Hi Warren,

On Wed, Oct 07, 2020 at 04:39:54PM -0400, Warren Kumari wrote:

> 4.1.  The Public Nature of DNS Data
> 
>    It is often stated that "the data in the DNS is public".  This sentence
>    makes sense for an Internet-wide lookup system,  and there
>    are multiple facets to the data and metadata involved that deserve a
>    more detailed look.  First, access control lists (ACLs) and private
>    namespaces notwithstanding, the DNS operates under the assumption
>    that public-facing authoritative name servers will respond to "usual"
>    DNS queries for any zone they are authoritative for without further
>    authentication or authorization of the client (resolver).  Due to the
>    lack of search capabilities, only a given QNAME will reveal the
>    resource records associated with that name (or that name's non-
>    existence).  In other words: one needs to know what to ask for, in
>    order to receive a response. However, there are many ways in
>    in which supposed "private" resources leak, including DNSSEC
>   NSEC zone walking [REF]; passive-DNS services [ref]; employees
>   taking their laptops home (where they may use a different resolver),
>   and refreshing names which should only exist in their enterprise
> environment, etc.

I think this text is mixing too many aspects that are (or should eventually be)
covered in other parts of the document.  The antipodes are _not_ 'public'
and 'secret'.  The purpose of that section was to exactly counter the
too narrow perception that 'all data in the DNS is public' (which by the
way, was a usual counter argument to NSEC3) to help motivate the need
for further dealing with DNS privacy.  It does not suggest to store secrets
in the DNS.  The original text, I believe - biased as might be - did and does 
clearly
differentiate betweeen residual data and transactions.  'passive DNS'
is not a feature of the DNS - it is a by-product and, from the perspective
of privacy, to be addressed under 'risks'.

-Peter

_______________________________________________
dns-privacy mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dns-privacy

Reply via email to