Configuring DNS-over-TLS on macOS
Note: this post has been updated to fix a mistake in the knot-resolver configuration. The earlier version would not have provided the privacy it purported to. I regret the error.
Until yesterday I hadn’t thought too much about DNS metadata leakage. Here’s how it works: your computer sends out a request to resolve a DNS hostname, let’s say “topsecretwebsite.example,” and your DNS server responds back with its IP address in a way that’s easy to eavesdrop on. It’s wild that the Internet works like this by default.
What happened yesterday is a company called CloudFlare (a popular and free content delivery network) announced a new DNS service at the IP address 1.1.1.1. (Yes it launched on April 1, no it’s not a joke.) The service supports a couple of interesting privacy protecting options: DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS. Those technologies don’t guarantee your DNS lookups are accurate (check out DNSSEC for that), or that the DNS provider won’t someday betray you, they just make it’s harder to collect metadata by listening in on DNS’s cleartext port 53.
287(g) public hearing
Tonight my first radio segment for Hudson Mohawk Magazine aired on WOOC 105.3 FM in Troy, NY. To provide some context on the public hearing, maybe I’ll just post the lead in script I provided for the hosts.
At Wednesday night’s Public Forum at the County Legislature, Troy residents Nora McDowell and Alexander Ferrer (FER-ERR) spoke out against the proposed 287(g) funding application that Sheriff Patrick Russo has sought from the Department of Homeland Security. Under the arrangement, Rensselaer County would be the first in New York State to collaborate with federal ICE agents. After the forum, WOOC reporter Dan Phiffer (FIE-FUR) spoke to County Legislator Peter Grimm.
You can also read more on no287g.com, a small website I created for the (cancelled) protest.
RIP Joe Frank
One of the great radio voices is gone. This is from Time- Old from a collection of Hearing Voices on PRX.
If billions of years preceded our existence on Earth, billions of years will surely follow after our existence as well. So that our life here is like one flash of a strobe light. The wink of an eye. And if your life is merely a microscopic blip in the vast dimension of time, is its importance to you just an illusion?
Also worth a listen: Dreamers on Unfictional
Mapzen Exit Interview
I gave an “exit interview” to the Civicist blog, talking about the Mapzen shutdown.
The code and data were always designed to outlive the company … basically we were always working on open geo primarily, and a lot of that work feels more durable than any particular company.