EDIT: So because of my $0 budget and the fact that my uptime is around 50% (PC, no additional servers) I ended up using NextDNS. For the time being it works (according to dnsleaktest), an added benefit was improved ad-blocking (100% in this tool). I now have plans for a proper router in the future with a Pi-hole. Thanks so much for all the info & suggestions, definitely learnt a lot.
So it turns out I got myself into an ISP that was shittier than expected (I already knew it was kinda shitty), they DNS hijack for whatever reason and I can’t manually set my own DNS on my router or even my devices.
Cyber security has never been my forte but I’m always trying to keep learning as I go. I’ve read that common solutions involve using a different port (54) or getting a different modem/router or just adding a router.
Are they all true? Whats the cheapest, easiest way of dealing with all of this?
Change the DNS servers on you devices to a DoT or DoH provider.
The ISP can’t intercept and rewrite your requests if they are in a secure session.
So is your ISP blocking or redirecting outgoing requests on port 53? You said you can’t set dns servers on your own devices so I’m just trying to understand why that doesn’t work.
So is your ISP blocking or redirecting outgoing requests on port 53?
Correct.
Wow. What kind of bullshit ISP blocks outbound DNS requests? I would bitch loudly at them as they have no valid excuse for doing that. Anyway… In that case you have a few options. You can use DNS over https but that’s supported primarily by browsers. Not so much other desktop applications. I would get a router that’s capable of WireGuard and connect it to ProtonVPN (or another VPN service of your choice). You don’t have to route all traffic over VPN if you don’t want to but at least you’ll be able to use whatever DNS server you want.
PiHole can be configured to use DoH, as can OpnSense and presumably other local DNS and router servers.
US ISPs. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you own enough politicians
If you have the option to use a DNS on a different port, you can take a look at OpenNIC. There are a number of servers available that answer on multiple ports. Development has been stalled for a few years now but we’re still keeping the back-end stuff running. You can find info at https://www.opennic.org/ and https://servers.opennic.org/
Set up your router to use DNS-over-HTTPS if it supports it.
If not you can install Adguard Home somewhere, set your devices to use that for DNS, and set it to use DNS-over-HTTPS for the upstream servers.
Why can you not set your own DNS on your devices?
If you mean you can’t set your DNS automatically that would be due to DHCP. You can setup your own DHCP server and set the DNS IP to whatever you want (8.8.8.8 etc).
PiHole should handle all this for you all while blocking ads and being a local DNS resolver.
Why can you not set your own DNS on your devices?
I can, they get redirected to my ISPs DNS, no matter what. This was not an issue with my pervious company.
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How are you detecting this? Just curiosity
Look into Pi-hole. It’s an easy-to-setup DNS server which can run on a Raspberry Pi (or a Linux desktop/server if you have one.) You can then set your devices’ DNS servers to the local address where the Pi-hole is running. Since it would be running on your local network, any requests to it shouldn’t go through your ISP in the first place. I’d still recommend getting your own router anyways because this kind of ISP fuckery is more common than you’d expect. Plus, your exact configurations follow you anywhere you move. If you do end up getting one, set the local DNS server in the DHCP settings of your router to avoid having to set it on each device.
Doesn’t the RPi still go through the ISP? You’d still have to find a way to bypass their hijacking attempts, just on a different device this time.
Dot or doh will stop the DNS rewrites.
Adguard home is a better choice as it supports DoT and DoH, which OP will need to use to be able to bypass their ISPs DNS hijacking.
Pihole only supports unencrypted DNS on port 53 which is what the ISP is targeting.
Using your own router is the best way, I just finished setting up DoH, I am using a router with OpenWRT, so installed https-dns-proxy with luci-app-https-dns-proxy. It has options to hijack DNS so that all local devices will be routed to the router DNS even if they try to use a DNS server directly.
More information can be found here.
Just throwing out a couple of other solutions I didn’t see mentioned for DoH/DoT:
- CoreDNS
- Blocky
Both of those support encryption and allow for DNSBL. If you are wanting to hand out DNS entries over DHCP it may a problem with your ISPs router there. Either replace it, sit one you do control between it and your network, or run DHCP snooping from a switch to restrict it’s DHCP.
This Blocky?
Will keep them in mind, thanks a lot.
Yep, that’s the one. You just set your upstream default to something like tcp-tls:1.1.1.1:853 for DoT (which is what I use anyway).
Good documentation on other features like adblocking,caching,etc: https://0xerr0r.github.io/blocky/v0.21/configuration/
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