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TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

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Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#31

Post by jonstokes »

ufmace wrote: post #26

Why would anybody think that Amazon, Google, or Microsoft are against censorship? Recent events have demonstrated that they love them some censorship, when they do it. Witness the case of gab.ai - Google was happy to pull their app from the Play store. Microsoft didn't mind at all threatening to shut down their Azure account unless they censored a post. The Azure case is particularly amazing. I can't believe the tech…

AWS has absolutely taken down websites because they didn't like what was on them, just recently, in fact:

https://freebeacon.com/issues/gun-rights-activists-posted-gu...

I'm a journalist and have seen a screencap of the takedown that Amazon issued to the Firearms Policy Coalition, which started and maintains the censored site (CodeIsFreeSpeech.com). The takedown erroneously cited a temporary restraining order issued against an entirely different site (defcad.com) as the reason for the sudden, no-warning booting of the site from AWS.

And as you mentioned, Azure just now threatened to pull Gab.ai off its platform over a pair of anti-Semitic posts.

https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-gab-azure-cloud-an...

So these infrastructure providers are absolutely involved in censorship right now.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#32

Post by bufferoverflow »

That assumes they want to end censorship. Google, for instance, outright participates in political censorship, especially on Youtube - I've seen many right and alt-right youtubers disappear or get strikes for something unimportant that the left does without any repercussions. They also fired Damore for quite mild comments about sex/gender.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#33

Post by loudmax »

ufmace wrote: post #26

Why would anybody think that Amazon, Google, or Microsoft are against censorship? Recent events have demonstrated that they love them some censorship, when they do it. Witness the case of gab.ai - Google was happy to pull their app from the Play store. Microsoft didn't mind at all threatening to shut down their Azure account unless they censored a post. The Azure case is particularly amazing. I can't believe the tech…

The post is about resilience to censorship from outside organizations. That is, it's about governments not being able to selectively block content from service providers.

What you're talking about is the service providers themselves deciding what form of speech is allowed on platforms they own. Some may feel that it's inappropriate for Microsoft not extend their platform to white supremacists. Others may think it's inappropriate for service providers not to provide extend their platform to ISIS or Al Qaeda. You may feel that service providers should provide a voice to any possible opinion, but the organizations actually providing the service don't feel this way.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#34

Post by thomasfoster96 »

IshKebab wrote: post #29
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I’m misreading, but the link is to a blog post entitled “...an Opportunity ... to End Censorship”. ISPs and governments snooping on your browsing is surveillance, not censorship. Taking down sites and removing them from search results certainly is censorship.

It is talking about a particular type of censorship where connections are blocked. Think the Great Firewall of China. It is nothing to do with censorship where the actual source is removed, as with the right to be forgotten and DMCA takedowns.

That’s what I meant, it’s (a type of) censorship, not surveillance.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#35

Post by tialaramex »

Crontab wrote: post #10

Seeing how search results are being censored in “free countries” due to things like the DMCA and The Right To Be Forgotten, maybe we shouldn’t look to private companies to fix this issue.

Technology does have implications for whether a country can effectively control something. Consider this for example:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

That's the UK government explaining how it's going to enforce a worldwide requirement for Age Verification on all sites with (what it considers to be) pornographic material.

Now regardless of whether you think this policy goal makes any actual sense, or whether a potential regulator would even try to do more than clamp down on UK porn companies that don't do age verification, the mechanism described has two halves to it:

1. UK ISPs voluntarily block non-complaint sites in DNS

2. Hopefully everybody uses their ISP's DNS servers

Why doesn't it say the UK government will make every ISP run all connections through a government-owned proxy to enforce these rules regardless of DNS? Because that would cost an eye-watering amount of money and "We had to raise taxes by 10% for our anti-pornography law" is a guaranteed vote loser. It would also be ineffective but let's see them spend that money first.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#36

Post by cptskippy »

ufmace wrote: post #26

Why would anybody think that Amazon, Google, or Microsoft are against censorship? Recent events have demonstrated that they love them some censorship, when they do it. Witness the case of gab.ai - Google was happy to pull their app from the Play store. Microsoft didn't mind at all threatening to shut down their Azure account unless they censored a post. The Azure case is particularly amazing. I can't believe the tech…

> Recent events have demonstrated that they love them some censorship, when they do it.

I'm not sure that I would conflate running a business with loving censorship.

> I can't believe the tech press isn't picking up on a supposed cloud provider threatening to shut down someone's account unless they make their website behave in a particular way.

What would the headline be exactly? "Business drops client for violating agreement and bringing negative attention to their service."

Why does everyone assume that businesses have a moral obligation or imperative? When a company goes around saying "We value..." they're really saying "By uttering the magic phrase we hope to make more money off you".

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#38

Post by remoteorbust »

ctz wrote: post #9

This article is unfortunately inaccurate. TLS1.3 does not include encrypted SNI. Encrypted SNI is still being worked on by the TLS working group, and isn't in a deployable state.

Thanks for the heads up. I've made some proxy software that routes on SNI. If TLS1.3 drops SNI then I feel like that will accelerate ipv6 adoption because we're going to need a shitload more IP addresses.

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#39

Post by yardstick »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #19
yardstick wrote: post #12

Encrypted SNI is great for individual privacy but terrible for business/corporate security. At the moment it is possible to MITM proxy (without the possibility decryption) to inspect the SNI and determine if the host is allowed, and if so the proxy does its own IP resolution and transparently proxies/forwards the TCP traffic. Ie it never engages in the TLS session. This is useful for restricting access from a LAN to…

Absolutely not. Full MITM proxies are required to inspect traffic. Inspecting SNI is ineffective against the majority of threats including blocking botnet traffic.

How so? If I as the MITM (non-decrypting) proxy intercept the request, look at the SNI to ensure it’s on my whitelist, and then do my own DNS lookup and open my own TCP connection to that IP and relay the traffic between the two, what’s the attack vector?

Re: TLS 1.3 Is an Opportunity for Amazon, Google and Microsoft to End Censorship

#40

Post by nickik »

tialaramex wrote: post #35
Crontab wrote: post #10

Seeing how search results are being censored in “free countries” due to things like the DMCA and The Right To Be Forgotten, maybe we shouldn’t look to private companies to fix this issue.

Technology does have implications for whether a country can effectively control something. Consider this for example: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... That's the UK government explaining how it's going to enforce a worldwide requirement for Age Verification on all sites with (what it considers to be) pornographic material. Now regardless of whether you think this policy goal makes any a…

It has nothing to do with money. Setting up a DNS like that would not even require raising of taxes by 0.1%.

The reason is that the law is only a political battle. Once the battle and the marketing are over non of this law or how it is or is not implemented. At best you get a bunch of bureaucrats in place that monitor these things and write a report every so often. Those will be ignored until some politician is again interested in fighting this battle.

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