On the plus side: It's much easier to steal credit cards there.
Pakistan bans VPNs
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you use steganography with plaintext, you're relying on security by obscurity. Governments aren't going to tell you when they've cracked your secret. If you're encrypting your steganographic messages, you're increasing the entropy of the plaintext message you're concealing it in.
Solution: don't use it with plain text, but with compressed files such as photos and movies which have high entropy by virtue of their compression (if it is effective, that is).
I believe that blake8086 was referring to the content of the hidden message when he said plain text. He is asserting that if you hide 'hidden message here' in something, you are using security by obscurity, but if you try to hide ENC('hidden message here', 'secret key goes here') you are going to make the detection of the presence of your secret message easier.
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#43The goal of the Pakistani government seems to be the complete obliteration of all private communications. But the only way to do that is by banning all communication. With the ban on VPNs, steganographic[1] techniques that make encrypted traffic look like regular traffic will become more and more common. The troubling thing is the fact that these techniques are somewhat hungry for bandwidth. [1] http://en.wikipedia.o…
Psh, you can still spread messages person to person, you know, in REAL LIFE . It's sad how we're all tied to the Internet and try to make it the first and foremost way in which we communicate.
Because anonymous, rapid, long distance communication is obviously easy to do person to person.
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solution: don't use it with plain text, but with compressed files such as photos and movies which have high entropy by virtue of their compression (if it is effective, that is).
I believe that blake8086 was referring to the content of the hidden message when he said plain text. He is asserting that if you hide 'hidden message here' in something, you are using security by obscurity, but if you try to hide ENC('hidden message here', 'secret key goes here') you are going to make the detection of the presence of your secret message easier.
I argued against the latter point: if you hide the encrypted message in something which is normally compressed such as JPEG or DivX, the encrypted message blends in with the rest of the data because compressed data has high entropy (the better the compression, the higher the entropy). I don't get your point about security by obscurity, that's pretty much the whole point of steganography I would suppose. Security by obscurity is mostly a slogan to criticize not publishing algorithms etc.
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#45So no more online banking? Everyone's accounts are in danger.
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#46The goal of the Pakistani government seems to be the complete obliteration of all private communications. But the only way to do that is by banning all communication. With the ban on VPNs, steganographic[1] techniques that make encrypted traffic look like regular traffic will become more and more common. The troubling thing is the fact that these techniques are somewhat hungry for bandwidth. [1] http://en.wikipedia.o…
Psh, you can still spread messages person to person, you know, in REAL LIFE . It's sad how we're all tied to the Internet and try to make it the first and foremost way in which we communicate.
Why do the cops win? A network of instant communication. If you can't communicate quickly, or at least as fast as your enemies, in many cases you might as well not communicate at all. There are benefits of sneakernets but they don't win on their own.
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#47This does nothing to stop people who are intent on communicating privately (SSL, SSH, public key encrypted messages, etc.) and everything to hamper internet progress in Pakistan.
Why would a tech company even consider spreading/outsourcing to Pakistan after this?
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#48If Pakistani government can easily spy on the communications of their citizens, so can other organizations. Israel, India, Iran, to name a few of them.
"to name a few of them."
I'm guessing the extended set contains countries with names that don't start with "I"?
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#49Apple obviously uses VPN in its non-Cupertino locations, presumably too with its production lines in China. I know that China allows the use of VPN for businesses with a legitimate need. Even though Pakistan was never an ideal location for doing business anyway, they've essentially banned any technical business from conducting operations in Pakistan.
They are asking companies and banks etc. to register their VPN's with the govt. Basically, if you're a multinational or a large local corporation you get to use VPN's. Private citizens need not apply.
More red tape, exactly what businesses need!
Even multinationals don't enjoy having to spend extra resources to keep track of such arbitrary requirements. Will they need to register only the IP of their VPN gateways, or also the client IPs? Will they need to specify the type of software they use? What are the chances that they'll also be asked for certificates, so that spooks can snoop anyway?
If I have a website running on servers in Jamaica, selling paper planes, and I use SSL because it's the right thing to do, will Pakistani customers be able to buy anything from me? Obviously I haven't registered with the Pakistani government, chances are that I don't even know what Pakistan is!
This is unbelievable.
(On the other hand, it's a wet dream for the likes of RIAA...)
Re: Pakistan bans VPNs
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solution: don't use it with plain text, but with compressed files such as photos and movies which have high entropy by virtue of their compression (if it is effective, that is).
I believe that blake8086 was referring to the content of the hidden message when he said plain text. He is asserting that if you hide 'hidden message here' in something, you are using security by obscurity, but if you try to hide ENC('hidden message here', 'secret key goes here') you are going to make the detection of the presence of your secret message easier.
Yes, thank you.
Furthermore, hiding even an unencrypted message still adds entropy, since you're encoding more information in the same amount of space.