DNSWeight: Quantifying Country-Wise Importance of Domain Name System

Abstract

DNS (Domain Name System) is one fundamental Internet infrastructure related to most network activities. As a feasible tool to govern the Internet, DNS's stability and interoperability will be impacted by the countries' policies or actions along the path. Especially now that many countries have stricter control over the Internet and even sometimes "unplug" it. But there was no study to quantify the countries' impact systematically. To fill this research gap, we present DNSWeight. This new data-driven approach utilizes a large-scale DNS dataset and BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) routing information to calculate the country-importance score so that a country's impact on DNS can be gauged. By applying DNSWeight on large-scale DNS and BGP datasets jointly, our study shows the importance among different countries is divided. A handful of countries show dominant significance to the current DNS ecosystem. Some countries with a history of Internet shutdowns are too influential to be ignored if they choose to break themselves from the Internet. We also examine the impact of IPv6 (IP Version 6) and reveal the "loop" phenomenon that occurs in some DNS queries. In conjunction with our findings, some discussion and suggestions are given. In summary, our study shows that DNS reliability needs to be reconsidered at the country's level.

DNS is the Internet Pivotal Basics and Fundamental

“…On March 10th, at the 73rd annual video conference of ICANN (ICANN 73) [14], the Middle East representative of AFRINIC, the management organization of Africa, issued a "statement" on "digital signature and verification of DNSSEC": It is emphasized that DNS is crucial to ensure the continuity of network services. Defective or invalid DNS services will have a negative impact on the experience of any institution and organization (including customers, partners or employees), affect e-commerce applications, cause loss of revenue and damage the brand image.…”