Transparent Forwarders: An Unnoticed Component of the Open DNS Infrastructure

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Contributors

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the open DNS (ODNS) infrastructure and, for the first time, systematically measure and analyze transparent forwarders, DNS components that transparently relay between stub resolvers and recursive resolvers. Our key findings include four takeaways. First, transparent forwarders contribute 26% (563k) to the current ODNS infrastructure. Unfortunately, common periodic scanning campaigns such as Shadowserver do not capture transparent forwarders and thus underestimate the current threat potential of the ODNS. Second, we find an increased deployment of transparent forwarders in Asia and South America. In India alone, the ODNS consists of 80% transparent forwarders. Third, many transparent forwarders relay to a few selected public resolvers such as Google and Cloudflare, which confirms a consolidation trend of DNS stakeholders. Finally, we introduce DNSRoute++, a new traceroute approach to understand the network infrastructure connecting transparent forwarders and resolvers.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCoNEXT 2021 - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages454-462
Number of pages9
ISBN (electronic)9781450390989
Publication statusPublished - 2 Dec 2021
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesCoNEXT: International Conference On Emerging Networking Experiments And Technologies

Conference

TitleACM 17th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies
Abbreviated titleCoNEXT 2021
Conference number17
Duration7 - 10 December 2021
Website
Locationonline
CityMünchen
CountryGermany

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-3825-2807/work/142241902

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

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