Category: Web

Mar 15

Weekend Project: Try Out “Bloodhound”, A Web Browser With Full DNSSEC Support

bloodhoundHere is a quick project to try out this weekend… download and try out the Bloodhound web browser from the DNSSEC Tools Project.

This web browser is a modified version of Mozilla Firefox that supports local validation of DNSSEC and also usage of the DANE protocol.  The cool part about Bloodhound is that it validates ALL web addresses used in the building of a web page, i.e. it is not just validating only the main URL for a site.  Given that many web pages today make many calls to other web sites for various components and pieces of the site, Bloodhound will ensure that all of those are validated via DNSSEC.

Once you have Bloodhound installed, you can visit our lists:

where you should see failures happen when you attempt to go to the “bad” sites.

More information about how to configure Bloodhound is available on the DNSSEC Tools Project website.  The Bloodhound browser was created as an experimental project to advance DNSSEC deployment and as a test bed for how DNSSEC validation can be build directly into applications.  If you have feedback or would like to get more information, please see the bottom of the Bloodhound web page for how to get in touch with the folks at the DNSSEC Tools Project.

Mar 12

On The 25th Anniversary Of The Web, Let Us Keep It Open And Make It More Secure

Web 25th AnniversaryCan we even begin to count the ways the “Web” has affected all of our lives? Today is the 25th Anniversary of the proposal that led to the creation of the World Wide Web. Over at Webat25.org, Tim Berners-Lee, the W3C and the World Wide Web Foundation are celebrating this milestone with greetings from people all around the world, including Internet Society President and CEO Kathy Brown, who recorded a video greeting, as well as IETF Chair Jari Arkko and IAB Chair Russ Housely.  The WebAt25 effort is also promoting an active campaign on Twitter using the #web25 hashtag and is encouraging people everywhere to get more involved with efforts to ensure the Web remains an open platform for creativity, innovation and collaboration.

As our Leslie Daigle wrote in an excellent Internet Technology Matters post today, the Web is a prime example of how “permission-less innovation” enables the creation of new services that run on the Internet and also of both the global nature of the Internet and the value of open standards.

For us here at the Deploy360 Programme, our use of the Web is the critical cornerstone of our efforts to accelerate the deployment of key Internet technologies… even as most of the protocols (IPv6, DNSSEC, BGP) we promote are actually part of the underlying Internet infrastructure that makes services like the Web possible. Without the Web, we would not be able to bring you all the resources and news we bring you here, nor would we be able to share it with you through web-based social media. It is critical for our work.

On this day, we  join with the W3C, World Wide Web Foundation and so many others in celebrating this 25th anniversary and the amazing success of the Web. As we do so, though, we know that for the Web and other Internet services to prosper they need to not only continue to be as open as they have been in the past, but they also need to be more secure to protect the privacy and security of information. That is why we’ve worked so hard getting DNSSEC deployed more widely,  recently opened our new “TLS for Applications” topic area, and why we’re looking for your help to build more content to help application developers, website designers and many more people understand how to make the Web and other services more secure.

Thank you, Tim Berners-Lee, for the proposal 25 years ago that led to the creation of the World Wide Web, and for everything you’ve done to keep the Web open to all. We look forward to joining with people around the world to continue to keep the Web – and the Internet – open for all!