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The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

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Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#91

Post by keyme »

walrus01 wrote: post #87
keyme wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV dishes transmit very clearly in the visible light spectrum :) As for TX detection, you'd be surprised. Directional signals like starlink uplink are fairly hard to detect.

One needs to only google "iran satellite dish confiscation" to see the low tech methods used. They occasionally go on binges of confiscating and destroying receive-only tv satellite dishes.

Random satellite imagery of Tehran. Count the dishes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.738824,51.5285095,19z/data=!...

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#93

Post by Roark66 »

You know what is crazy. I recently heard 20% of adult population in Iran is in Revolutionary Guard. This puts things into context for anyone who says "why don't people just overthrow the dictatorship". However, there were dictatorships with an even stronger hold on their population that fell. Usually for economic reasons. I hope Iran's regime will follow.

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#94

Post by pyinstallwoes »

The only real solution long-term is completely peer-to-peer ad-hoc networking that doesn't depend on BGP.

A few projects are in similar territory but none I've seen are working at the layer of bypassing BGP. Many are just acting as an overlay; which works to an extent. https://github.com/yggdrasil-network/yggdrasil-go

It's probably begging for a different model of the "internet" and where data lives.

My requirements:

1. Offline-first applications that sync via a pub/sub DHT of trusted peers. More details here but basically allows bypassing BGP.

2. Trusted peers are routable via a determinstic pathing algoritm without exposing the recipient. (content addressable everything).

3. Automatically distribute storage and compute on all local devices a user has and or needs (it's so dumb and wasteful that I only use one computer at a time when I have hundreds at my home at different levels of compute from thermostat to fridge to laptop to desktop).

I've thought about this for a long time and planned many requirements out. I was very committed to working on it but then I lost motivation because I don't get along with most humans today and where the world seems to be going. It also sucks to have people think your ideas are crazy.

Oh well.

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#95

Post by pvg »

keyme wrote: post #63

Air dropping starlink terminals onto protesters is the solution. In fact, if you live anywhere outside of the US, owning one "just in case" is good for future proofing your freedom, IMHO. Kind of like being armed. Edit: in fact, starlink v2 global LTE-from-space coverage will be a true game changer for world freedom. We can only hope this comes to be sooner rather than later.

There's a pretty long history of dropping radio transmitters for people to use in violently authoritarian environments. Not without specialized uses but declaring it 'the solution' seems like overpromising things a bit.

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#96

Post by culi »

vkou wrote: post #54
culi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's "they" and why are we paying to uphold their power to make this decision whenever they want

We aren't doing anything, The Iranian government chooses to control what happens to electricity within their borders. It's one of the fundamental points of state sovereignty.

The example given was "public roads"

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#97

Post by hnews_account_1 »

aliraheem wrote: post #82
novok wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is you force them to choose the entire effective internet or nothing, which is not an economic self own even most dictatorships are willing to make. These firewalls are an exercise in having your cake and eating it too.

> which is not an economic self own even most dictatorships are willing to make. What basis do you have for this claim? People make these claims constantly so confidently, but wherever I look all I see is that dictators have always been willing to make their nations incredibly poor. > These firewalls are an exercise in having your cake and eating it too. More to the point this isn't the Gordian Knot you think it is.…

It is game theory. Consider what happens in the real world - it is strictly easier for Iran or any country with a competent infrastructure to just shut down the big internet pipelines for retail customers. They don’t do that. China has spent untold amounts of money creating a stupidly effective surveillance state which is still technically open to the internet. Why?

So your assumption that “dictators will do the worst they can” is wrong. They will keep pushing the boundary outside the current Overton window but can’t do it in a snap. You force their hand by not providing alternatives and suddenly they’re stuck. They can’t just restrict feminist websites and claim that it is harming the social fabric then expand the net slowly. It is all or nothing as the OP explains.

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#98

Post by blacksmith_tb »

Roark66 wrote: post #93

You know what is crazy. I recently heard 20% of adult population in Iran is in Revolutionary Guard. This puts things into context for anyone who says "why don't people just overthrow the dictatorship". However, there were dictatorships with an even stronger hold on their population that fell. Usually for economic reasons. I hope Iran's regime will follow.

Hmm, that seems way too high? They're a branch of the military[1], which is the biggest standing army in the Middle East, but even the whole army comes to about a million for a country of 86M.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Revolutionary_Guard_Co...

Re: The Iran Firewall: A preliminary report

#99

Post by another_story »

computerfriend wrote: post #42
neither_color wrote: post #27

On bad days: Key word is bad days. Expats in China have noticed the same thing, with VPNs sporadically not working during summits, around certain holidays, etc but resuming afterwards. Also, for some reason certain VPNs work more consistently than others even though they use the same protocols as blocked services. Some speculate that the ones that continue to work are either honeypots or the companies behind them hav…

> but resuming afterwards. This is a common and natural misconception. When the firewall gains a feature (i.e. the ability to block certain traffic) the VPN providers then have to figure out some technique to bypass it. This happens over and over again. The firewall isn't relaxing after the event, it is staying the same and the VPN provider has improved. On your second point, I can't comment for all providers, but I'…

I'm not sure this is entirely the case, though probably partly so. I think they do track known VPN servers, or suspected therein, and closer to congress sessions cut those off. I had a number of self hosted setups used by a few people that would get cut off at those times only to come back on later.
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