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Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

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Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#31

Post by stefan_ »

K5EiS wrote: post #7
0xDEF wrote: post #2

Most VPN services are already blocked in Russia by both mobile and landline providers. Many also block Tor. However now it seems like Russian mobile providers are blocking not just VPN services but even the underlying VPN protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN). Interestingly Telegram is still not blocked in Russia.

Probably because the Russian army uses Telegram. Even their MoD has a channel posting updates and propaganda

Probably because Telegram is a state-level honeypot. The chances a place like Russia would have its population (and lots of people in what they consider their "ex-colonies") communicate over a platform that they can't intercept and monitor are zero. Add a track record of technical incompetence and an absurd backstory of the founder that escapes from state control to .. Cyprus of all places.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#32

Post by midasuni »

inrussianow wrote: post #15
nabogh wrote: post #13

I'm a little confused what Russia has to gain from this. My impression was previously that Russia was somewhat of a wild west when it came to piracy and internet restrictions. To make things weirder, the article claims that only mobile networks are affected. I wonder why that is. Is this just the decisions of a handful of telcos and it's being reported as a state-imposed restriction? Edit: also in my opinion, "blocki…

Im in Russia now posting this over on a wireguard vpn, using a landline ISP. So far no problems, havent tried on mobile.

Are you affected by the annual “internet cutoff”

My office in Moscow has IPsec tunnels and is fine, but we also see no outages other than the occasional last mile loss on one of the circuits (not at the same time). Maybe that’s because it’s a business line.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#33

Post by vbezhenar »

nabogh wrote: post #13

I'm a little confused what Russia has to gain from this. My impression was previously that Russia was somewhat of a wild west when it came to piracy and internet restrictions. To make things weirder, the article claims that only mobile networks are affected. I wonder why that is. Is this just the decisions of a handful of telcos and it's being reported as a state-imposed restriction? Edit: also in my opinion, "blocki…

> My impression was previously that Russia was somewhat of a wild west when it came to piracy and internet restrictions.

Your impression was absolutely wrong. Before war, Microsoft and other big western companies along with police hunted companies which tried to use pirate software. So it was not a good idea to use pirate software for company in Russia, at least if you're big enough to be noticed. Ordinary people were kind of ignored, AFAIK.

Both Internet restrictions and surveillance also were present in Russia in the recent years. Officially to protect children, unofficially to suppress opposition as well.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#34

Post by littlestymaar »

vbezhenar wrote: post #28
Multrex wrote: post #24

Can someone ELI5 how they identify VPN at the protocol level?

DPI. Popular VPN protocols are easily identified by first connection packet signature.

Wasn't Wireguard explicitly designed to avoid that? (IIRC it took lots of inspiration from state of the art data exfiltration methods used by malware)

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#35

Post by dijit »

baybal2 wrote: post #10
dijit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It caused a lot of issues for Russians when they tried to block it, because they basically blocked entire sections of AWS and GCP. The real tinfoil hat is assuming that they allow it because it's compromised; the founder of Telegram has absolutely no love lost for the Russian state, they basically seized his company (VK; a hugely popular facebook-like which also has a music player and such) and all his assets that we…

While he maintained an office in Russia, for everyone to see, while denying that publicly.

Possibly the easiest thing to exist in error or for the state to fabricate and yet you didn’t even provide a citation.

tsk

Dude is literally living in exile, yet you claim allegiance by him being affiliated with Russia, when his only crime here was being born in there and thus having some ties.

Seems crazy to me. Like, cold-war propaganda crazy.

this idea that Telegram is somehow nebulously “the enemy” and signal is “the virtuous” is so patently and clearly a propaganda campaign and we fall right into it.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#36

Post by tibbydudeza »

tokai wrote: post #11
K5EiS wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the Russian army uses Telegram. Even their MoD has a channel posting updates and propaganda

It has been wild to see Russians soldiers request air/artillery support over Telegram.

Not very bright.

Was wondering about those friendly fire incidents that keeps cropping up from Russian units - one unit got arty on them by the Ukrainians and then they requested counter-fire but their own side dropped it on them instead.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#37

Post by littlestymaar »

dijit wrote: post #6
drbig wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interestingly Telegram is still not blocked in Russia. Could that be taken as a sign that it is not blocked _for a reason_, or is it already too much tinfoil on the head?

It caused a lot of issues for Russians when they tried to block it, because they basically blocked entire sections of AWS and GCP. The real tinfoil hat is assuming that they allow it because it's compromised; the founder of Telegram has absolutely no love lost for the Russian state, they basically seized his company (VK; a hugely popular facebook-like which also has a music player and such) and all his assets that we…

> the founder of Telegram has absolutely no love lost for the Russian state

No need to have any love, strong-arming people is usually where mafias shine.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#38

Post by bogantech »

littlestymaar wrote: post #34
vbezhenar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DPI. Popular VPN protocols are easily identified by first connection packet signature.

Wasn't Wireguard explicitly designed to avoid that? (IIRC it took lots of inspiration from state of the art data exfiltration methods used by malware)

IDK but Wireshark has no problem identifying it so there must be something that gives it away

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#40

Post by coldtea »

0xDEF wrote: post #18
gsa wrote: post #14

I have been researching VPN protocols that work in China and found that Xray [0] is the most recommended route to escape the GFW. An ideal VPN setup is one where packets appear as normal https traffic. Some VPN setups take it a step further and proxy the traffic through Cloudflare. Setting all this up is nowhere as easy as Wireguard. Coincidentally, I came across this project on Github earlier today which is an obfus…

I have noticed many new security and privacy oriented projects use Go and even C/C++. Wasn't Rust supposed to be the language that should be used to write all security-critical software? What happened? Are crates like rustls/ring still intentionally sabotaging Rust's cryptographic ecosystem with their "we will always be pre-1.0.0 and never have a stable API" philosophy?

>Wasn't Rust supposed to be the language that should be used to write all security-critical software? What happened?

What does "supposed" mean in this case?

There's no one dictating what language "security-critical" or other software will be written. So, if it was "supposed", it was incorrectly supposed, by people reading some enthusiast posts about Rust and thinking it's adoption is inevitable or that it applies to everybody.

In real life, some went with Rust, others chose Go, and others C++, Java, etc.

>Are crates like rustls/ring still intentionally sabotaging Rust's cryptographic ecosystem with their "we will always be pre-1.0.0 and never have a stable API" philosophy?

That could help, but whether Rust has stable crypto crates or not, wouldn't change the fact that teams and projects will use what they wanna use, which is not necessarily Rust.

Just because some enthusiasts went "Rust all the things!" doesn't mean others will follow them.

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