As a network guy, the fact that I can transparently redirect DNS on my network to wherever I need to is a nice feature.
As a user of the public internet, it feels like a bug.
As much hassle as things like DoH can be for securing and enforcing policy on a network, it’s about time it became ubiquitous enough that governments can’t leverage DNS for their own purposes anymore.
Balkanization of the Internet is inevitable. As more and more people join it, there will be conflict between beliefs, values, and politics. Large markets like EU, India can keep companies aligned, but for smaller nations it will be easier to just selectively block global platforms and have local/compliant alternatives. China has shown it is possible and profitable.
> pornography/obscene content (31 per cent), copyright infringement (14 per cent)
> We reiterate that Malaysia’s implementation is for the protection of vulnerable groups from harmful online content.
Who could possibly be harmed by pornography or, even more ridiculous, copyright infringement? Feels like a lame excuse.
Internet censorship in my country (Russia) started the same way — "we're protecting children from suicide and drugs", but for some reason you couldn't opt out of the "protection" as an adult. To no one's surprise, over time, more and more things to non-consensually "protect" people from were added. In the end, unless you stick exclusively with local services, Russian-language content, and government-owned media, the internet is utterly broken without a VPN, packet fragmenter or other anti-censorship solution. Popular VPN protocols are also starting getting blocked, btw. All for your own safety, of course!
> Websites are only blocked when they are found to host malicious content, such as copyright infringements, online gambling, or pornography
So I guess pornography is illegal in Malaysia?
I guess this is a great time for Malaysian users to switch to DoH.
Edit: Yes. Wikipedia:
> Pornography is illegal in Malaysia with fines of up to RM10,000 for owning or sharing pornographic materials
In this case, the "malicious sites" that the government approved DNS providers block almost certainly includes life saving LGBT resources. It will not stop there however, expect anything anti government to be blocked. Democracy does not have a good track record in Malaysia.
Of course there are still ways around this. Use a good VPN like Proton.
This is still for sure going to be copied by authoritarian regimes worldwide.
The tension between borderless internet vs national sovereignty is one of most important meta-conflicts occurring in the world today. What can be critiqued as draconian authoritarianism on one hand, can be defended as digital sovereignty on the other.
Maybe the time to start a grassroots network for exchanging giant /etc/hosts files.
Due to the public backlash, Malaysia has changed their stance and not proceeding with mandating of DNS redirection. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2024/09/1102836/updated-m...
I'm wondering if they thought about DoT, DoH and DNSCrypt.
TLS Encrypted Client Hello (ECH). Not sure of how difficult it will be to implement, but I would think it'd make DNS over QUIC (or whatever the DNS over HTTP/3 is) more robust against blocking.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/encrypted-hello...
Malaysia, the land of:
>‘You have shown determination’: Malaysian PM praises Putin, pledges closer ties 2 days ago"
reminder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 43 Malaysians killed by Putin.
Also in Malaysia (coincidentally around same time) MCMC hard blocking of SMS which contain URLs. Not clear if there's someway to whitelist certain URLs/domains--does anyone know? Broke our TableCheck reservation notifications.
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2024/09/02/mcmc-ba...
> protection provided by the local ISP’s DNS servers and that malicious sites are inaccessible to Malaysians.
I'd really be curious if said "protection" is actually real...
Between dynamic domain name generation (ala malware), and (potentially) a lack of public review... this sounds more like smoke and mirrors.
Hopefully there is a way for users to set up a VPN and get access to a better DNS server without triggering the redirect.
Reminder: Malaysia is an officially Islamic country. It is strange given its location, but Islamization also took over other South and East Asian places as well, like the Maldives and Indonesia.
Malaysia has had a history of religious discrimination from both the state and citizens, despite there being a freedom to practice whatever religion you want. Their notion of religious freedom is also strange, since in order to be considered a Malay you MUST be Muslim. And Malays get all sorts of additional rights and privileges (such as affirmative action). The country also has Sharia law courts - and this is a very real problem for personal freedom, because the Sharia court prevents Muslims from converting to other religions typically, and this forces people to have secret double lives, where privacy is critical.
Restrictions on Internet access or violations of privacy/anonymity are a serious problem for those who may run into trouble due to religious discrimination built into Malaysia’s culture and law. Do not accept official explanations like protecting people from harm or stopping misinformation - control over the internet will be abused.
Do FireFox, Chrome and Safari still use unencrypted channels for DNS queries?
What is the state of DNS over HTTPS?
Wouldn't this be trivial to get around by using DNS-over-TLS /QUIC?
nonetheless, a slippery slope
For all the Malaysians on HN, how are y’all planning to handle this?
This is just dns, so they don't get the entire url. I know, slippery slope and outrage and stuff, but at this point it is almost expected that any government in the world with access to sufficient IT skills would start political internet bans.
I have no problem with this. They are a sovereign country. Third party DNS, like Google, the aggregation of DNS query data could be used for nefarious or for-profit purposes. I encourage everyone to setup unbound.
Sad to see Malaysia relegate itself to yet another Islamist backwater. They had so much potential.
Does anyone host zone files for local dns?
Starlink sells and works there, will they block it? Also, how are they going to punish people with vpns and proxies?
Very scary...
...and again the number of people who know what a VPN is increases.
yet another country decides to protect people from harmful information. What is harmful -- well, the government will decide
„It’s for our own good“, lol. Don’t buy it. Don’t comply.
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> online gambling (39 per cent)
well well well. People on HN will be surprised to know that the internet is a complete shit hole. "I thought the internet was made for the good of humanity".
> It has been falsely claimed that the measure undertaken by MCMC is a draconian measure. We reiterate that Malaysia’s implementation is for the protection of vulnerable groups from harmful online content.
That's how it _always_ starts out, the "its for your own good, trust me" excuse.