5 ms·

> some of these devices are using a sneaky tactic to bypass your PiHole entirely I don't think that it's malevolent on their part. Lots of ISP DNS are crappy.

> some of these devices are using a sneaky tactic to bypass your PiHole entirely I don't think that it's malevolent on their part. Lots of ISP DNS are crappy. Hardcoding a reasonably reliable one saves them a lot of frustration and unnecessary technical support.

ugexe 6y ago
So if every single piece of hardware or software followed this one crazy trick the world would be better because some people at a tech company wouldn’t have to field as many support questions?
- fingerlocks 6y ago
  Yes, support is supremely expensive. This is especially true in the hardware IoT space under discussion. Some large fraction of any semi-successful hardware company will exist to field a constant onslaught of support emails, handling returns, warranties, and social media. It’s a big money sink. Margins are already razor thin in hardware, so yeah anything that can be done to reduce your support costs is welcomed.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    I worked in support a long time and yes it's expensive. A few support cases will destroy your margin on a product sold. However, these IoT companies add these features mainly to benefit from selling the acquired data. The users are not asking for this. They're making it difficult for themselves.
  - wang_li 6y ago
    > Yes, support is supremely expensive. I agree. I have support costs too. Which is why every company that sells a product with a hard coded DNS server configured but doesn't advertise said aspect prominently in all advertising, so I can know to avoid their intentionally defective product, should pay me $10000 for the time I wasted buying their product, discovering their product is secretly and intentionally broken, and then return their product.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      Why would they advertise this feature? The device isn’t broken, it’s not violating any standards, devices aren’t required to accept DNS servers offered by DHCP — my laptop doesn’t for any network that isn’t my home. This is done because the manufacturer’s and public DNS servers are more of a known quantity then you ISPs router and DNS servers. Using pihole is super rare and wouldn’t be worth the effort if it weren’t for the fact that it makes devices more reliable.
      - wang_li 6y ago
        Devices that don't use the DNS servers specified by the DHCP server I have configured on my network most certainly are broken. I'm not talking some kind of principle here, I mean they literally will not resolve addresses correctly as I have configured a split horizon DNS environment for DNS names that I control. I have no interest in exposing many of the names on my network to the public so that 8.8.8.8 can resolve them. Saying that a device is not violating any standards as they "aren't required to accept DNS servers offered by DHCP" is like saying a device is not broken and not violating any standards because "they aren't required to accept IP addresses offered by DHCP." It's a silly to say devices are not required to accept the parameters sent by my DHCP server as such a statement is only correct in the most abstract sense that there is no law that requires a device to adhere to the relevant RFCs for DHCP. On the other hand there are laws, federally and in many states, that only allow you to connect to and use other people's network with their permission and only use their networks within the bounds that they allow. I don't care about the device manufacturer's opinion of DNS server quality. I own the device and I own the network that the device is connected to and I pay for the uplink between that network and the rest of the internet. There is only one person who can correctly make an assessment as to the correct DNS server for my network and that is me. If a device manufacturer chooses to hard code a different DNS server they are wrong and it is broken and they should tell me so I don't waste my time buying their product and returning it. Additionally they should advertise this behavior because it is a security vulnerability for my network for their shitty device to be sending my internal names to outside servers to resolve. The names of the devices on my network that I choose not to expose to the internet are no business of anyone else. E: And I didn't even get into the mess that it would be to try and expose the DNS zones for the RFC 1918 address spaces that everyone is using.
  - willis936 6y ago
    It’s a gamble, not a guarantee. What happens when your hard coded DNS is not available? The more convincing narrative is that setting custom DNS decreases ad revenue and cuts into growth.
    - layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
      >What happens when your hard coded DNS is not available? The same thing that happened each time when DRM servers went offline. Time to buy a new TV :^)
      - willis936 6y ago
        Sounds a like a lot of support calls to me.
        hutzlibu 6y ago
        But easy ones: "Sorry, your product is out of warranty, I can redirect you to sales"
    - kevindong 6y ago
      Can't it be both? On balance, I'd expect Google is be much better about maintaining their DNS uptime than most ISPs.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Every contact to that tech company has on the other side a frustrated customer. I care about them.
- mlnhd 6y ago
  Is this even a trick? If you're setting up PiHole, you gotta recognize right away that this is an obvious way for devices to bypass it.
Ecstatify 6y ago
It is because they don’t give you the option to change it. Set the default to what ever you want, but give me the user who bought the goddamn thing the option to configure it how I see fit. You think TV companies are injecting adverts into peoples TV home screens for their benefit, I don’t see a big sticker on the box when I buy the TV “Ads Integrated Directly into Device”
- Spivak 6y ago
  So as a techie I agree with you but as a user I don’t really think it matters. If your device exists to connect to public endpoints and uses mDNS for local discovery then any public DNS server should be fine. All these devices want is a clean connection to the public internet and you’ll never see them officially supporting blocking. At best DNS filtering is a hack that currently works because most people don’t do it and there’s little pressure to work around it. The device is free to exfiltrate all your private data through the connection to the manufacturer’s servers. It doesn’t really need DNS to do it.
  - Ecstatify 6y ago
    I bought the device to stream content not to display ads. So you'd be happy if every laptop manufacturer installed crypto-miners on a new laptop you purchased without telling you before purchasing the device with no way to remove it. It's no different than ads, they are using your resources without your explicit permission after the sale of the device to generate income for their company. It's madness to me that people find this acceptable. These companies are profiting off the ignorance of people and misleading customers on what they're actually selling them.
- ufmace 6y ago
  As a techie and a possible user, I agree that I'd like that feature. As someone who has/might work for companies building things like that, it sounds like a nightmare. It's a ton of design, testing, translation, validation, etc work to build the UI for adjusting optional settings. And it has to be maintained and tested through all future versions, redesigns, refactorings, etc. It's gonna be a tough sell to do it right considering: For every 1 techie who legitimately uses it to set it to his custom server and can handle debugging when it goes wrong, 50 people will accidentally set it to something random, or have some distant relative set up some weird hack and then disappear when it breaks, and then call the support line and rage at somebody when it doesn't work and they don't understand why, and rage some more when they can't get the instructions to reset it right. Whatever feature somebody else is about to propose to fix that is yet another thing that will need design, validation, maintenance, etc forever. It's pretty understandable why product designers would rather build simple dumb UIs with no options that mostly work automatically.

ugexe 6y ago

So if every single piece of hardware or software followed this one crazy trick the world would be better because some people at a tech company wouldn’t have to field as many support questions?

fingerlocks 6y ago
Yes, support is supremely expensive. This is especially true in the hardware IoT space under discussion. Some large fraction of any semi-successful hardware company will exist to field a constant onslaught of support emails, handling returns, warranties, and social media. It’s a big money sink. Margins are already razor thin in hardware, so yeah anything that can be done to reduce your support costs is welcomed.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  I worked in support a long time and yes it's expensive. A few support cases will destroy your margin on a product sold. However, these IoT companies add these features mainly to benefit from selling the acquired data. The users are not asking for this. They're making it difficult for themselves.
- wang_li 6y ago
  > Yes, support is supremely expensive. I agree. I have support costs too. Which is why every company that sells a product with a hard coded DNS server configured but doesn't advertise said aspect prominently in all advertising, so I can know to avoid their intentionally defective product, should pay me $10000 for the time I wasted buying their product, discovering their product is secretly and intentionally broken, and then return their product.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    Why would they advertise this feature? The device isn’t broken, it’s not violating any standards, devices aren’t required to accept DNS servers offered by DHCP — my laptop doesn’t for any network that isn’t my home. This is done because the manufacturer’s and public DNS servers are more of a known quantity then you ISPs router and DNS servers. Using pihole is super rare and wouldn’t be worth the effort if it weren’t for the fact that it makes devices more reliable.
    - wang_li 6y ago
      Devices that don't use the DNS servers specified by the DHCP server I have configured on my network most certainly are broken. I'm not talking some kind of principle here, I mean they literally will not resolve addresses correctly as I have configured a split horizon DNS environment for DNS names that I control. I have no interest in exposing many of the names on my network to the public so that 8.8.8.8 can resolve them. Saying that a device is not violating any standards as they "aren't required to accept DNS servers offered by DHCP" is like saying a device is not broken and not violating any standards because "they aren't required to accept IP addresses offered by DHCP." It's a silly to say devices are not required to accept the parameters sent by my DHCP server as such a statement is only correct in the most abstract sense that there is no law that requires a device to adhere to the relevant RFCs for DHCP. On the other hand there are laws, federally and in many states, that only allow you to connect to and use other people's network with their permission and only use their networks within the bounds that they allow. I don't care about the device manufacturer's opinion of DNS server quality. I own the device and I own the network that the device is connected to and I pay for the uplink between that network and the rest of the internet. There is only one person who can correctly make an assessment as to the correct DNS server for my network and that is me. If a device manufacturer chooses to hard code a different DNS server they are wrong and it is broken and they should tell me so I don't waste my time buying their product and returning it. Additionally they should advertise this behavior because it is a security vulnerability for my network for their shitty device to be sending my internal names to outside servers to resolve. The names of the devices on my network that I choose not to expose to the internet are no business of anyone else. E: And I didn't even get into the mess that it would be to try and expose the DNS zones for the RFC 1918 address spaces that everyone is using.
- willis936 6y ago
  It’s a gamble, not a guarantee. What happens when your hard coded DNS is not available? The more convincing narrative is that setting custom DNS decreases ad revenue and cuts into growth.
  - layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
    >What happens when your hard coded DNS is not available? The same thing that happened each time when DRM servers went offline. Time to buy a new TV :^)
    - willis936 6y ago
      Sounds a like a lot of support calls to me.
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        But easy ones: "Sorry, your product is out of warranty, I can redirect you to sales"
  - kevindong 6y ago
    Can't it be both? On balance, I'd expect Google is be much better about maintaining their DNS uptime than most ISPs.
sokoloff 6y ago
Every contact to that tech company has on the other side a frustrated customer. I care about them.
mlnhd 6y ago
Is this even a trick? If you're setting up PiHole, you gotta recognize right away that this is an obvious way for devices to bypass it.

Ecstatify 6y ago

It is because they don’t give you the option to change it. Set the default to what ever you want, but give me the user who bought the goddamn thing the option to configure it how I see fit. You think TV companies are injecting adverts into peoples TV home screens for their benefit, I don’t see a big sticker on the box when I buy the TV “Ads Integrated Directly into Device”

Spivak 6y ago
So as a techie I agree with you but as a user I don’t really think it matters. If your device exists to connect to public endpoints and uses mDNS for local discovery then any public DNS server should be fine. All these devices want is a clean connection to the public internet and you’ll never see them officially supporting blocking. At best DNS filtering is a hack that currently works because most people don’t do it and there’s little pressure to work around it. The device is free to exfiltrate all your private data through the connection to the manufacturer’s servers. It doesn’t really need DNS to do it.
- Ecstatify 6y ago
  I bought the device to stream content not to display ads. So you'd be happy if every laptop manufacturer installed crypto-miners on a new laptop you purchased without telling you before purchasing the device with no way to remove it. It's no different than ads, they are using your resources without your explicit permission after the sale of the device to generate income for their company. It's madness to me that people find this acceptable. These companies are profiting off the ignorance of people and misleading customers on what they're actually selling them.
ufmace 6y ago
As a techie and a possible user, I agree that I'd like that feature. As someone who has/might work for companies building things like that, it sounds like a nightmare. It's a ton of design, testing, translation, validation, etc work to build the UI for adjusting optional settings. And it has to be maintained and tested through all future versions, redesigns, refactorings, etc. It's gonna be a tough sell to do it right considering: For every 1 techie who legitimately uses it to set it to his custom server and can handle debugging when it goes wrong, 50 people will accidentally set it to something random, or have some distant relative set up some weird hack and then disappear when it breaks, and then call the support line and rage at somebody when it doesn't work and they don't understand why, and rage some more when they can't get the instructions to reset it right. Whatever feature somebody else is about to propose to fix that is yet another thing that will need design, validation, maintenance, etc forever. It's pretty understandable why product designers would rather build simple dumb UIs with no options that mostly work automatically.