The Domain Name System is one of the most basic, and oldest, infrastructure components the internet. DNS is a decentralized, hierarchical database that maps keys to values, kind of like a dictionary. This store is primarily used to map names, say lainchan.org to an IP Address 107.161.19.243. This is essential to the internet because routers are able to get data to IP Addresses, but not domain names. So, a computer makes a DNS Request to translate the a name to a machine usable number. To start this process off, your computer has the IP Address of a DNS server to start with - This is normally assigned by the network you are connected to (via DHCP), and a point of contention lately: ISPs have been fighting to retain control of your DNS server as its a common point of commercial surveillance. This has played out in Comcast lobbying the government to intervene in DNS over HTTPS, ATT Routers preventing you from setting DNS, Mobile ISPs blocking DNS requests to alternate servers, and Mobile ...