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Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

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Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#101

Post by bwarp »

Tichy wrote: post #84
bwarp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy and there are simple anti-triangulation countermeasures you can use. It's possible to drop decoy transmitters/relays, which are easy enough to knock up and are cheap. You can also use refraction to "bounce" HF radio waves off the ionosphere to mask the source. You can scramble the signals. You can disguise the signals as legitimate but include carrier data. There are lots of ways of hiding what you…

Do you have more resources on that? Occasionally I think about the problem of censorship and free speech and wonder how to enable occupied people to report their plight. So far I could not think of a solution, because I assumed any kind of broadcasting would make the broadcaster an easy target. So what you say interests me (to be fair I am not building anything at the moment, and I am not a hardware person - yet).

Yes. You need to look up "Electronic Countermeasures". There are plenty of chunks of real info out there on it. Pretty much any form of it is plainly described despite the usual expectation that it's top secret or classified. There are handy forms of point to point encryption which can be easily used on paper and via voice as well. Nice read here on it: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/onetimepad.htm

Also, remember the general rule is that if the broadcaster can become a target, so can the oppressor.

When I finished my EE qual, I actually ended up working as an engineer for one of the more nefarious defense contractors. After about 2 years, I realised that what I was working on was engineering devices to watch people, to keep secrets and kill people. So I gave them the finger. My morals have kept me thinking about this for the last 20 years.

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#102

Post by BCM43 »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #94
sepent wrote: post #77

Moreover, SSH has stopped working, too. But, finally I found a way to circumvent it. A simple twist in the client side, could simply bypass the filtering. I wrote a simple script to do this, and I would like to share it with all of my countrymen: https://launchpad.net/~mohammad-sepent/+archive/ppa/+package... To use it, just replace ssh command with issh like this: issh user@hostname [other-ssh-options]

Ironically, I can't access your script (it's https!). I'd be thankful if you could just copy/paste it here.

http://paste.debian.net/155833/

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#104

Post by mrud »

jcr wrote: post #98
mrud wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But DPI is used in Iran and just using different ports does _not_ help

Do you have any supporting data for your statement? I'm not trying to be an ass by asking; I'm actually curious, but testing it myself (American) is not particularly smart. Anyhow, if DPI is in place and at wire-speed (rare, but would cover everything), then the answer is obvious; ssh over http. It can be done with gothard [1] and corkscrew [2]. [1] http://www.nazgul.ch/dev.html [2] http://www.agroman.net/corkscrew/

Only from the TOR guys:

- https://blog.torproject.org/blog/iran-blocks-tor-tor-release... Iran detects ssl parameters and block suspicious connections (they based it on the expiry time of the session certificates)

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/83...

- http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/technology/is-iran-n...

Btw. it is not only Iran running country wide DPI - have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX46Qv_b7F4 about the different techniques currently used to block/prevent access to VPNs/Tor etc.

(edit: added some additional links)

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#106

Post by Spearchucker »

Retric wrote: post #100
Spearchucker wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that on the Internet TLS and SSL are fast approaching their sell-by dates [1]. We can do secure comms over HTTP - all it takes is a binary protocol like TLV, encrypting that, and implementing a well thought through approach to key management. Ideally something derived from the Needham-Schroeder protocol, but if we take on some lessons from PGP and the like, using timestamps instead of nonces. The Internet is…

Deep packet inspection allows you to block any well known protocol.

TLV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type-length-value) isn't recognisable as a protocol. It is something you'd have to hand-roll, i.e. serialize to. The resulting byte array would be encrypted using anything you like (I'm using RSACryptoServiceProvider), so it'd be unrecognisable to DPI.

Not being familiar with specific DPI implementations I would imagine if such filtering was white list -based then anything unrecognisable would be blocked?

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#107

Post by Tichy »

bwarp wrote: post #101
Tichy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have more resources on that? Occasionally I think about the problem of censorship and free speech and wonder how to enable occupied people to report their plight. So far I could not think of a solution, because I assumed any kind of broadcasting would make the broadcaster an easy target. So what you say interests me (to be fair I am not building anything at the moment, and I am not a hardware person - yet).

Yes. You need to look up "Electronic Countermeasures". There are plenty of chunks of real info out there on it. Pretty much any form of it is plainly described despite the usual expectation that it's top secret or classified. There are handy forms of point to point encryption which can be easily used on paper and via voice as well. Nice read here on it: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/onetimepad.htm Also, rem…

A onetime pad would be a good example of something I would not like to have on me if got grabbed by some oppressive regime. That is the kind of problem I mean.

Tor is not a solution, because it could be found on your computer.

Radiowaves - I don't know, I would also expect them to be easily detectable, but I'll look it up.

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#108

Post by wormik »

bwarp wrote: post #65
ajarmoniuk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's easy to triangulate the broadcaster and take measures (imprison, torture, kill). I lived through the communist era in Poland. Amateur radio stations were banned and prosecuted (you would go to jail), even possession of a CB radio was a crime. Things may be similar in Iran.

It's not that easy and there are simple anti-triangulation countermeasures you can use. It's possible to drop decoy transmitters/relays, which are easy enough to knock up and are cheap. You can also use refraction to "bounce" HF radio waves off the ionosphere to mask the source. You can scramble the signals. You can disguise the signals as legitimate but include carrier data. There are lots of ways of hiding what you…

Umm, you make it look like a trivial problem to solve, which IMHO is not the case when you take the fact you can risk life in prison or death in to the account. I'm from ex-communism country - where a lot of successful broadcastings happened, nevertheless, they got always identified at the end of the day - and then, guess what happened. When you are facing such restrictive conditions, even signal itself is good cause to get you in trouble - no matter whether the information carried is understood/sniffed or not, bounced or not. Anti-triangulation measures you are talking about have IMHO no practical use as long as anyone on the other side is using mobile radio signal detectors. Or if you know about real world application - I'd love to learn about it. Cheers

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#109

Post by jcr »

mrud wrote: post #104
jcr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any supporting data for your statement? I'm not trying to be an ass by asking; I'm actually curious, but testing it myself (American) is not particularly smart. Anyhow, if DPI is in place and at wire-speed (rare, but would cover everything), then the answer is obvious; ssh over http. It can be done with gothard [1] and corkscrew [2]. [1] http://www.nazgul.ch/dev.html [2] http://www.agroman.net/corkscrew/

Only from the TOR guys: - https://blog.torproject.org/blog/iran-blocks-tor-tor-release... Iran detects ssl parameters and block suspicious connections (they based it on the expiry time of the session certificates) - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/83... - http://www.christopher-parsons.com/blog/technology/is-iran-n... Btw. it is not only Iran running country wide DPI - have a look at http://…

thank you!

Re: Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol

#110

Post by jetpackjello »

Hello! You can use encrypted Secure SMS for Android. The app is free, and available at: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.atomcloud.metrobud...

The instruction manual is at: http://web.atomcloud.com/apps/metrobuddy-secure-sms

the app needs no licensing, so can be passed from phone to phone via SD card. Good Luck!

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