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> collected from recursive DNS servers around the world

Yes, of course, because those DNS servers are literally receiving the queries, eg "receiving the data".

Again, there is nothing "leaking" here, that's like saying you leak what HTTP path you're requesting to a server, when you're sending a HTTP request to that server. Of course, that's how the protocol works!

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I think you are hung up on the word "leak".

Putting a secret subdomain in a DNS query shares it with the recursive resolver, who's privacy policy may permit them to share it with others. This is a common practice and attackers have access to the aggregated datasets. You are correct that third-party web servers or CDN could share your HTTP path, but I am not aware of any examples and most privacy policies should prohibit them from doing so. If your web server provider or CDN do this, change providers. DNS recursive resolvers are chosen client side, so you can't always choose which one handles the query. Even privacy-focused DNS recursive resolvers share anonymized query data. They remove the source IP address, since it's PII, but still "leak" the secret subdomain.

Any time you send secret data such that it travels to an attacker visible dataset it is vulnerable to attack. I call that a leak but we can use a different term.

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> I think you are hung up on the word "leak".

What gave you that idea? Maybe because my initial comment started with:

> "Leak" is maybe a bit over-exaggerated...

And continues with about why I think so?

I raised this sub-thread specifically because I got hung up on "leak", that's entire point of the conversation in my mind.

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So nothing to do with your DNS queries at all? Why did you bring it up?
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