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Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

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Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#81

Post by mariojv »

LinuxBender wrote: post #79
mariojv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could individuals run a public internet gateway that doesn't keep logs with something similar to mosh but running the equivalent of an SSH tunnel? Think a SOCKS proxy on one end, but running as a public web application/forward proxy on the other end. The ISP would still be able to see any traffic to the gateway, but if you had enough links outside of government monitored net infrastructure to the gateway (hard lines…

something similar to mosh Something that looks similar to mosh being UDP and encrypted but that allows proxied traffic would be Tinc Open Source VPN [1] The nicest thing about Tinc is that it does user-space dynamic mesh routing without requiring packet forwarding being enabled. I would call it a middle ground to onion routing if set up right. It has configurable compression. The reason I did not suggest this is that…

Bookmarked. Thanks!

Agreed on the utility of SSH. I work on a product that offers SSH certificate authorities as a service, among other things, and have read some of the RFCs.

I mainly mentioned the web forward proxy as a response to the "SSH traffic to Iranian datacenters from residential connections is suspicious," comment, but SSH is a great basis to build on. I doubt the SSH egress from the datacenters would draw much attention, but again, I wouldn't use my advice in a life-threatening situation, especially as I have never seen these type of monitoring systems in action.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#82

Post by mariojv »

amir734jj wrote: post #15

I'm an Iranian living in the US and I have family in Iran. The internet is completely shut off for two weeks and international phone calling also doesn't work. All I can do is pray at this point.

Hoping for the best for you and your family. I am so sorry you all are going through this.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#83

Post by pSYoniK »

Signal is setting up proxies so users in Iran using Signal could update their proxy settings in the app to bypass the block for that at least. Not sure to what extent things are being blocked, but if you can get connections to SOME outside services, this might help people to organize means of communication. The proxies are also setup by people outside of Iran and it doesn't really matter if someone in Iran leaks a proxy address, new ones can be setup in minutes. Look for the #IRanASignalProxy hashtag on twitter/other social media and ask people for the address. Signal also made a guide to help users set this up on Ios/Android - https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360056052052-Pr...

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#84

Post by mariojv »

bo1024 wrote: post #56

Can people use a steganography app to communicate via innocuous images? 1. Take a picture. 2. Use app to insert message into picture, encrypt with passphrase. 3. SMS picture to friend or upload to Iranian equivalent of imgur (if any is up). 4. Friend loads picture into app and types passphrase to get message. I'm not sure what a good choice of app would be, but something good must exist?

Is there any good open source or publicly usable steganography software with reasonable UX? Page 1 of Google shows this thing called OpenStego. I've heard of steganography but have no idea what tools are reputable in this space.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#85

Post by giantrobot »

remram wrote: post #73
bo1024 wrote: post #56

Can people use a steganography app to communicate via innocuous images? 1. Take a picture. 2. Use app to insert message into picture, encrypt with passphrase. 3. SMS picture to friend or upload to Iranian equivalent of imgur (if any is up). 4. Friend loads picture into app and types passphrase to get message. I'm not sure what a good choice of app would be, but something good must exist?

The point is that phone service and access to the outside internet is blocked. You can't get images out any more than you can get text out, so putting text in images does not help.

If data centers can make outside connections then steganography and internal (to Iran) routing can help get messages from protests to someone that can pass those through datacenter Internet links.

Just being able to organize internally is super useful. The protestors don't need to use Facebook to organize effectively.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#87

Post by giantrobot »

m3kw9 wrote: post #75

What happened to starlink?

Terminals have to get in-country and there needs to be usable ground stations in the same cell as the terminal. Good luck getting a terminal to Tehran where the police are apparently gleefully destroying satellite dishes. Even if you got an intact terminal there's no ground station nearby.

StarLink has been given special dispensation to operate in Iran. This is not the same as air dropping a warehouse worth of terminals and setting up usable ground stations.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#88

Post by computerfriend »

jimbob45 wrote: post #26

For what was supposed to be a spontaneous protest, this all seems incredibly well-coordinated. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time a foreign government used riots to influence government policy. Even further, Khamenei may not last the year and such riots could heavily influence the selection of his successor, offering a strong motive to any country looking to engage in such espionage.

So glad we can both appreciate how well organised mass protests can be when everyone works together.

If you're going to insinuate something else, I'd suggest you get some actual evidence first. Just saying "colour revolution" or whatever is intellectually lazy, as well as being dishonest and dismissive about people who are risking their lives and liberty.

Re: Tell HN: The Internet situation inside Iran

#89

Post by computerfriend »

unity1001 wrote: post #64

Funny how the women's rights situation in Iran became bad enough to prompt large scale protests within two weeks of Iran joining SCO. Not two months earlier. Not two months later. Just within weeks.

Yeah, murdering a woman for not wearing her hijab properly is just a western plot. Iranians can't possibly have any agency. Is that what you're saying?
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