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Belarus finally bans Tor

ooni.torproject.org

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Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#41

Post by betaby »

openasocket wrote: post #34
marshray wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because effectively blocking packets at requires supervising all routes through which they might escape (i.e., managing a lot of dynamic rules on a lot of very critical routers), whereas injecting forged packets only requires one little box. Kinda like the Berlin Wall. Easier to shoot people attempting to cross than hermetically seal the entire border.

I don't quite follow. You can't inject an RST packet unless you know someone is trying to connect to a Tor node, so you still need to supervise all the routes, right?

And ignoring RST may work. In fact that method worked against earlier implementations of the great firewall of China.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#42

Post by mrmirz »

okocha wrote: post #38
ncdr wrote: post #36

Wall Street Journal is actually praising Belarus: http://www.wsj.com/articles/belarus-is-emerging-as-the-silic...

When I read your comment it made it seem like the WSJ was praising Belarus for banning Tor, which is not the case. (at least from reading the portion of the article that is not behind a paywall)

Do a google search for the article title and click the WSJ search result and you'll be able to view without the paywall.

But yeah, no mention of TOR in that article.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#43

Post by tetromino_ »

notdang wrote: post #30
lorenzop wrote: post #17

Can someone please explain the "fried potatoes are better with onion"? Is this an in-joke? A secret key? Many potatoes, -l

From wikipedia: In the Soviet Union, Belarusians were sometimes called bulbashi, a pejorative conjugation of the Belarusian word for potato.

That's because Belarusians eat a lot of potatoes. The per capita potato consumption there is probably the highest in the world: http://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/world/

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#44

Post by anigbrowl »

ncdr wrote: post #36

Wall Street Journal is actually praising Belarus: http://www.wsj.com/articles/belarus-is-emerging-as-the-silic...

Not for banning Tor, but I get the impression that if that had happened in time they'd have thrown it in there as a positie.

And many in Belarus said the country’s reputation as Europe’s last dictatorship is no hindrance to their work. “Success stories and a business’s scalability are more important than politics,” said Nick Vyhouski [...]

Charming.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#45

Post by detaro »

openasocket wrote: post #34
marshray wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because effectively blocking packets at requires supervising all routes through which they might escape (i.e., managing a lot of dynamic rules on a lot of very critical routers), whereas injecting forged packets only requires one little box. Kinda like the Berlin Wall. Easier to shoot people attempting to cross than hermetically seal the entire border.

I don't quite follow. You can't inject an RST packet unless you know someone is trying to connect to a Tor node, so you still need to supervise all the routes, right?

You can sniff the traffic out-of-band, possibly implement it on already existing spy/monitoring infrastructure.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#46

Post by zenlikethat »

okocha wrote: post #37

This reminds me of a paper I read recently about the techniques that China employs to block Tor and other anonymity servers. Great read, especially the annotated version: http://fermatslibrary.com/s/examining-how-the-great-firewall...

I found a PDF version for those interested: http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2015/papers/p445.pdf

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#47

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

anigbrowl wrote: post #33
mavdi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, UK next.

Race you edit: in the interests of clarification, this means I expect to see attacks on Tor within the US before the UK.

The US is too busy using TOR as a honeypot and offensive weapon to shut down access.

TOR actually amplifies the asymmetry betweem the NSA and smaller actors: the NSA by owning the whole network can easily break it, but it prevents smaller players from getting the same access.

Of course, the FBI seem to routinely compromise TOR sites they don't like.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#48

Post by cookiecaper »

imaginenore wrote: post #4
rudePolice wrote: post #2

Could they use remote relays still?

You probably could do all kinds of things, but is it worth the risk of getting jailed?

Depends on how serious the risk is. You run the risk of "getting jailed" for all kinds of minor crimes that people routinely commit. Are people actually going to get arrested for trying to use Tor? I don't think that's very plausible. You could pretty easily claim it was malware trying to make the connection and you don't know anything about it.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#49

Post by dleslie »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #47
anigbrowl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race you edit: in the interests of clarification, this means I expect to see attacks on Tor within the US before the UK.

The US is too busy using TOR as a honeypot and offensive weapon to shut down access. TOR actually amplifies the asymmetry betweem the NSA and smaller actors: the NSA by owning the whole network can easily break it, but it prevents smaller players from getting the same access. Of course, the FBI seem to routinely compromise TOR sites they don't like.

Usually via traditional investigative means.

Re: Belarus finally bans Tor

#50

Post by mrpopo »

lorenzop wrote: post #17

Can someone please explain the "fried potatoes are better with onion"? Is this an in-joke? A secret key? Many potatoes, -l

I pulled up the image from the website; its metadata showed that it was downloaded from the wikimedia commons. I then ran a hex diff with https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Fr... . Turns out it was a complete match. So either there is nothing to see, or it is extremely elaborate!
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