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What is privacy? The same way the home user can get privacy from the network operator, can malware get its privacy from the home user. This is amplified by mov

What is privacy? The same way the home user can get privacy from the network operator, can malware get its privacy from the home user. This is amplified by moving DNS resolution into applications, Mozilla style. Now even the operating system or local firewall applications (Little Snitch, etc) can't know, where the processes are connecting. Again, the application vendors can have objectives that are not aligned with the users. It is a mistake to conflate the home users with random applications running on their computers.

tptacek 7y ago
This argument doesn't make any sense. TLS SNI hostnames should remain unencrypted to help user privacy?
- vetinari 7y ago
  No. The argument is, that a random process should not be a world into itself; there should be a way to check on what it is doing. It does not have to be network based, it can be done by another process on the local machine. Things like DNS should be done by the OS, with hooks for the monitoring. It should be not be done by the application, with zero transparency to the owner. The system resolver, on the other hand, can use DoH/DoT/ESNI/whatever. Giving random processes unlimited, uncontrolled and uncontrollable access to Internet is disaster waiting to happen. Quite similar to what happened to applications on Android.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    What does the system resolver have to do with encrypting TLS SNI?
    - vetinari 7y ago
      With the privacy. I don't know, whether I'm expressing badly due to English not being my native language, or where is the problem in understanding. I hope that you are not just misunderstanding intentionally. So once again: The combination of ESNI and DNS resolving inside applications (and not OS, not checked by some user agent) provides privacy to application, not users. That application might or might not have its objectives aligned with the users; more often than not, it will focus on interests of its vendor instead. So conflating privacy for application with privacy for user is mistake. By applications using custom DNS+ESNI, the user loses control over who the application communicates with, he just sees that it can send and receive blobs. What it is sending out, to whom, is and will be unknown. That is the negative wrt user's privacy, compared to which the current Android ecosystem is squeaky clean.

tptacek 7y ago

This argument doesn't make any sense. TLS SNI hostnames should remain unencrypted to help user privacy?

vetinari 7y ago
No. The argument is, that a random process should not be a world into itself; there should be a way to check on what it is doing. It does not have to be network based, it can be done by another process on the local machine. Things like DNS should be done by the OS, with hooks for the monitoring. It should be not be done by the application, with zero transparency to the owner. The system resolver, on the other hand, can use DoH/DoT/ESNI/whatever. Giving random processes unlimited, uncontrolled and uncontrollable access to Internet is disaster waiting to happen. Quite similar to what happened to applications on Android.
- tptacek 7y ago
  What does the system resolver have to do with encrypting TLS SNI?
  - vetinari 7y ago
    With the privacy. I don't know, whether I'm expressing badly due to English not being my native language, or where is the problem in understanding. I hope that you are not just misunderstanding intentionally. So once again: The combination of ESNI and DNS resolving inside applications (and not OS, not checked by some user agent) provides privacy to application, not users. That application might or might not have its objectives aligned with the users; more often than not, it will focus on interests of its vendor instead. So conflating privacy for application with privacy for user is mistake. By applications using custom DNS+ESNI, the user loses control over who the application communicates with, he just sees that it can send and receive blobs. What it is sending out, to whom, is and will be unknown. That is the negative wrt user's privacy, compared to which the current Android ecosystem is squeaky clean.