One Small Change Makes Your Network Safer
There's a small box somewhere in your home or office — maybe tucked behind a shelf, blinking quietly under a desk — that connects everything to the internet. You almost certainly haven't changed its settings since the day it was installed, and you may often reboot it to get the Internet reconnected. It’s called an internet gateway or simply, a router.
Well, believe it or not, one modest adjustment to your router could meaningfully improve your organization's safety online. It takes about ten minutes, and it’s totally free. Want to know more? Read on!
How We Find Things on the Internet
It has to do with something called a DNS (Domain Name System) server. Here's what a DNS server does: every time someone on your network visits a website, their computer has to look up the address. It doesn't just know where "redcross.org" lives on the internet — it has to ask. The thing your computer asks is called a DNS server.
By default, that lookup goes to whatever server your internet service provider (ISP) prefers. They pick it for you, and it’s usually their own DNS server. When you use it, it logs which sites your staff visits — where they go and what they do — introducing both a privacy and security concern.
The Privacy Problem When Using ISP DNS Servers
First, let’s look at privacy. Do we really want our ISP knowing the websites we visit, the content we prefer, and the time we spent there? Do we want our ISP making a few bucks by reselling our information to partners? Do we trust our ISP need to eavesdrop on our activities? It’s kind of a loaded question because I’m assuming you’re thinking, ‘No!’
Think I’m bonkers? Wearing a tinfoil hat? Well, in 2021, the Federal Trade Commission studied six of the largest internet providers in the country and found that they routinely collect browsing history, app usage data, and real-time location information to target advertising, often without customers knowing or having any real way to stop it. Some providers had even sorted customers into sensitive categories, including by race and sexual orientation strictly for ad-targeting purposes.
So, yeah, let’s say ‘no thanks’ to ISP eavesdropping, eh?
The Security Problem When Using ISP DNS Servers
Second, let’s consider security. Wouldn’t it be nice if our ISP filtered out known-bad locations on the internet so we’re not likely to visit them? Or give us a warning before we exceed some safe boundaries? Prevented us from visiting sites that distribute malware or viruses? Or even prevented someone from within our home (and I’m thinking kids here, but you could also translate this to a business concern) from accessing known adult websites? Wouldn’t that both be useful and more secure?
Security researchers have noted that the default DNS server handed to you by your ISP is rarely competitive on speed, privacy, or malware blocking — it's simply the default because it's convenient for the provider, not because it's good for you. Well, I dunno about you, but I want something that’s good for me.
DNS and ICE
Ooo, it’s getting a bit frosty now.
Regrettably, US federal agencies have alreadydemonstrated a willingness to use internet data as an enforcement tool. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is currently suing DHS and ICE over the use of administrative subpoenas to obtain names, email addresses, IP addresses, and device identifiers from companies like Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord.
Separately, a 2026 EFF investigation found that ICE has spent millions on tools that continuously monitor social media, search engines, and the dark web, and is planning a dedicated 24/7 online surveillance center.
Whether ISP-level DNS records are next is an open question. There are no confirmed formal partnership between ICE and internet providers has been documented. Still, the legal, political, and nationalist appetite to exploit the underlying technical infrastructure of DNS are clearly in place. For immigrant communities, activists, and anyone who would prefer that their browsing habits not become evidence, that’s reason enough to stop using your ISP's default DNS server.
A Better DNS
Cloudflare, a large internet infrastructure company, runs a free DNS service at the address 1.1.1.1. It's faster than most ISPs DNS servers, they don’t sell your browsing history, and their service actively blocks requests to sites known to be malicious, stopping the connection before the page ever loads.
Switching your DNS server doesn't just improve your privacy, it can also add a layer of security your ISPs almost certainly isn't giving you. Cloudflare offers three variations of its free DNS service, each designed for a different level of filtering.
1.1.1.1 simply gets you away from your provider's server.
With 1.1.1.2, Cloudflare will automatically block connections to known malicious websites — the kind designed to steal passwords or install harmful software — before your device ever reaches them.
Meanwhile, if you use, 1.1.1.3, and it blocks those same threats plus adult content, which makes it a reasonable option for a home with kids or an organization that wants to reduce that exposure for volunteers and staff.
Here’s How It Works
An instructional guide for applying Cloudflare’s Domain Name System (DNS) servers to your internet gateway.
Picture a volunteer at your nonprofit organization clicking a link in a suspicious email.
A standard DNS server will send them right along to the known-bad website.
On the other hand, a security-conscious DNS server can recognize that destination as a known threat and quietly prevent the user from going to that site and potentially hurting themselves.
Although a security-conscious DNS service won't protect against everything, but in ten minutes, you can make one quiet, meaningful improvement to how your family or organization accesses the internet.
So How Do You Turn It On?
Take a look at our latest Runbook. Inside you’ll find step-by-step instructions to help you. But if you get stuck, don’t worry. Just schedule some time with us. We’d be happy to help you out.
Anything we can do to help make the internet a faster, safer, and more private place is all part of our mission here at Technoactivism.
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