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Distributed P2P DNS

I was thinking about how a DNS provider could reduce latency and how the goal is to be as close to the user as possible.  I realized that even with Cloudflare and Amazon you still can’t be close to every user with any method except maybe P2P.  If there was a way to do that, you could get really close to the user, on the same networks, maybe even in the same neighborhoods?  Obviously this would require something running on the peers, that they be on, and I’m not sure of the security aspects though I suppose that could be adequately encrypted.  Of course the biggest question is if there would be much of any performance gain to be had… but it was an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

3 replies

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    • Hey
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I won't mention the services name exactly but a DNS provider was/is having issues in India because of iffy servers that they have to use. So even with at least good bandwidth and more power than the average PC at minimum they are having problems. So for this idea to work people would need to be able to function as a DNS and for phones etc that's extremely difficult. (Turning websites into IP addresses in a respectable time.) if they filter and forward the requests that is even more iffy and only adds additional time. That would help if the service was new and had problems processing/filtering the requests. In that case having devices filter and forward them would be helpful. But otherwise there would be a middleman with an unknown bandwidth (internet speed / data cap) that could try taking the requests but not handle them well. So is it possible yes, but it would mean the device is now working and always doing something, battery consumption for phones and idle CPU usage for PCs, and possibly additional time for the users devices and a lot more issues throughout. Devices that don't have standards (User devices and Server type Critical devices have different Standards and Uses) and that can be unstable.

    This is a lot of risk to take when every millisecond matters. Although this is my personal knowledge so the best answer is still going to be from the NextDNS people.

    • Hey
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    They are also doing something similar but more stable, you can find out about it on their website. Here is a quote from it.

    "Embedded within carriers' networks in major metropolitan areas — minimizing hops and delivering unbeatably low latency at the edge."

    The listed ISP/Carriers are

    Verizon

    AT&T

    Vodafone

    AU (Japanese Carrier)

    SK Telecom (South Korean Carrier)

     

    Basically they are already doing this type of technology like how Nextflix does by putting their servers into local carrier Networks to help with conjunction.

    • Siam_Mehedi
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    P2P DNS, maybe a good feature, but it does create security problem with malicious devices logging the client ips and domains and selling them to the dark web, it's only good as a option in settings on my.nextdns.io, if they do that, then the logs will be disabled immediately only if listed on description and they have to create software to protect against logging(only if logs are collected before deleting) from malicious ips, such that it distributes and load balances the shit out of all queries. Good idea, but they have to implement how to anonymize client ips and domains to ensure that anyone running that server doesn't get a sneak peek of the logs.

Content aside

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