How much EU is in DNS4EU?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope and Stated Goals of DNS4EU

  • Project is framed by supporters as a publicly funded resolver focused on privacy (no data collection, no commercial exploitation), not strict “digital sovereignty” over the entire DNS stack.
  • Critics see it as “just another centralized resolver” that doesn’t fundamentally change dependence on foreign-owned infrastructure or improve resilience.

Infrastructure Location & Ownership Debates

  • The joindns4.eu domain uses CloudNS nameservers under .net and .uk TLDs; some see this as undermining the sovereignty narrative, especially given UK/Five Eyes status.
  • Others argue this is overblown: CloudNS is Bulgarian, the resolver IPs are in Czechia, and the AS “GB” registration may reflect a virtual office rather than real control.
  • There’s pushback against “absolutism”: demanding 100% EU-origin hardware, fibre, and CPUs is portrayed as unrealistic “apple pie from scratch” thinking.

Marketing Site vs Actual Resolver

  • Several comments stress joindns4.eu is essentially a marketing site likely run by a subcontracted design agency, not the operational DNS4EU infrastructure.
  • Still, many find it symbolically telling (or lazy) that a digital sovereignty project’s public-facing site and email rely on US-based services and aren’t fully disclosed as subcontractors.

Privacy, Protocols, and Blocking

  • DNS4EU reportedly lacks support for newer privacy protocols like ODoH and anonymized DNSCrypt, which some see as a major omission.
  • The resolver does not appear to implement certain national blocking (e.g., piracy-related domains, Russia Today), suggesting it’s not tightly government-aligned—for now.
  • Discussion notes that blocking in Europe is often via ISP- or company-specific court orders, not uniform EU law.

Public Resolvers vs Local / Self-Hosted DNS

  • Some argue public resolvers are unnecessary: running a local recursive resolver (e.g., unbound) is trivial for ISPs or startups.
  • Others counter that operating a secure, scalable resolver is operational burden for smaller organizations; they fall back to Cloudflare/Google when privacy-focused options struggle at scale.
  • One justification for public resolvers: using a non-ISP resolver can reduce ISP-level logging, with DPI constrained by EU law.

DNS Architecture and Localisation

  • One view: DNS is globally distributed by design; trying to keep it strictly within EU borders is at odds with how DNS works.
  • Counterpoint: DNS4EU only controls the first hop; no one is proposing to fully “nationalize” root/TLD/authoritative infrastructure, just to have an EU-controlled resolver option.

EU Digital Autonomy and Service Ecosystem

  • The thread repeatedly broadens to the lack of EU equivalents to Cloudflare, Google Workspace, and hyperscale clouds.
  • Some claim “Europe can’t do web and mail” at comparable scale; others list EU or EU-adjacent services (e.g., deSEC, icewarp, Nextcloud, several EU mail providers) as partial answers.
  • Proposed causes range from EU regulation costs, to market fragmentation and protectionism, to simple inertia and convenience in sticking with US services.

Pragmatism vs Purity

  • One camp emphasizes incremental progress: use strong EU-based pieces where they exist (e.g., Czech-developed Knot Resolver powering DNS4EU), accept some foreign components, and improve over time.
  • The other camp sees the current setup as half-hearted and potentially dishonest branding; if leadership really believed in sovereignty, they argue, basic choices like hosting the website in the EU wouldn’t be outsourced to US platforms.
  • Some participants express fatigue with what they see as nitpicking that risks stalling any EU initiative that isn’t “perfect” from day one.