That is correct Indian Government will soon launch a public Domain
Name Server (DNS) specifically for Indian users. The move is being made by
the government to provide faster and more secure internet browsing. Indian DNS
will target to make sure that the user data stays locally stored instead of
going to foreign institutes. It will provide credible DNS service to small
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who can’t afford to have one.
In an official release on 22nd
Feb, the Ministry of Electronics & IT, said, "MeitY will soon be
implementing the Public Domain Name Server for India. NIC would be configuring
the setup which would be offered to all citizens."
What Is DNS?
A DNS is like a directory or table for
internet which inter-relates domain names with hosting server’s IP address.
Domain name is easy for users to remember and computers only understand IP
addresses. DNS services make website loading speed faster. In case the DNS
server slows down or stops responding then the user won’t be able to access
internet websites using domain names. Quit confusing; let’s understand this
through an example
When you surf the
internet, you just type its name like ‘facebook.com’, ‘youtube.com’. You don’t
type its hosted computer’s IP address but, the computer can only understand the
IP to get you connected. There comes the DNS. It let’s your search engine
understand which website you are looking for by providing the hosted computer’s
IP, through given domain names.
Government
Of India is Launching Its Own DNS Fast & Safe Browsing
The ministry has said that the
aim of bringing India's own public DNS is to help small internet service
providers (ISPs) who do not have their own credible DNS. Other big providers
like the Google (Google Public DNS) have their own DNS.
Now, most of the
readers would be wondering if this new technology is going to help the
government in blocking content and enhance surveillance well for which you
must know that government doesn’t need any DNS to block content they can
do that easily by instructing the ISP. If the government wants to block a website, it has a mechanism in place. It can send a list to the ISPs for reasons such as child porn or fake news, and they have to comply with the order.
When a person uses a public DNS,
it accesses and uses all their data. The government's system will stop users
from visiting malicious websites, hence keeping them away from
cyber criminals.
The roll out of the public DNS is
expected to be completed in the next four to six months. The NIC is
currently using the public DNS within the government network. The
government has said users will be free to shift to the India public DNS. They also have plans
to make Indian citizens aware of online security and usage of DNS if they would
like to shift to Indian DNS.
Wrapping up, I would
say the educating citizens about online security and privacy is an
amazing idea, but being skeptical myself of governments’ surveillance
tactics I am not sure how the data will be used by the Government of India. But
it is quite clear that the user data will become very easy for the Indian government to
access.
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