KUALA LUMPUR, August 7 — Maxis and TIME have reportedly introduced a transparent DNS proxy, according to the transparency initiative Sinar Project. This development, effective from August 5, 2024, redirects DNS queries meant for Google and Cloudflare’s public DNS servers to the ISPs’ own servers. As a result, users attempting to access websites blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) through alternative DNS settings are encountering connection timeouts.
Sinar Project’s tests reveal that Maxis reroutes DNS queries intended for Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8) to its servers, while TIME redirects both Google Public DNS and Cloudflare Public DNS (1.1.1.1) queries similarly. This redirection has led to discrepancies between the addresses returned by ISP DNS servers and those from Google and Cloudflare, affecting access to MCMC-blocked sites and possibly introducing security risks due to the lack of encrypted DNS queries.
The initiative has urged affected users to enable DNS over HTTPS (DoH) to secure their DNS lookups and avoid the proxy interference. By configuring their browsers to use DoH, users can encrypt their DNS queries and bypass the transparent proxy. Firefox users can activate DoH under Settings > Privacy & Security > Enable Max Protection, while Chrome users can do so via
