How to Understand BGP Routing Policies and DNS Privacy Trends

In a compelling study presented by Savvas Kastanakis, the development of BGP routing policies over the past 20+ years is laid bare, showcasing how the Internet's topology and governance have matured:

Key Metrics from the Study

• 1998: The Internet consisted of 3,549 ASes and 6,475 links.
• Only 13% of those links were shared-cost peering agreements, where two ASes agree to exchange traffic without payment.
• 2023: The Internet grew to 75,160 ASes and 494,508 links.
• A staggering 69% of the links were now shared-cost peering links.

This shift is monumental. It highlights the Internet’s move from a more hierarchical structure—dominated by customer-provider relationships—to a flatter, more decentralized web of peer-to-peer agreements.

Why Does This Matter?

From a technical perspective, these changes impact routing efficiency, resilience, and cost models. More peering links mean fewer hops and reduced latency for end users. From a business standpoint, the economic incentives are different: more peering deals reduce costs but require trust and coordination between providers.

The blog post by Kastanakis also emphasizes the importance of selective announcements, a policy that determines what routes an AS will advertise to others. Selective announcements are increasingly used to control traffic flow, manage network congestion, and even to implement security policies such as avoiding suspect AS paths that may indicate BGP hijacks.

What Students Should Learn

If you're a student of computer networks, understanding BGP goes beyond memorizing protocol mechanics. Real-world case studies—like those in our computer network assignment help resources—require an analysis of routing tables, AS path filtering, route reflectors, and even geopolitical implications of AS peerings.

2. OpenDNS Blocked in France and Portugal: DNS Censorship by Legal Ruling

The second major incident that networking students should examine is the judicial blocking of OpenDNS in France and Portugal. At first glance, it might seem like a technical outage, but the truth is far more nuanced—and legally significant.

What Happened?

OpenDNS, a well-known open DNS resolver, ceased operations in both countries—not due to technical issues, but because of court-mandated censorship.

• In France, companies (especially broadcasters and copyright holders) filed legal complaints against websites that streamed unauthorized live sports content.
• The courts ruled that DNS resolvers must block access to these offending domain names.
• Rather than implement per-country DNS filtering, OpenDNS disabled its service altogether in these regions.

This decision had collateral damage—particularly for IoT (Internet of Things) devices that were configured to use OpenDNS by default. These devices suddenly became non-functional in the affected countries, highlighting how centralized DNS configurations can be a vulnerability in globally deployed systems.

Implications for Network Designers and Students

• Legal Compliance vs Technical Neutrality: Should DNS providers be forced to block domains based on local laws, even if they operate globally?
• Centralization Risk: Relying on a single third-party resolver like OpenDNS can introduce availability issues and legal dependencies.
• Per-country Filtering: How can DNS filtering be implemented in a scalable, privacy-conscious way?

These are questions that often come up in higher-level assignments and research projects, and we actively support students in addressing such topics through our computer network assignment help service.

3. Forty Years of DNS: From Static Tables to Privacy-Preserving Protocols

If BGP is the Internet’s navigation system, then the Domain Name System (DNS) is its address book. On the APNIC blog, noted Internet researcher Geoff Huston provides a fascinating overview of DNS evolution over the past four decades—and why the future of DNS might not be about authentication (DNSSEC) but about privacy.

A Brief History

The Domain Name System, introduced in the 1980s, replaced the centralized HOSTS.TXT file approach with a hierarchical, distributed name resolution system. Over time, it grew to handle billions of queries per day and became a critical part of every Internet service.

Huston highlights the important RFCs (Request for Comments) that document key changes and advancements in DNS. While the early focus was on reliability and scalability, more recent work has addressed security and privacy.

Privacy Takes Center Stage

Interestingly, Huston spends more time discussing modern privacy-enhancing techniques like:

• DNS over TLS (DoT)
• DNS over HTTPS (DoH)
• DNS over QUIC (DoQ)

These protocols aim to encrypt DNS queries, making it harder for ISPs, governments, or attackers to snoop on users’ browsing habits.

On the other hand, DNSSEC, which aims to authenticate DNS responses and prevent spoofing or man-in-the-middle attacks, receives less attention. Despite being proposed decades ago, DNSSEC adoption remains sluggish, partly because of its complexity and lack of incentive for wide-scale deployment.

What This Means for Students

• Compare the performance of DoT, DoH, and DoQ
• Evaluate DNSSEC adoption among popular domains
• Assess the trade-offs between privacy and performance in encrypted DNS

If you're unsure where to begin, our computer network assignment help team can guide you through protocol implementation studies, simulations using Wireshark or dig/nslookup, and literature reviews of cutting-edge DNS privacy solutions.

Final Thoughts: Why This Matters for the Next Generation of Network Engineers

As we’ve explored, each of these three developments—BGP routing evolution, DNS censorship, and the rise of DNS privacy protocols—touches on critical aspects of Internet infrastructure.

For students, these are not just theoretical concepts but living technologies that shape the way we access the Internet every day. They're also active areas of research, debate, and innovation.

At computernetworkassignmenthelp.com, we believe that staying updated on these developments is essential for crafting informed assignments, projects, and even career paths in networking. Whether you're writing a paper on routing protocol design, working on a DNS filtering simulation, or preparing a presentation on Internet censorship, we’re here to assist.