Newer Cryptographic Advances for the Domain Name System: NSEC5 and Tokenized Queries

This is the third in a multi-part blog series on cryptography and the Domain Name System (DNS).

In my last post, I looked at what happens when a DNS query renders a “negative” response – i.e., when a domain name doesn’t exist. I then examined two cryptographic approaches to handling negative responses: NSEC and NSEC3. In this post, I will examine a third approach, NSEC5, and a related concept that protects client information, tokenized queries.

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Cryptographic Tools for Non-Existence in the Domain Name System: NSEC and NSEC3

This is the second in a multi-part blog series on cryptography and the Domain Name System (DNS).

In my previous post, I described the first broad scale deployment of cryptography in the DNS, known as the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). I described how a name server can enable a requester to validate the correctness of a “positive” response to a query — when a queried domain name exists — by adding a digital signature to the DNS response returned.

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Man looking at technical imagery

The Domain Name System: A Cryptographer’s Perspective

This is the first in a multi-part blog series on cryptography and the Domain Name System (DNS).

As one of the earliest protocols in the internet, the DNS emerged in an era in which today’s global network was still an experiment. Security was not a primary consideration then, and the design of the DNS, like other parts of the internet of the day, did not have cryptography built in.

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Meeting the Evolving Challenges of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, when it struck earlier this year, ushered in an immediate period of adjustment for all of us. And just as the challenges posed by COVID-19 in 2020 have been truly unprecedented, Verisign’s mission – enabling the world to connect online with reliability and confidence, anytime, anywhere – has never been more relevant. We are grateful for the continued dedication of our workforce, which enables us to provide the building blocks people need for remote working and learning, and simply for keeping in contact with each other.

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Lock image and DNS

A Balanced DNS Information Protection Strategy: Minimize at Root and TLD, Encrypt When Needed Elsewhere

Over the past several years, questions about how to protect information exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) have come to the forefront.

One of these questions was posed first to DNS resolver operators in the middle of the last decade, and is now being brought to authoritative name server operators: “to encrypt or not to encrypt?” It’s a question that Verisign has been considering for some time as part of our commitment to security, stability and resiliency of our DNS operations and the surrounding DNS ecosystem.

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Internet grows to 370.7 million domain name registrations at the end of the third quarter of 2020.

Verisign Q3 2020 Domain Name Industry Brief: Internet Grows to 370.7 Million Domain Name Registrations

Today, we released the latest issue of the Domain Name Industry Brief, which shows that the third quarter of 2020 closed with 370.7 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs), an increase of 0.6 million domain name registrations, or 0.2 percent, compared to the second quarter of 2020.1,2 Domain name registrations have grown by 10.8 million, or 3.0 percent, year over year.1,2

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