DNS Privacy Vs.

Thursday, June 23, 2022 - 2:50 pm3:35 pm

Mallory Knodel, Center for Democracy & Technology, and Shivan Kaul Sahib, Brave Software

Abstract: 

There is a need to catalogue and treat the predominant emerging tensions that impact the public interest, introduced by DNS privacy measures. One of the most recent examples is that when internet protocols like DNS-over-HTTPS made DNS lookup more private for the user, it had an initial adverse affect on internet measurements, it consolidated provision to large ISPs and service providers, it made abuse mitigation harder, it broke browser add-ons for accessibility tools, and it provoked internet shutdowns and censorship measures. And yet, it is in the public interest and the interest of the internet protocol standards community to continue pushing privacy-respecting protocols. The panel is a call to the community to properly research tensions as they emerge, informed as much as possible by the effects on end users. A draft paper summarizes these emerging tensions in the case of Private DNS and points towards better mitigations in the public interest.

Mallory Knodel, Center for Democracy & Technology

Mallory Knodel is the CTO at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, DC. She is the co-chair of the Human Rights and Protocol Considerations research group of the Internet Research Task Force, co-chair of the Stay Home Meet Only Online working group of the IETF and an advisor to the Freedom Online Coalition. Mallory takes a human rights, people-centred approach to technology implementation and cybersecurity policy advocacy. Originally from the US, she has worked with grassroots organisations around the world. She has used free software throughout her professional career and considers herself a public interest technologist. She holds a BS in Physics and Mathematics and an MA in Science Education.

Shivan Kaul Sahib, Brave Software

Shivan Kaul Sahib works on privacy at Brave Software, where he focuses on shipping privacy features in the browser and conducting privacy reviews across the company. He is active in the IETF and W3C and previously worked on DNS traffic encryption and consent tooling. He has a keen interest in public interest technology and was previously a fellow at ARTICLE 19, a free expression charity in the UK. He studied Software Engineering at McGill University.

BibTeX
@conference {280296,
author = {Mallory Knodel and Shivan Kaul Sahib},
title = {{DNS} Privacy Vs.},
year = {2022},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}

Presentation Video