Hacker News Reader

Comment by xorcist | Hacker News Reader

It does certainly make it easier. Sure, we can survive without it, but cryptographic signing of dns records is useful for a number of things.

View on HN

Counterpoint: no it isn't, which is why virtually nobody uses it. Even the attack this thread centers on --- BGP hijacking of targeted DNSSEC servers to spoof CA signatures --- is a rounding error sidenote compared to the way DNS zones actually get hijacked in practice (ATO attacks against DNS providers).

If people were serious about this, they'd start by demanding that every DNS provider accept U2F and/or Passkeys, rather than the halfhearted TOTP many of them do right now. But it's not serious; it's just motivated reasoning in defense of DNSSEC, which some people have a weird stake in keeping alive.

You are again ignoring the fact that DNSSEC would have prevented a $152,000 hack. Yes, we are aware organizations are not always serious about security. For those that are though, DNSSEC is a helpful tool.

No, it isn't. It attempts and mostly fails to address one ultra-exotic attack, at absolutely enormous expense, principally because the Internet standards community is so path-dependent they can't take a bad cryptosystem designed in the mid-1990s back to the drawing board. You can't just name call your way to getting this protocol adopted; people have been trying to do that for years, and the net result is that North American adoption fell.

The companies you're deriding as unserious about security in general spend drastically more on security than the companies that have adopted it. No part of your argument holds up.

"at absolutely enormous expense"

Citation? A BGP hijack can be done for less than $100.

"You can't just name call your way to getting this protocol adopted"

I do not care if you adopt this protocol. I care that you accurately inform others of the documented risks of not adopting DNSSEC. There are organizations that can tolerate the risk. There are also organizations that are unaware because they are not accurately informed (due to individuals like yourself), and it is not covered by their security audits. That is unfortunate.

The cost I'm talking about is the defender's.

> Counterpoint: no it isn't, which is why virtually nobody uses it. Even the attack this thread centers on --- BGP hijacking of targeted DNSSEC servers to spoof CA signatures

Wait, wait, wait. How can you hijack a DNSSEC server? Its keys are enrolled in the TLD, and you can't spoof the TLD server, because its keys in turn are enrolled in the root zone. And the root zone trust anchor is statically configured on all machines.

DNS is an industry that has a race to bottom in terms of quality and price, and will generally avoid any costs in order to keep as much of the small margin they get between the costs from the TLD and the end user price. For many registrars and domains the margin sits around $0-1 per domain and year, and the real profit comes from uppsells and dark patterns that hikes up the price until the customer manage to leave.

High-end registrars that focus on portfolios and brand management generally do have any kind of authentication that the customers want, and the price will reflect that. Costumers are not just buying the service of a middle man that acts as a go-between the TLD and the domain owner.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com