Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Intra, Android app to protect against DNS manipulation

The app has the ability to encrypt your Android's connection to the DNS server in which your device is protected from DNS manipulation attacks and you can gain unrestricted access to the internet. It is one of the apps that circumvents censorship and you can use VPN to unrestrict even more stuffs.
However, let me be skeptical here, while you obtain those security tools that protect your devices from cyber-attacks done by cyber criminals, some of the tools are notorious for allowing cyber criminals to use them undetected, not to mention that they are over-protective and make your internet connection unreliable in making competent and smooth connection while those protection stuffs are enabled. The next notorious thing is that not all sites can be accessed smoothly while protection features like Intra are active. There's a concerning question like that from the FAQ section of the app's official web site. Lastly, the usage of VPN to get around the restriction just to access the foreign sites and contents while knowing the fact that you're not from that country.
One thing about DNS manipulation is that as part of the cyber-attack campaign organized by cyber-criminals, there's a chance that you can be led to fake websites masquerading as the real ones which can infect your devices with malware or maybe the fake websites containing information you may not believe while the real sites containing true information are being blocked or something. Who knows what will happen to you next after you've known the true information nobody's supposed to know?
Other answers from the app's FAQ from the official website include:
  • Using encryption to your Android device to make sure that you're sent to the right place.
  • Using Google's public DNS in which data collected will be removed within 48 hours.
  • Having a tiny 'split horizon' VPN in which your internet connection won't be slowed down because the app is not the VPN-type.
  • Being an alternate to Private DNS setting from Android 9.0 as it is for Android 4.0 and later.
  • Excluding apps from Intra's protection so that they can work normally again.
There are unseen questions based on other technical scenarios like your home network already offering its own similar protection for instance but those are other users' experiences and topics of the future. You just need to go to the app's official website and see what it does before deciding to even download it from Google Play.