Subject: [dns-privacy] Non-DNS traffic over port 53?

From: Warren Kumari <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 12:23:37 -0500

Hi there all,

First off, apologies for the lack of activity since Hawaii. We (the
chairs) have been procrastinating and got a little sidetracked with
day-jobs. We are finally getting our lives organized, getting github
setup for issue tracking, etc.

One of the open questions is how to deal with / how bad the infamous
middlebox problem is. This will somewhat dictate what solutions we are
able to consider / will work in the real world.

So, I was wondering if anyone has any data / has seen any research on
just how well "non-DNS" traffic works over port 53 - UDP and TCP? So,
if one tries to pass $random_protcol over port 53 from behind various
CPE / firewalls / IPS / etc how likely is it to work?

Many years ago I tried running VPNs and SSH over port 53 to try and
deal with broken captive portals (Ok, it was more to avoid paying what
I viewed as usury rates / to avoid icky ACLs).  This had mixed success
(used to work somewhat OK, but then got slowly less likely to work
over time) - obviously this was a special case, knowing how this works
in general / today would be very useful to informing what solutions
are worth pursuing.

W
-- 
I don't think the execution is relevant when it was obviously a bad
idea in the first place.
This is like putting rabid weasels in your pants, and later expressing
regret at having chosen those particular rabid weasels and that pair
of pants.
   ---maf