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Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

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Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#21

Post by samcheng »

enzolovesbacon wrote: post #19

Critics of this plan argued that this move would just result in more total censorship of Wikipedia and that access to some information was better than no information at all I'm no critic of this plan but I still don't understand why this wouldn't result in more total censorship. Someone explain please?

If a censor can't tell which specific parts of wikipedia someone is trying to access, then they will be more likely to simply block the entire site.

HTTPS encrypts the URL and the content, but does not mask the DNS lookup nor the server being connected to.

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#22

Post by Edmond »

matt123 wrote: post #20
Edmond wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For committed governments like China, TLS may just be an extra hurdle but they can get around it if they want. Basically China could simply implement a massive proxy that terminates TLS. If your internet traffic is going to flow through infrastructure that a curious government owns, then you'll know that they're monitoring the traffic but there is no way to keep them from seeing what you're doing.

No, TLS is not vulnerable to a MITM unless a) your client trusts the certificates issued by the attacker, or b) the attacker successfully forges the certificate of the website you are trying to visit. That is, assuming you don't click away your browser's security warning. https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/8145/does-https...

It isn't but if you live in China and want to use the internet, you'll likely be forced to use a proxy that MITMs and serves its own certificate....My point is that TLS is not a solution to prevent government interference when the user has to rely on the government infrastructure for access.

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#24

Post by rocky1138 »

ekarulf wrote: post #12
rocky1138 wrote: post #3

How do governments censor only parts of Wikipedia when the site is encrypted? How do they know which pages you are browsing if they can't see the URL?

Who says they can't see the URL? A sufficiently motivate government would probably be able to create forged certificates and mass interception isn't really out of the question. Especially with browsers homogenizing on fast ciphers AES-GCM/POLY-1305, I bet it's much more economical than you would think. Cert Pinning or HPKP is one type of solution, but it's tricky to get right especially for a large site like wikipedi…

From TFA:

"In Turkey, Wikipedia articles about female genitals have been banned; Russia has censored articles about weed; in the UK, articles about German metal bands have been blocked..."

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#25

Post by rocky1138 »

varenc wrote: post #7
rocky1138 wrote: post #3

How do governments censor only parts of Wikipedia when the site is encrypted? How do they know which pages you are browsing if they can't see the URL?

Governments can't censor parts of Wikipedia when it's all encrypted, that's sort of the point of the article.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442127

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#26

Post by rgbrenner »

rocky1138 wrote: post #3

How do governments censor only parts of Wikipedia when the site is encrypted? How do they know which pages you are browsing if they can't see the URL?

according to the paper.. the answer is subdomains.. For example, in one instance China blocked zh.wikipedia.org (the entire subdomain.. they cant see what page you're visiting), but left their other 291 subdomains unblocked.

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#27

Post by enzolovesbacon »

samcheng wrote: post #21
enzolovesbacon wrote: post #19

Critics of this plan argued that this move would just result in more total censorship of Wikipedia and that access to some information was better than no information at all I'm no critic of this plan but I still don't understand why this wouldn't result in more total censorship. Someone explain please?

If a censor can't tell which specific parts of wikipedia someone is trying to access, then they will be more likely to simply block the entire site. HTTPS encrypts the URL and the content, but does not mask the DNS lookup nor the server being connected to.

Yes, I understand that. I mean, why don't these censors block the whole wikipedia.org access then?

If they don't want their population to access a Wikipedia topic/article and can't block/determine if someone is accessing it, the easiest thing to do would be just block it right away. So why they won't do it?

(PS: I'm in no way in favor of censorship, I'm just trying to understand such mindset)

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#29

Post by foota »

enzolovesbacon wrote: post #27
samcheng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a censor can't tell which specific parts of wikipedia someone is trying to access, then they will be more likely to simply block the entire site. HTTPS encrypts the URL and the content, but does not mask the DNS lookup nor the server being connected to.

Yes, I understand that. I mean, why don't these censors block the whole wikipedia.org access then? If they don't want their population to access a Wikipedia topic/article and can't block/determine if someone is accessing it, the easiest thing to do would be just block it right away. So why they won't do it? (PS: I'm in no way in favor of censorship, I'm just trying to understand such mindset)

Probably because they recognize the utility of Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia’s Switch to HTTPS Has Successfully Fought Government Censorship

#30

Post by hannob »

enzolovesbacon wrote: post #27
samcheng wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a censor can't tell which specific parts of wikipedia someone is trying to access, then they will be more likely to simply block the entire site. HTTPS encrypts the URL and the content, but does not mask the DNS lookup nor the server being connected to.

Yes, I understand that. I mean, why don't these censors block the whole wikipedia.org access then? If they don't want their population to access a Wikipedia topic/article and can't block/determine if someone is accessing it, the easiest thing to do would be just block it right away. So why they won't do it? (PS: I'm in no way in favor of censorship, I'm just trying to understand such mindset)

If you censor too much people may be pissed. It's much easier to decide "we censor specific articles about specific subjects" than "we censor all of wikipedia". Censoring a popular mainstream webpage may cause too much opposition. Maybe even the politicians who make the decision and their families like to look up things on wikipedia.
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