NeTS: Small: Privacy and Performance over Third-party DNS

DNS（或域名系统）可以被认为是互联网的电话簿，负责将人类可读的域名（如www.example.com）转换为机器可读的IP地址（如129.105.36.48）。DNS在决定我们在线体验的质量方面起着至关重要的作用，它了解我们的品味、偏好，甚至我们拥有的设备。在过去的十年里，出现了许多承诺更好的性能、隐私和可靠性的DNS变体，包括公共DNS、DoH（通过HTTPS的DNS，一种在web浏览器和web服务器之间发送数据的安全方式）和DoT（通过TLS的DNS，一种安全的网络通信方法）。实现这些变体的服务依赖于由专业公司运行的全球基础设施，提供改进的性能和可靠性。隐私增强，特别是DoH和DoT，来自于在用户设备（笔记本电脑或智能手机）和DNS之间使用加密。然而，这些好处在范围上是有限的，因为(i) DNS提供商可以访问数百万用户的未加密请求，（ii）使用第三方DNS打破了一些内容分发网络（cdn）关于用户与其DNS之间接近的假设，导致最糟糕的网络体验，最后（iii）第三方DNS服务市场由少数提供商主导，除了其他问题外，任何单一故障的潜在影响都在增加。这项研究工作的目的是了解第三方DNS服务的影响，并开发技术，使用户能够从这些服务的增强隐私和性能中受益，而不会产生相关成本。作为这项工作的一部分，研究人员将研究表征和控制第三方DNS服务的用户隐私暴露的方法，以及表征和探索减轻全球第三方DNS服务性能影响的技术。利用获得的见解和经过验证的技术，调查人员将设计和评估最终用户可部署的解决方案，这些解决方案可以使用户在不增加成本的情况下利用第三方DNS服务的优势。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

DNS (or the Domain Name System) can be thought of as the phonebook of the Internet, responsible for translating human-readable domain names (such as www.example.com) to machine-readable IP addresses (something like 129.105.36.48). DNS plays a crucial role in determining the quality of our online experiences and is privy to our tastes, preferences, and even the devices we own. The last ten years have brought a number of DNS variants promising better performance, privacy, and reliability, including public DNS, DoH (DNS over HTTPS, a secure way to send data between a web browser and the web server), and DoT (DNS over TLS, an approach to secure network communication). The services implementing those variants rely on global infrastructures run by specialized companies, offering improved performance and reliability. Privacy enhancements, specifically in DoH and DoT, come from the use of encryption between a user’s device (a laptop or smartphone) and the DNS. These benefits, however, are limited in scope as (i) DNS providers can access the unencrypted request of millions of users, (ii) using third-party DNS breaks with the assumption made by some content distribution networks (CDNs) about the proximity between users and their DNS, resulting in worst web experiences, and last (iii) third-party DNS service market is dominated by a handful of providers increasing, among other concerns, the potential impact of any single failure.The objective of this research effort is to understand the impact of third-party DNS services and develop techniques that allow users to benefit from these services’ enhanced privacy and performance without incurring associated costs. As part of this effort, the researchers will investigate approaches to characterize and control user privacy exposure to third-party DNS services as well as characterize and explore techniques to mitigate the performance impact of third-party DNS services around the world. Leveraging the gained insights and proven techniques, the investigators will design and evaluate end-user deployable solutions that can allow users to leverage the benefits of third-party DNS services without their costs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.