4 ms·

Sigh. 1. Looks like the cost of this project so far is already ~€1M. Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? (Just did a quick researc

Sigh. 1. Looks like the cost of this project so far is already ~€1M. Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? (Just did a quick research in the EU's financial transparency system [1], I entered "dns4eu" in the subject field. €3m budgeted, €1M used already, most of it going to a company named "Whalebone sro" (?)) 2. Why does every EU-funded software project have such a terrible website? As a visitor, you get the impression that the designers took great care to obfuscate the actual product as much as possible, while throwing in random text blurbs, useless buttons and boxes. Stuff like: > Looking for a fast, secure, and privacy-focused way to browse the internet? You're in the right place. Yeah, sure.. just give me the product? Reading on.. > Learn everything you need to know about DNS4EU Public Service – including where it's located, how to easily set it up on your device, and what configuration options are available to best suit your needs. Yeah, sure.. just give me the product? Compare this with the UI of Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 [2] which gives visitors exactly what they need. It's awesome. --- It's hard not to be cynical about EU projects, this one included. I've had the questionable pleasure of diving deep into EU software projects and their funding when analyzing and rebuilding [3] the EU medical device database [4], a simple database with ~500k entries (~10GB on disk), which has burned €45M (!) so far and employs a team of ~50 people. Link to website with budget tracker [5]. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/analysis.html https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/an... [2] https://one.one.one.one https://one.one.one.one [3] https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed [4] https://ec.europa.eu/tools/eudamed/#/screen/home https://ec.europa.eu/tools/eudamed/#/screen/home [5] https://eudamedburn.com https://eudamedburn.com

Tijdreiziger 1y ago
From the page: > The DNS4EU Public Service is operated by the Czech cybersecurity company Whalebone.
- bilekas 1y ago
  Given the OP just complained about reading 3 lines it's safe to assume they didn't get that far.
lloeki 1y ago
> 1. Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? Maybe ask Cloudflare how much 1.1.1.1 costs them? > 2. you get the impression that the designers took great care to obfuscate the actual product as much as possible I don't see that being limited to "EU-funded software project". It seems like nobody has a clue how to make landing pages anymore. That said: https://www.joindns4.eu/about https://www.joindns4.eu/about first Q, first sentence of A: > What is DNS4EU? > DNS4EU is an initiative by the European Commission that aims to offer an alternative to the public DNS resolvers currently dominating the market.
- i5heu 1y ago
  Does this service has the same user count as 1.1.1.1? If not then why should this be relevant?
  - gpvos 1y ago
    Not yet obviously, they just started. 1.1.1.1 started with 0 users too.
  - bilekas 1y ago
    I don't know the finer details of this project that's being launched, but if I'm setting up a global DNS server, I want to make sure it stays up all the time, it's kind of the point. It's not a project that "We will scale when we reach out limit". So I imagine there's a significant initial payment.
    - i5heu 1y ago
      I never said that 1M EUR is too much. And yeh you are right, you want a global DNS server to be global. Nonetheless Cloudflare has more POPs of their DNS server as this project and a lot lot more traffic as this project just starts. So i think that the comparison is not useful at all. An better question is why they did not take more money and build an alternative to the root servers on top of it, or a super low cost registrar (for self cost like CF). I would absolutely love too see more from this project and less of bad comparisons that are knee jerk comparisons.
varispeed 1y ago
[flagged]
- bilekas 1y ago
  > as any critique of the EU seems to be met with universal outrage. Absolutely not, in fact as an EU citizen, I am the first to call out issues and complain about things getting changed. That's why there are nicer privacy protections for example in the EU. That said, the comment doesn't really apply to "only EU". > a simple database with ~500k entries (~10GB on disk), which has burned €45M (!) so far and employs a team of ~50 people "Burned €45M" with zero citiation, on even where the funding goes to, there are lot of regulations around medical databases, and for good reason. Tell me outside the EU doesn't have overblown budgets also?
  - olieidel 1y ago
    Citation #1: Navigate to https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/analysis.html https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/an... 1. Enter "subject of grant or contract" = "eudamed" [enter] 2. Receive the numbers until 2022 inclusive (2023 is incomplete). 3. Extrapolate conservatively. Citation #2: We received documents as part of a "freedom of information act" request (the EU version, named differently) which we published here. Those include numbers for 2022 and the head count, among other things. https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed
    - bilekas 1y ago
      > You throw your computer out of the window, quit your regulatory job and vote "Yes" on Brexit. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. > Okay okay, yes, this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison: The EUDAMED team had to spend time on the upfront work modelling the data structures (not that the end result is super great), and they also had to build the whole "entering data" kind of stuff which our solution doesn't have. Sure, the EUDAMED team had more work. But 300x more work? This is something we hear all too often and it never passes the smell test. "Well you finished that feature in 1 day so I can give you 5 features for this week" It's not the same. I agree it could be better, but there are graph databases with the data that work extremely well for my requests anyway. But sure, you offer a right click solution. Great, but I "imagine" it doesn't fit everyone's requirements. Let alone any legacy integrations that might already be there.
techn00 1y ago
I agree 100% with everything you've said, and I'm from the EU. EU companies are burning and pocketing as much money as they can for themselves while delivering sub-par software.
qznc 1y ago
I found the flow quite intuitive. 1. Open website 2. Click "Explore Options". 3. I see five options depending on if I want filter/ad-blocking/child protection. Each with a plus-button. 4. Click a plus-button and it shows what to use for IPv4, IPv6, HTTPs, and TLS. I don't think it is perfect (step 2 feels unnecessary) but it is one of the good websites in my opinion.
- olieidel 1y ago
  Compare this with Cloudflare: 1. Open website 2. See the IP 1.1.1.1. Copy. Done. I do get your point - and, sure, the EU website is not catastrophically terrible. But, damn, if I'm looking for a DNS, I just want the IP, I don't want five options and the mental overhead of having to determine why the hell I now am faced with five options for a DNS, which one I should choose, how they differ, etc., etc.. Add all of the IPv4/6 stuff on top of that, and.. oh man, I feel like you've lost 90%+ of interested people already.
  - mzajc 1y ago
    I agree that the DNS4EU website is not designed very well, but CF's isn't any better - sure it shows the IP up front, but immediately below is the incredibly non-descriptive tagline of "The free app that makes your Internet safer." and download links for some kind of unrelated software (looks like a proxy? CF says it helps me "Connect to the Internet faster and in a more secure way.", and that "The Cloudflare WARP client blah blah faster, more secure, and more private experience online blah blah The WARP client sits between your device and the Internet, blah blah"). I'm just looking for DNS configuration instructions, why are they asking me to download software.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
arp242 1y ago
Four devs and/or sysadmins: €400k Add management and other overhead: €100k Overhead from "international consortium of members from 10 EU countries": €500k I'm just making up numbers here, but this is roughly how it usually works. A lot of these EU projects are huge "design by committee" efforts, with all the associated downsides. It's not really a "EU thing though", but more of a "government thing". Or perhaps more accurately: "private companies doing work for government" thing. Defence contractors in the US are notorious for having their snout in the trough. How much was spent on that UK Post Office accounting system? A billion pounds IIRC? And that "contact tracing" COVID app that didn't even work was a few dozen million quid IIRC. There is an endless list of examples from many countries.
- olieidel 1y ago
  Yeah, 100% agreed!
- exceptione 1y ago
  > but more of a "government thing". slight improvement: "more of a not government thing". Neo-liberal dogma tells us that `public services == bad`, government should hand out contracts to commercial sector, aka "small government". Commercial sector gets dependent on government, and takes on politics as part of the business. You end up with State Capture. That means that the "real world" government is shifted outside public control. > Defence contractors in the US are something else entirely. keyword: political economy
JimDabell 1y ago
> Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? Why are you acting as if the scope of this project is dumping bind on a server somewhere? They are operating filters and threat detection. The scope is obviously wider than just “setting up a DNS server”.
exceptione 1y ago
I am in for better public documentation about the various software initiatives the EU supports in general. The reporting seems to follow the internal governments process and structure in form, rather than having some external user in mind. The EU funds various highly useful, difficult projects across the globe. They make use of lean foundations who are highly knowledgeable in their area of expertise with a focus on delivering improvements for the public. The EU supports even non-EU citizens open source innovations, for example projects with a focus on novel p2p techniques, open hardware etc. I have a problem with the general "omg public good, money waste" learned response from some other commenters. Neo liberal dogma's are just that, and they end up convincing the public to give consent to State capture. To me the more interesting critique would have been why DNS is not considered public infrastructure, instead of leaving that to commercial control only.

Tijdreiziger 1y ago

From the page: > The DNS4EU Public Service is operated by the Czech cybersecurity company Whalebone.

bilekas 1y ago
Given the OP just complained about reading 3 lines it's safe to assume they didn't get that far.

lloeki 1y ago

> 1. Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? Maybe ask Cloudflare how much 1.1.1.1 costs them? > 2. you get the impression that the designers took great care to obfuscate the actual product as much as possible I don't see that being limited to "EU-funded software project". It seems like nobody has a clue how to make landing pages anymore. That said: https://www.joindns4.eu/about https://www.joindns4.eu/about first Q, first sentence of A: > What is DNS4EU? > DNS4EU is an initiative by the European Commission that aims to offer an alternative to the public DNS resolvers currently dominating the market.

i5heu 1y ago
Does this service has the same user count as 1.1.1.1? If not then why should this be relevant?
- gpvos 1y ago
  Not yet obviously, they just started. 1.1.1.1 started with 0 users too.
- bilekas 1y ago
  I don't know the finer details of this project that's being launched, but if I'm setting up a global DNS server, I want to make sure it stays up all the time, it's kind of the point. It's not a project that "We will scale when we reach out limit". So I imagine there's a significant initial payment.
  - i5heu 1y ago
    I never said that 1M EUR is too much. And yeh you are right, you want a global DNS server to be global. Nonetheless Cloudflare has more POPs of their DNS server as this project and a lot lot more traffic as this project just starts. So i think that the comparison is not useful at all. An better question is why they did not take more money and build an alternative to the root servers on top of it, or a super low cost registrar (for self cost like CF). I would absolutely love too see more from this project and less of bad comparisons that are knee jerk comparisons.

varispeed 1y ago

[flagged]

bilekas 1y ago
> as any critique of the EU seems to be met with universal outrage. Absolutely not, in fact as an EU citizen, I am the first to call out issues and complain about things getting changed. That's why there are nicer privacy protections for example in the EU. That said, the comment doesn't really apply to "only EU". > a simple database with ~500k entries (~10GB on disk), which has burned €45M (!) so far and employs a team of ~50 people "Burned €45M" with zero citiation, on even where the funding goes to, there are lot of regulations around medical databases, and for good reason. Tell me outside the EU doesn't have overblown budgets also?
- olieidel 1y ago
  Citation #1: Navigate to https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/analysis.html https://ec.europa.eu/budget/financial-transparency-system/an... 1. Enter "subject of grant or contract" = "eudamed" [enter] 2. Receive the numbers until 2022 inclusive (2023 is incomplete). 3. Extrapolate conservatively. Citation #2: We received documents as part of a "freedom of information act" request (the EU version, named differently) which we published here. Those include numbers for 2022 and the head count, among other things. https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed https://openregulatory.com/articles/beudamed-better-eudamed
  - bilekas 1y ago
    > You throw your computer out of the window, quit your regulatory job and vote "Yes" on Brexit. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. > Okay okay, yes, this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison: The EUDAMED team had to spend time on the upfront work modelling the data structures (not that the end result is super great), and they also had to build the whole "entering data" kind of stuff which our solution doesn't have. Sure, the EUDAMED team had more work. But 300x more work? This is something we hear all too often and it never passes the smell test. "Well you finished that feature in 1 day so I can give you 5 features for this week" It's not the same. I agree it could be better, but there are graph databases with the data that work extremely well for my requests anyway. But sure, you offer a right click solution. Great, but I "imagine" it doesn't fit everyone's requirements. Let alone any legacy integrations that might already be there.

techn00 1y ago

I agree 100% with everything you've said, and I'm from the EU. EU companies are burning and pocketing as much money as they can for themselves while delivering sub-par software.

qznc 1y ago

I found the flow quite intuitive. 1. Open website 2. Click "Explore Options". 3. I see five options depending on if I want filter/ad-blocking/child protection. Each with a plus-button. 4. Click a plus-button and it shows what to use for IPv4, IPv6, HTTPs, and TLS. I don't think it is perfect (step 2 feels unnecessary) but it is one of the good websites in my opinion.

olieidel 1y ago
Compare this with Cloudflare: 1. Open website 2. See the IP 1.1.1.1. Copy. Done. I do get your point - and, sure, the EU website is not catastrophically terrible. But, damn, if I'm looking for a DNS, I just want the IP, I don't want five options and the mental overhead of having to determine why the hell I now am faced with five options for a DNS, which one I should choose, how they differ, etc., etc.. Add all of the IPv4/6 stuff on top of that, and.. oh man, I feel like you've lost 90%+ of interested people already.
- mzajc 1y ago
  I agree that the DNS4EU website is not designed very well, but CF's isn't any better - sure it shows the IP up front, but immediately below is the incredibly non-descriptive tagline of "The free app that makes your Internet safer." and download links for some kind of unrelated software (looks like a proxy? CF says it helps me "Connect to the Internet faster and in a more secure way.", and that "The Cloudflare WARP client blah blah faster, more secure, and more private experience online blah blah The WARP client sits between your device and the Internet, blah blah"). I'm just looking for DNS configuration instructions, why are they asking me to download software.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

arp242 1y ago

Four devs and/or sysadmins: €400k Add management and other overhead: €100k Overhead from "international consortium of members from 10 EU countries": €500k I'm just making up numbers here, but this is roughly how it usually works. A lot of these EU projects are huge "design by committee" efforts, with all the associated downsides. It's not really a "EU thing though", but more of a "government thing". Or perhaps more accurately: "private companies doing work for government" thing. Defence contractors in the US are notorious for having their snout in the trough. How much was spent on that UK Post Office accounting system? A billion pounds IIRC? And that "contact tracing" COVID app that didn't even work was a few dozen million quid IIRC. There is an endless list of examples from many countries.

olieidel 1y ago
Yeah, 100% agreed!
exceptione 1y ago
> but more of a "government thing". slight improvement: "more of a not government thing". Neo-liberal dogma tells us that `public services == bad`, government should hand out contracts to commercial sector, aka "small government". Commercial sector gets dependent on government, and takes on politics as part of the business. You end up with State Capture. That means that the "real world" government is shifted outside public control. > Defence contractors in the US are something else entirely. keyword: political economy

JimDabell 1y ago

> Does it really take you a million Euros to set up a DNS server? Why are you acting as if the scope of this project is dumping bind on a server somewhere? They are operating filters and threat detection. The scope is obviously wider than just “setting up a DNS server”.

exceptione 1y ago

I am in for better public documentation about the various software initiatives the EU supports in general. The reporting seems to follow the internal governments process and structure in form, rather than having some external user in mind. The EU funds various highly useful, difficult projects across the globe. They make use of lean foundations who are highly knowledgeable in their area of expertise with a focus on delivering improvements for the public. The EU supports even non-EU citizens open source innovations, for example projects with a focus on novel p2p techniques, open hardware etc. I have a problem with the general "omg public good, money waste" learned response from some other commenters. Neo liberal dogma's are just that, and they end up convincing the public to give consent to State capture. To me the more interesting critique would have been why DNS is not considered public infrastructure, instead of leaving that to commercial control only.