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Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

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Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#411

Post by jacko0 »

2cb wrote: post #185
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…

I just set up one of these Signal proxies. Hope it helps you and others in your country communicate freely and safely. [1] Regarding Tor: if you want a Signal-like app that uses an onion router look at Session. [2] It uses the same encryption protocol and very similar UI to Signal but routes all traffic through the Loki network so your traffic passes through three nodes. It is an onion network like Tor. One other ben…

Here's my Signal proxy, I hope it helps someone:

https://signal.tube/#signal.jacko.co.uk

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#412

Post by lmm »

tga_d wrote: post #393
xorcist wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can choose not to install it There is a time bomb in there and servers will kick you out regularly unless you have updated. If you get a patched client running you could probably change whatever string is required but some sort of action is required on the client side.

Sure, but that's an unrelated phenomenon to the security implications being discussed. The argument against auto-updates is "it's running code without my permission or ability to audit first"; putting a recency requirement for client-server communication doesn't impact that concern, and I don't see any reason why it would be considered a bad thing.

> The argument against auto-updates is "it's running code without my permission or ability to audit first"; putting a recency requirement for client-server communication doesn't impact that concern

It makes it impractical to actually audit the code you're running, because you're forced to re-audit on Signal's schedule. And it makes those audits mostly meaningless: what are you going to do if you decide a given code change is suspicious? You can't keep using the version of the code you were happy with, so you'd better have a plan in place for moving off Signal quickly - but in that case how much can you gain from using it at all?

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#413

Post by olah_1 »

2cb wrote: post #302
olah_1 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Session protocol is currently running on session now[1]. It’s actually the reason that they were able to allow up to 100 people in closed groups now. [1]: https://getsession.org/session-release-roundup-10/

Looking at the technical writeup [1] it sounds like they're currently running a hybrid of the two as they do a staged rollout of the various changes they've made to the Signal Protocol. But yes you are correct it looks like they're justifying ditching PFS by saying "if someone has your keys you're screwed anyway." However they're not just stripping away security outright, it's more that they're betting on onion routi…

Personally I love Session. I agree with their logic.

As we have seen, if they have your device, it’s over even if you use ratcheting etc.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/02/08/can-t...

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#414

Post by JetSpiegel »

polishdude20 wrote: post #35
mholt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the trick isn't it: having an entire population know something an oppressive government doesn't. Even if you teach everyone how to deploy their own servers, then that's the knowledge the government will start targeting. You can make blocks expensive, i.e. blocking other major, useful services that would disrupt society too much for them to want to deal with, but this of course has its own costs. It's censorshi…

At some point, the easier option is for there to be a revolution or some sort of governmental change.

That's what lead to this mess in the first place!

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#415

Post by thw0rted »

reactspa wrote: post #250
doublestandard2 wrote: post #236

It's an irony how American companies try circumvents another country's law (regardless of whether you call it censorship or not, it is still a law) and boast about it. Yet, in the US these companies help the mainstream narrative to enforce censorship by banning (Google and Apple App market) or simply not offering other point of views basic hosting services (AWS). I am an Iranian and don't agree with all of our govern…

Am honestly not trolling here although it will sound like it: Can someone please explain to me why it's a OK to reconnect Iranians to Signal, but not Trump supporters to Twitter (the ones censored and banned by Twitter)?

They're completely unrelated examples. I'll try to explain why.

Iran's (authoritarian, human-rights-abusing) government wants to prevent citizens from communicating with each other using tools that are resistant to interception by their secret police. HN supports the basic human right to privacy, and thus wants to help Iranians circumvent unjust laws or government actions.

White supremacists (who happen to support Trump, because duh) are being banned by Twitter -- a company, notably distinct from a government, and thus incapable of "censoring" anything. This prevents them from using Twitter's platform to publish hate speech and (arguably illegal, definitely unjust) calls to violence. HN supports the right of a company to decide who can publish content on their platform and agrees that it's cool to tell racists that they aren't welcome there.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#416

Post by thw0rted »

stonesweep wrote: post #389
iudqnolq wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your scheme for conveying innocent sounding proxy domains requires it's own innocent sounding domains what have you added?

To my thinking, it creates a chain of "it's really hard to block them all" - as soon as I saw (via the link) that you submit your new proxy to https://signal.tube I thought "...so the Iranian gov't just has to block any and all access - DNS, HTTP - to that domain" and people can't even see what proxies are out there. So if my friendly domain name is "learned as a Signal proxy" they just block my domain (personally, I…

Re-read the OP. No connection is actually made to `signal.tube`, it's only a placeholder domain for triggering an Android registered link handler so that it will open in their app.
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