to sell your data to other parties who are then likely to abuse them (such as by harassing you directly, or sharing/exposing your data online to others who might harm you). I have seen no evidence that this has been the case with Google (or Facebook) either -- which should make sense given that you believe user data is their most important asset -- but again, if you have any, by all means do share. Given the above, combined with the facts that (a) so many people here seem to be disregarding the actual privacy policy, and (b) for most people Google probably already has more information to screw you with than your third-party DNS provider ever will, I'm led to believe there isn't really anything to be gained by avoiding Google DNS. But to each their own...

mehrdadn 8y ago

> A company whose business model isn't based entirely in analyzing user data in order to sell them the most things. Really? That's the only bar? So you're going to trust any company who isn't in this business without even reading & comparing their privacy policy or looking at their past history? I also have to say I don't understand what you guys' true fear (read: threat model) is. It seems like for Google your criterion is "if they could potentially keep such data, they're automatically dangerous (doubly so if their name is 'Google')", whereas for anyone else not in the advertising business your standard suddenly changes to "I don't care what data they have, as long as I don't see evidence of active misbehavior". To me this sounds like what you really fear is personalized advertising itself rather than an actual privacy or security breach, which doesn't entirely make logical sense considering what the dangers of each of them are.

earenndil 8y ago
> So you're going to trust any company who isn't in this business I never said that. I said that I'm not going to trust a company that has this business model. That by no means implies that I'm going to blindly trust a company with another business model, rather that trust in such a company is possible.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  OK, then you didn't answer my question either. I was not asking "which companies would you not trust, and by what rationale"? The question I asked was: "Whom do you believe would keep your DNS data private, and by what rationale do you find them more believable than Google?" Telling me you wouldn't trust someone who meets some disqualifying criterion isn't useful if you have so many disqualifying criteria that you wouldn't trust anybody, which frankly is the impression I get reading people's comments on this issue. If you have an actual company that you would trust, and a clear rationale for doing so, that's where we can have a real discussion.
  - pdkl95 8y ago
    > Whom do you believe would keep your DNS data private You presupposing that it is necessary to send all DNS traffic to one entity. I run a local recursive nameserver (unbound) instead of sending all of my queries to a different nameserver. Combined with aggressive caching, any particular DNS server (from .ROOT-SERVERS.NET down to the specific authoritative nameservers for a specific domain) is only able to view a tiny subset of my browsing behavior. Most of the time the query to the final authoritative nameserver is to be followed quickly by a TCP SYN packet that reveals roughly the same information. Yes, running the full recursive resolver locally can be very slightly* slower than asking e.g. the local ISP's server that probably has the query cached. Fortunately, local caching limits this (very minor) problem to only the first request for a domain.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Running a recursive resolver isn't really that great from a "trust no one" perspective, because the .com nameservers are getting a decidedly not tiny subset of your access activity.
      - teddyh 8y ago
        QNAME minimization is about to fix that.
      - 8y ago
mhneu 8y ago
Threat model: "surveillance capitalism". Anyone in the ad business has a strong incentive to surveil you to sell or use the data. That's a difference between Apple and Google - Apple is at least partially in the hardware business. Google is in the ad business - the surveillance business - full stop. And I say this as a fan of Google and someone who still uses their public DNS. But it's not surprising that people wonder how they use data. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_... But for every article about Facebook's creepy stalker behavior, thousands of other companies are breathing a collective sigh of relief that it's Facebook and not them in the spotlight. Because while Facebook is one of the biggest players in this space, there are thousands of other companies that spy on and manipulate us for profit. Harvard Business School professor Shoshana Zuboff calls it "surveillance capitalism."
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  No, surveillance and ads aren't "threats" in and of themselves. Being surveilled or shown ads doesn't itself harm you (modulo wasting your time/brainpower, but by that logic getting an email or a phone call is also a threat). What would be a "threat" is potential harm occurring as their consequence. In the case of NSA surveillance, for example, people are worried about innocent people getting caught for the wrong reasons and due process not being followed, resulting in wrongful legal/physical/etc. harm to the wrong person. Or in the case of Equifax, one possible harm is your SSN leaking and being used for ID theft (financial harm, until if/when you prove your innocent). Now what I'm not seeing is exactly which company's DNS is avoiding what credible harm that people here believe is potentially likely to result from using Google DNS. As far as Google (or any company, really) internally is concerned, the fact that they are merely "using" the data for themselves (to show you ads, or whatever) is not itself a harm to you. (And maybe worth mentioning, they have used a lot of information to make life a lot better for everyone, like location for traffic data.) The harm would be if they used it to (say) discriminate against you in advertising goods/services, or to harass you, or if they did not secure it properly and your data leaked, etc. None of these are things I'm aware of happening inside Google, but if you know of evidence of this happening, I would love to know. As far as Google is concerned externally, the only threat you seem to have hinted at here is that you believe they are likely to sell your data to other parties who are then likely to abuse them (such as by harassing you directly, or sharing/exposing your data online to others who might harm you). I have seen no evidence that this has been the case with Google (or Facebook) either -- which should make sense given that you believe user data is their most important asset -- but again, if you have any, by all means do share. Given the above, combined with the facts that (a) so many people here seem to be disregarding the actual privacy policy, and (b) for most people Google probably already has more information to screw you with than your third-party DNS provider ever will, I'm led to believe there isn't really anything to be gained by avoiding Google DNS. But to each their own...