14 DAY TRIAL // The Taiwanese government plans to block Google's public DNS service. Officially, this will be done out of cybersecurity concerns.
Since Google's DNS will be blocked, the government plans to push its own DNS service, which pretty much translates into a spying method.
The announcement was made via a presentation posted on the Government's Internet Service Network (GSN) news page. There, they describe the issue they have with Google's service, namely that it can be spoofed.
"If you can reduce the use of restricted sources, then with the appropriate DNS protection mechanism, you can effectively reduce the risk of DNS spoofing," notes the file, The Register reports. The numerous diagrams the file contains make it clear that Google's public DNS system should be viewed as one of these restricted sources.
It seems the problem the Taiwanese government has is related to the fact that many people use Google's DNS service to circumvent firewalls, such as the Great Chinese Firewall, giving them access to a wealth of websites and services they are normally banned access from.
The DNS service the Taiwanese government has put together to search the Internet with ISP HiNet, which is owned by Chunghwa Telecom, is promoted in many of the diagrams present in the file.
Few details available
At this point, it's unclear whether Google's DNS will be blocked for government employees only, or for the entire country, but one thing is clear - only DNS requests that go through the government-made service will be allowed, while the others will be prohibited.
This seems to be just another method of control over what people can and cannot see on the Internet. Not only that, but it's also a way to monitor what sites everyone visits since it can be used quite easily as a means of mass surveillance.
That point being made, Google too surely collects plenty of data and there's no information about what it does with it. Things are different, however, when it's your government that's collecting information on you.
Earlier this year, HiNet broadband and mobile service users encountered issues when trying to access Facebook, YouTube, Google and Gmail.