Live data from Hacker News

United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

metrics.torproject.org

61–70 of 78 posts

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#61
post #49
post #27

Just out of curiosity: How is Tor looking these days, security-wise? Does someone have a recent analysis of the attacks Tor is facing from state-level attackers currently? Just wondering if any new threats to Tor have come up in the recent years that hadn't been considered before stuff like Snowden happened.

My impressions from the research community have been that the consensus is 1. Using Tor is more private (and possibly more secure) than a VPN or nothing at all, 2. Tor will not protect you from a targeted attack by a well-funded, state-level adversary, 3. It may or may not defend you against more dragnet types of attacks, depending on the state of the cat-and-mouse between offense and defense (it most likely will pro…

Thanks for the detailed reply, that was kinda what I was interested in.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to the paper? "Sybil attack" is a rather large category of attacks and I'm curious about the specifics of this particular one. In particular, certain vulnerabilities can still be prohibitively expensive for use in dragnet-surveillance.

It was never released: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/carnegie-mellon-university-...

Interesting and concerning. Thanks.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#64
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Skype was blocked in Abu Dhabi last time I was there.

Skype is currently only blocked over cellular networks. Voice calling using apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram is completely blocked, even over regular internet links. The TRA ( https://www.tra.gov.ae/en/home.aspx ) outlaws ISPs from allowing VoIP services. Obviously, the goal is to ensure that ISPs maximize their profits. Note that both ISPs - Etisalat and du - are majority government-owned.

I always wonder why Etisalat or Du even bother to give advertisements.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#65
post #13

Did they block pr0n there?

Even Skype was blocked in Abu Dhabi last time I was there.

Earlier VPN (which is illegal) was required to make Skype->Phone calls, otherwise the calls gets disconnected immediately after the other guy picks up. From last few months Skype->Phone calls are working without VPN in Etisalat elife connection.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#66
post #35

The economic incentives over TOR have really improved TOR I was pulling 800k/sec the other day, pretty surprised. Some circuits are still slow. But I remember not that long ago (18 months?) it was a miserable expereince

Which incentives are you referring to here?

The markets and cryptocurrency.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#67
post #28

What this really indicates, bot or not, is that once you educate people, they will act in their self (and more importantly, self+others) interests. Oppressive and controlling (controlling or controling, I can never decide) regimes will try to prevent it. But it is like trying to prevent wind. The wind will come. You must adapt and accept. And if you are against the wind, you must change.

>What this really indicates, bot or not, is that once you educate people, they will act in their self (and more importantly, self+others) interests.

That's an idealistic sentiment that's unfortunately not actually true. There are abundant examples if you look at politics or gambling.

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#69
post #27

Just out of curiosity: How is Tor looking these days, security-wise? Does someone have a recent analysis of the attacks Tor is facing from state-level attackers currently? Just wondering if any new threats to Tor have come up in the recent years that hadn't been considered before stuff like Snowden happened.

Malicious exit nodes still seem to be an issue one should be aware of, especially for unencrypted connections (http).

Re: United Arab Emirates goes from 10k Tor users to 250k in days

#70
post #54

The same rise was seen in Turkey last month. The phenomenon is caused by failed reconnect due to DPI-based censorship. See Annex A: https://turkeyblocks.org/2016/12/18/tor-blocked-in-turkey-vp...

Right. Tor Metrics for UAE with "Show possible censorship events if available" enabled: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?...

And for Turkey: https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?...

Post reply on HN