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> I believe Google's DNS service is used for monitoring DNS traffic from IPs. This is then most likely used for personalisation, which aids Google's mission to

> I believe Google's DNS service is used for monitoring DNS traffic from IPs. This is then most likely used for personalisation, which aids Google's mission to take freedom and privacy away from nontechnical and technical users. The Privacy Policy for Google's public DNS service explicitly says that they don't do that. If you really think Google is doing it then you should take it up with the FTC who would really enjoy making an example out of Google.

njsubedi 6y ago
Somehow this is funny.
Nextgrid 6y ago
> you should take it up with the FTC who would really enjoy making an example out of Google. How do you prove it though? Google will not just give you the source code of their DNS infrastructure and even if they did there is no way to prove that it's indeed that code that is running and not a modified version that does collect data?
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Actually google is one of the few organizations out there with real reproducible builds. If they gave you the sources and the program image, you could prove the latter was derived from the former.
  - doublerabbit 6y ago
    > Actually google is one of the few organizations out there Where are you gathering that knowledge from? Can you cite a source please.
    - ridaj 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9256844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9256844
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    This has nothing to do with what software they're running internally though, and again as I said even if you can audit and build your own version of the Google DNS infrastructure there's nothing guaranteeing that it's exactly what's running internally. The problem is that ultimately there is a conflict of interest - Google is an advertising company that benefits from knowing as much as possible about people for ad targeting purposes, and as such some people (like me) might not be willing to trust them.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      My personal bias is that I've worked at Google and I've worked elsewhere and I know that Google's control over what code runs in prod is years ahead of the other places I've worked. They have strong controls that audit that binaries running as sensitive roles (roles with access to real user data and logs) were produced from reviewed and submitted code and built in the official hermetic build farm. For very sensitive roles (gmail etc) they audit the command line and everything. The controls everywhere else I've worked are a complete joke by comparison. This quote is from Google's security infrastructure whitepaper: """Google’s source code is stored in a central repository where both current and past versions of the service are auditable. The infrastructure can additionally be configured to require that a service’s binaries be built from specific reviewed, checked in, and tested source code. Such code reviews require inspection and approval from at least one engineer other than the author, and the system enforces that code modifications to any system must be approved by the owners of that system. These requirements limit the ability of an insider or adversary to make malicious modifications to source code and also provide a forensic trail from a service back to its source. """ I don't think the conflict you mention exists. Google benefits when people use the open web. They run DNS because DNS is critical to web user experience and ISP DNS is garbage. Also, by the way, ISP DNS privacy story is a complete disaster.
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        I am not talking about malicious code contrary to Google's intention being ran on their infrastructure. I am talking about code that Google wants to run. Code that harvests DNS queries for ad targeting might be within Google's objectives and wouldn't be considered as malicious, but it would be malicious when looking at it from the user's point of view.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
takeda 6y ago
> The Privacy Policy for Google's public DNS service explicitly says that they don't do that. If you really think Google is doing it then you should take it up with the FTC who would really enjoy making an example out of Google. Stop pretending like there's no regulatory capture going on. Otherwise we would already have antitrust cases going on with many of those big corporations.

njsubedi 6y ago

Somehow this is funny.

Nextgrid 6y ago

> you should take it up with the FTC who would really enjoy making an example out of Google. How do you prove it though? Google will not just give you the source code of their DNS infrastructure and even if they did there is no way to prove that it's indeed that code that is running and not a modified version that does collect data?

jeffbee 6y ago
Actually google is one of the few organizations out there with real reproducible builds. If they gave you the sources and the program image, you could prove the latter was derived from the former.
- doublerabbit 6y ago
  > Actually google is one of the few organizations out there Where are you gathering that knowledge from? Can you cite a source please.
  - ridaj 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9256844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9256844
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with what software they're running internally though, and again as I said even if you can audit and build your own version of the Google DNS infrastructure there's nothing guaranteeing that it's exactly what's running internally. The problem is that ultimately there is a conflict of interest - Google is an advertising company that benefits from knowing as much as possible about people for ad targeting purposes, and as such some people (like me) might not be willing to trust them.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    My personal bias is that I've worked at Google and I've worked elsewhere and I know that Google's control over what code runs in prod is years ahead of the other places I've worked. They have strong controls that audit that binaries running as sensitive roles (roles with access to real user data and logs) were produced from reviewed and submitted code and built in the official hermetic build farm. For very sensitive roles (gmail etc) they audit the command line and everything. The controls everywhere else I've worked are a complete joke by comparison. This quote is from Google's security infrastructure whitepaper: """Google’s source code is stored in a central repository where both current and past versions of the service are auditable. The infrastructure can additionally be configured to require that a service’s binaries be built from specific reviewed, checked in, and tested source code. Such code reviews require inspection and approval from at least one engineer other than the author, and the system enforces that code modifications to any system must be approved by the owners of that system. These requirements limit the ability of an insider or adversary to make malicious modifications to source code and also provide a forensic trail from a service back to its source. """ I don't think the conflict you mention exists. Google benefits when people use the open web. They run DNS because DNS is critical to web user experience and ISP DNS is garbage. Also, by the way, ISP DNS privacy story is a complete disaster.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      I am not talking about malicious code contrary to Google's intention being ran on their infrastructure. I am talking about code that Google wants to run. Code that harvests DNS queries for ad targeting might be within Google's objectives and wouldn't be considered as malicious, but it would be malicious when looking at it from the user's point of view.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

takeda 6y ago

> The Privacy Policy for Google's public DNS service explicitly says that they don't do that. If you really think Google is doing it then you should take it up with the FTC who would really enjoy making an example out of Google. Stop pretending like there's no regulatory capture going on. Otherwise we would already have antitrust cases going on with many of those big corporations.