Rostelecom proposed banning public DNS servers Google and Cloudflare

Rostelecom proposed to ban the use of public DNS servers of Google, Cloudflare and the DoH service. Although the company explains the initiative by “improving the reliability and optimizing the operation of communication networks,” in reality this is necessary to limit access to blocked resources, writes . RBC

According to the newspaper, on September 8, Rostelecom sent a letter to the macro-regional branches of the company, in which it proposed to prohibit access to the use of public DNS servers. In particular, Rostelecom proposed to ban public DNS servers Google (with IP addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) and Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1), as well as the DoH protocol. Instead of Google and Cloudflare servers, Rostelecom wants to use its own DNS servers or IP addresses of the National Domain Name System. As RBC explains, using public DNS services, a user can speed up the loading of web pages, protect themselves from fraudulent spoofing (when one site is disguised as another), and also get to resources prohibited in the country, since operators do not see which resource the subscriber accessed . It is the last option that does not suit the authorities.

As Stanislav Shakirov, technical director of Roskomsvoboda, explained to RBC, Rostelecom transfers its clients to use other servers in advance in case of possible blocking of Google and Cloudflare public DNS servers. On September 9, Navalny’s IT specialist Artem Ionov said that he had just fixed a short-term “blocking of public DNS services CF 1.1.1.1 and Google 8.8.8.8 plus public URLs of these services by the ILV.” on the partial blocking of Google and Cloudflare DNS services also reported Mikhail Klimarev, an expert from the Internet Protection Society, in his Telegram channel. He noted that the WireGuard VPN protocol was also completely blocked.

If the authorities decide to actually block public DNS servers, this will lead to major failures: according to Shakirov, “many systems” will fall, and users of gadgets running on the Android operating system will suffer the most, since “this platform uses Google DNS inside its services” . Aleksey Lukatsky, an independent expert in the field of information security, agrees with him. “This can provoke unpredictable consequences. Many services and applications have these public DNS servers, blocking which will stop or disrupt their work, ”the expert warns.

• The authorities began to fight with foreign IT companies for political reasons. In September, the RKN threatened to equate assistance in bypassing Alexei Navalny's Smart Voting block with election interference. Roskomnadzor said that more than 10 foreign providers now provide blocking bypass tools, including Google, Cloudflare and Cisco. The Navalny app, which the RKN requires to be blocked, displays messages from the politician’s website, access to which was restricted in Russia in the summer of 2021. In addition, there is a "Smart Voting" function.