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How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

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Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If only there was a way to proxy through google.com or some other popular domain too important to block. Host IPFS nodes with http proxies on GCP and point the domain with multiple A records at those instances?

This is basically how Signal avoid being blocked in (IIRC) Saudi Arabia.

More info please

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#122
post #46

It seems shocking that Spain a member of the EU is resorting to these tactics. Can you discuss some of their justifications for doing so?

I'm not a lawyer and I don't have an opinion on the Spanish government's or judicial system's concrete actions to stop a illegal law to take effect, but: the only websites, posters, etc. being seized are those paid for and organized by the Catalan government. Any association, political party, or individual is completely free to campaign for whatever they want, including independence. We have a Spain-wide constitution…

> The NORMAL reaction by the state is to apply it, and stop the Catalan government from breaking it.

It's interesting that you think so. I'd say the normal thing to do would be to issue a press release pointing out that the results aren't legally binding under the constitution and whoever wastes government money running a referendum on the thing might be held criminally or civilly liable.

Actually trying to STOP the thing is so expensive that it defeats the purpose of preventing the central government's money being wasted on the thing. It's so heavy-handed that it seems like it would just make Catalans who want to split more determined, and perhaps drive some to the other side. The most rational thing about it is that it might serve as a show of force to prevent other territories from doing the same. That part seems kind of sad.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#123

As an outsider, it's strange that nobody here seems to question whether the referendum really makes sense. Forgetting about Catalonia for a moment, isn't it fundamentally amoral that a part of the country where prosperity has (by mere chance) concentrated suddenly wants to split off? Isn't this taking wealth-inequality to the next level? Of course the people in a prosperous part of the country want to split off. Abso…

The part that makes it even more confusing for me is that their party, Podemos, is a real left party which you'd expect to be against increasing income inequality.

I expect that the situation in Spain is much more complex than we give it credit for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podemos_(Spanish_political_par...

EDIT: added link, changed "socialist" to "left"

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#124
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and Catalonia's government is the one at fault for all this hassle. My interpretation of GP's comment was about the draconian approach towards silencing internet activity. Is it believed the raiding of ISPs, outright blocking of websites, etc is the fault of Catalonia's government or Spain's?

Internet activity that promotes illegal actions is already illegal, and there are laws in spain allowing for these raids and closures. Edit: "Getting away with it" is mostly a question of "which side are you on?". Independentists and most non-government supporters think that what's going on is outrageous, whereas government supporters are totally fine with it. These laws where passed mainly to fight against piracy (t…

Think out of the box. Is moral a law that forbids people speaking? Self-determination is in the human rights and Catalonia has more than 1000 years of history, culture and language. Democracy cannot be illegal, so this banning must be disobbeyed.

Without disobbeying, woman and black people would not vote nowadays, so history proves it is a good way to take down immoral legal laws.

EDIT: UN experts say that Spain must respect fundamental rights in Catalonia. Freedom of expression, freedom of press and power separation is at stake.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?Ne...

This is about democracy.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If only there was a way to proxy through google.com or some other popular domain too important to block. Host IPFS nodes with http proxies on GCP and point the domain with multiple A records at those instances?

This is basically how Signal avoid being blocked in (IIRC) Saudi Arabia.

Yup.

The magic term for others to google is "domain fronting". Here is a bit more info:

http://www.geektime.com/2016/12/23/signal-updates-protect-th...

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#126
post #40
post #22

Wow, this is super cool that they thought of / implemented this. (I think your math on bits is wrong: I'm getting that log2(10 10 * 23 * 365 * 4) = 33.4, not 28.) A few notes on the crypto off the top of my head: 1. 1714 iterations of SHA-256 seems really low given that you're going to be looking this up approximately once per person. My 2010-era laptop can compute about a million hashes per second according to `open…

> (I think your math on bits is wrong: I'm getting that log2(1010 * 23 * 365 * 4) = 33.4, not 28.) 1. Totally right that I'm wrong, but I'm now getting 48 bits, not 33 ;) 2. That was a terrible mistake of my own. The lookup key is derived from the password, not the other way around. I've corrected the article to clarify that! 3. Yeah that's why I said you can do it with your laptop and not too much time ;) Only using…

I can't check, but isn't sha256_times(passkey, 1713) == passkey? (sha256_times(sha256(a), 1713) == sha256_times(a,1714)?) The encryption is then basically worthless if you have a list of all lookups. (I didn't see a dynamic in the sha256_times function.)

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#127
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing the constitution isn't feasible? Are there any pro-separation parties in the national parliament?

It is completely feasible. In fact Spain was the project of many different kingdoms (or "nations" by modern standards): Basque, Aragon/Catalan, Galician and Castilian. Not only that but many modern leftist political parties advocate for self determination freedom within our constitution. So the fact that the Catalan parliament with a simple majority of separatists are claiming unilateral referendum of independence in…

Not true. Spain was the union of three kingdoms: Castilla, Aragon and Navarra.

In fact you can see it in the flag, it has a shield with the chains of Navarra, the lion of Leon, the Castle of Castilla and the colors of Aragon(which are the same of Spain and Catalunya flag) over a Granada fruit(for Granada conquest).

Basque was never a kingdom,either Galicia or Catalunya. Asturias was a kingdom, later becoming Asturias and Leon kingdom, then growing again and again against the muslims in Alandalus.

To say that Basque was a kingdom is an enormous lie that unfortunately is told in Basque country as they control their own education.

My grandfather was Basque, he spoke Batua, the original Basque language in his village. He could not speak complex abstractions or communicate with people in villages 40 kms away as every batua was different. The language was unified less than 100 years ago(with the abstractions simply being invented at this time)and called euskera, a recent invention. Now kids there are brainwashed being told that this was the language that people spoke 3000 years ago.

The places in Spain that after industrialization are rich are rewriting History in order to look better themselves, specially if you are nationalist.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#128
post #88
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do NOT need to explicitly pin content to help replicate it. Any content which is requested via IPFS is replicated by the daemon, up until it is GCed. The only thing that pinning does, is prevent the content from ever being GCed

You make it sound like if merely accessing a resource will make my ipfs node share it to others. Is that the case?

Yes, analogous to downloading a torrent. The GC is run pretty regularly by default so you generally want to pin anything you want to keep local.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#129
post #2

Author here. I've tried to keep the article as apolitical as possible, while giving some context to provide the setting. Anyway, I'm very interested in knowing if the used crypto is sound or not, and stirring a discussion around possible alternative approaches. Ask me anything if you want to know further!

fyi: Advantages is misspelled as advanta(d)ges in Paragraph ~6 under "A website stored in IPFS"

Thanks! This is a great read

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