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Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

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Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#141

Post by eternalban »

smnrchrds wrote: post #131
agnosticmantis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe telegram itself is blocked in Iran, though.

It is indeed. Iran does not shy away from blocking large swaths of the internet in order to make sure the parts they want blocked will remain blocked. For example, before 2009, there were specific blogs on wordpress.com which were blocked and making sure the content the government wanted inaccessible would remain inaccessible had turned into a whack-a-mole game. In 2009, they simply blocked the entirety of Wordpress,…

> It is indeed. Iran does not shy away from blocking large swaths of the internet

> ran would not hesitate to block all AWS IP addresses as a solution

DNS will not resolve any .ir (.coms that are iranian) domains here in US, afaikt.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#142

Post by 7357 »

shervin01 wrote: post #134

Hi, from Iran with love! First of all, thank you moxie and signal team for this proxy. Until 2018, many Iranians used telegram but Iran's regime after Russia blocked this messenger. telegram released mtproxy and this proxy was helpful. Russia lifted the ban on telegram but this app is still blocked on my country. but with VPNs, many iranians still use this app. after 2018, second most popular messaging app in iran wa…

Love back!

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#143

Post by mhils »

remram wrote: post #128
aendruk wrote: post #43

> You can share your proxy with friends and family using this URL format: " rel="nofollow">https://signal.tube/# […] The latest beta release of the Android app is registered to handle links from signal.tube. This scheme is convenient for those with correctly configured devices, but comes at the cost to everyone else of increased risk of inadvertent leaks of the fact that they're attempting to circumvent the block. I'…

Good point! I wonder why they didn't reverse the scheme, e.g. https://mydomain.example.org/#is-a-signal-proxy

AFAIK you can register URL handlers for a specific domain (signal.tube), but not for a specific hash. And you don't want Signal to appear as an alternative browser on every link.

Edit: On a second thought, I wonder if a custom scheme would have worked, e.g. signal-proxy://example.com?

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#144

Post by pseudalopex »

tleb_ wrote: post #14
ekianjo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad, the Signal devs love centralization. One day people will realize Signal is just not the right solution for what they actually need.

As if it was that simple; no it's not as simple as decentralization > centralisation. You might not agree with everything (I don't) but this video provides some good points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 I trust Signal to try their hardest to solve communication, spitting on them is not the solution.

I didn't watch the video but his article with the same title is almost entirely bad points.[1]

Email is end to end encrypted for people who make it a priority. It would be end to end encrypted for everyone if Google or Microsoft made it a priority.

The difference between XMPP and Signal is funding. Signal supports video on all platforms because Open Whisper Systems hired people to work on it. XMPP didn't because the popular clients are developed by volunteers.

People don't like using lots of messaging apps. So switching apps is much harder than changing your email address because you have to convince other people to switch.

Even Signal is moving away from using phone numbers.

[1] https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#145

Post by ampdepolymerase »

dijit wrote: post #133
isoprophlex wrote: post #104

Almost everyone in these comments is asking questions of various degrees of pedantry or outright dissing signal/moxie/no federation/whatever... Just spin up a server if you can spare the expense and help some people out. Action > inaction. edit: you can get the connection details via @appliedlambdas on twitter!

How flippant. “Almost everyone in these comments is asking questions of various degrees of pedantry or outright dissing hospitals/insurance/medical bankruptcy/whatever... Just donate to a charity if you can spare the expense and help some people out. Action > inaction.” Healthcare and communication aren’t comparable. But my point is that you can criticise institutions for their (contested) faults. If you place yourse…

It is not. Healthcare and communications are very much comparable if your life and livelihood are on the line. If the downside risk for both is a dead person then they are very much morally equivalent.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#146

Post by not2b »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #118
not2b wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No good; people working for the Iranian state will DM. Signal didn't think this through. No one should announce proxies via social media. Tell people how to set one up for friends and family.

People working for the Iranian state generally would be discernible from their Twitter account, and by controlling the information you hand out you can also flag the hidden accounts that aren't easily recognized. You also overestimate how committed Iran is to stopping this. Doing this in public risks the state finding out, but outside of times of crisis the state is usually pretty slow to respond. Keeping it private…

There are about 700,000 people of Iranian descent in the Los Angeles area alone (the largest such community in the US). Most of them are in the US to escape the regime, and most of friends and family in Iran who they keep in touch with. The people in Iran also have their own networks.

So a down-low friends and family approach could reach a lot of people.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#147

Post by toyg »

shervin01 wrote: post #134

Hi, from Iran with love! First of all, thank you moxie and signal team for this proxy. Until 2018, many Iranians used telegram but Iran's regime after Russia blocked this messenger. telegram released mtproxy and this proxy was helpful. Russia lifted the ban on telegram but this app is still blocked on my country. but with VPNs, many iranians still use this app. after 2018, second most popular messaging app in iran wa…

> can they break whatsapp encryption

They don’t have to, they just need Facebook to cooperate.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#148

Post by remram »

mhils wrote: post #143
remram wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point! I wonder why they didn't reverse the scheme, e.g. https://mydomain.example.org/#is-a-signal-proxy

AFAIK you can register URL handlers for a specific domain (signal.tube), but not for a specific hash. And you don't want Signal to appear as an alternative browser on every link. Edit: On a second thought, I wonder if a custom scheme would have worked, e.g. signal-proxy://example.com?

You can set the host to "*" on Android, but maybe not on iOS?

For example, my Mastodon app pops up to open all links that look like a Mastodon profile (https://example.org/@somename).

https://github.com/tateisu/SubwayTooter/blob/4cf16c6ee890a7d...

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#149

Post by isoprophlex »

dijit wrote: post #133
isoprophlex wrote: post #104

Almost everyone in these comments is asking questions of various degrees of pedantry or outright dissing signal/moxie/no federation/whatever... Just spin up a server if you can spare the expense and help some people out. Action > inaction. edit: you can get the connection details via @appliedlambdas on twitter!

How flippant. “Almost everyone in these comments is asking questions of various degrees of pedantry or outright dissing hospitals/insurance/medical bankruptcy/whatever... Just donate to a charity if you can spare the expense and help some people out. Action > inaction.” Healthcare and communication aren’t comparable. But my point is that you can criticise institutions for their (contested) faults. If you place yourse…

Your neighbor asks you to drive them to the hospital. Do you lecture them on the failures of privatized healthcare? No, you defer your opinion to the relevant place and time.

This right now is about people having their access to uncensored communication cut off, and moxie asking people to help out. If you think their architecture is doomed, you're free to codify your opinion somewhere in a pull request or comment under an article about signal's protocol philosophy.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#150

Post by windthrown »

sigmar wrote: post #119
nrvn wrote: post #95

Signal could learn a lot from Telegram in this regard. Russian govt had tried to block Telegram but telegram servers just keep jumping over various cidrs and users got the ip addresses for connecting over push updates and the only thing the govt succeeded in was blocking a wide range of subnets including AWS ranges and GCP ranges thus disrupting a whole lot of businesses and even some government services. They gave u…

That article notes that Signal has been domain fronting since 2016. I think google has cracked down on it more recently though, and hence Signal has had to circumvent censors in a new way

Correct, both Google and Amazon told Signal not to use them for domain fronting: https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/
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