The first laureate of the Bluehats Prize, established by the interministry digital director of France (Dinum, interminient Digital Directorate) and awarded accompanying critically important free and open projects, has been announced. The first prize was awarded to Simon Kelley, creator, main developer, and mayor of the project dnsmasq. The jury, which included representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Cybersecurity Agency (ANSI), and the Dinum of France, recognized the importance of the project and the work on maintaining network security. The monetary component of the award is determined at 10 thousand euros. Additionally, three more awards are planned to be given out this year.
The DNSMASQ project combines in one package a caching DNS-Reisolver, DHCP server, an IPV6 service announcement, and a network download system. The project is involved in the Android platform and specialized distributions such as OpenWRT and DD-WRT, as well as in the firmware of wireless routers of many manufacturers. In conventional DNSMASQ distributions, it can be installed when using LIBVIRT to ensure the operation of the DNS service in virtual machines or activated in NetworkManager configurator.