> Il 08/10/2020 06:16 Barry Leiba via Datatracker <[email protected]> ha scritto:
> 
> On her second point, I’ll go in a different direction: it’s bordering on silly
> to think that any real end user can be said to “be aware of and have the
> ability to control” anything related to DNS settings and resolution options. 
> If “users” refers to those of us writing these specs, sure.  But when we’re
> talking about our siblings and cousins and parents, who are doctors and 
> nurses,
> chefs and bakers, bank tellers and car mechanics, there is no hope of 
> awareness
> and understanding of the choices and their consequences, nor that any form of
> “communicate clearly” will really accomplish anything.  I see little to
> recommend pretending that it will.

I see your point, but then, this clashes with the picture of "8.8.8.8" painted 
on a wall in Istanbul that has been abundantly circulated as evidence in favour 
of encrypted DNS, to support the importance of letting average users control 
their choice of DNS resolvers when they do not trust their government and their 
Internet access provider.

As another example, a few days ago I was checking online discussion forums for 
user reviews of a new fiber provider, and one of the most often noted points 
was that their CPE doesn't let users change the DNS settings that are then 
broadcast to devices via DHCP(*). It was not a minor issue; several messages in 
the thread were discussing it, with some people even saying "this is the reason 
why I am not choosing them". Of course only smarter users go to an online forum 
and discuss fiber providers, yet these were in no way DNS professionals or even 
Internet professionals.

So I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle - most users do not care or 
even understand what DNS is, but lots of them do, especially when one of the 
two following motivations comes up:
1. "the Internet" doesn't work because the resolvers don't work, or
2. changing DNS resolvers allows access to previously forbidden content (for 
multiple, differently desirable cases of "forbidden").

IMHO there is enough of these two cases to warrant preserving the user's 
ability to control the choice of resolvers if they want (except that, in my 
opinion, in democratic countries they should never be allowed to use this 
ability to circumvent their own national laws and policies, but I know that 
some people disagree).


(*) which, by the way, made me think that those recommendations should not only 
apply to "applications".

-- 
Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
[email protected] 
Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy

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