A new bill to protect intellectual property may cause new security risks, according to Brookings Institute Fellow Allan Friedman. Bills in both the House and Senate aimed at protecting online privacy and intellectual property use risky DNS blocking protocols, says Friedman. The legislation will allow the federal government to order Internet Service Providers to block access to certain websites using DNS resolvers. The programs don’t actually eliminate the infringing sites themselves, but simply block access by “tricking” users into thinking the sites don’t exist.
Friedman says the problem with the bills is that “it’s very, very easy to get around DNS blocks. All you have to do is use a DNS resolver that’s not in the jurisdiction of the bill; it’s outside of America." By making DNS resolvers the answer for individuals looking to gain access to sites blocked by the federal government, demand for foreign made DNS resolvers will exist ? and these have already proven to be a haven for outside countries looking to trick users with malware.
The problem, according to Friedman, is that the bill fails to address the actual problem and opens up a new host of potential issues for U.S. users.
