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Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

vpncentral.com

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Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#51

Post by brabel »

plxx7733 wrote: post #45
coldtea wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Who would use unsafe Java to write "security-critical" software?

What do you mean by "unsafe Java"?? Do you mean Java as a language is somehow unsafe? I beg to disagree - it's one of the most scrutinized platforms you can find and widely used in all sorts of security critical software everywhere.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#53

Post by Starmina »

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)

Not at all, WireGuard is secure, but very easily identifiable.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#54

Post by Kretinsky »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #36
tokai wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or a Ukrainian unit could get access to a Russian telegram account and then send malicious requests.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#55

Post by azangru »

vbezhenar wrote: post #33
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 wer…

> 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

Didn't they say somewhere that in response to the sanctions imposed early in the war they were going to go lenient on piracy? I wonder if that promise ever amounted to anything, or if it was just empty words.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#56

Post by Bluecobra »

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…

If everyone does this wouldn’t that encourage them to try to do carrier grade SSL decryption? I seem to recall that some country is already doing this and to get online you need to trust the state’s CA.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#57

Post by vbezhenar »

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)

https://www.wireguard.com/protocol/

The initiator sends this message:

  msg = handshake_initiation {
    u8 message_type
    u8 reserved_zero[3]
    u32 sender_index
    u8 unencrypted_ephemeral[32]
    u8 encrypted_static[AEAD_LEN(32)]
    u8 encrypted_timestamp[AEAD_LEN(12)]
    u8 mac1[16]
    u8 mac2[16]
  }

  msg.message_type = 1
  msg.reserved_zero = { 0, 0, 0 }
Seems like this is trivially detected. Just watch for first UDP packet with 01-00-00-00 bytes in the payload.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#58

Post by plxx7733 »

brabel wrote: post #51
plxx7733 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would use unsafe Java to write "security-critical" software?

What do you mean by "unsafe Java"?? Do you mean Java as a language is somehow unsafe? I beg to disagree - it's one of the most scrutinized platforms you can find and widely used in all sorts of security critical software everywhere.

Java has soooo many security vulnerabilities - just browse around a bit...

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#59

Post by vbezhenar »

azangru wrote: post #55
vbezhenar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wer…

> 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 Didn't they say somewhere that in response to the sanctions imposed early in the war they were…

I'm not aware of any real steps about that. Probably empty words.

There are enough software makers in Russia, so allowing piracy would just make their life harder. Like why would you want to buy КОМПАС-3D for some hefty price if you can pirate Autocad for free.

Re: Russia Starts Blocking VPN Protocols

#60

Post by lifty »

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…

This isn't about cracking down on piracy or anything of that sort. It's about slowly getting control of the media and information channels that Russian people have access to. The same playbook that China has been using since forever. Authorities have been encouraging popular Internet celebrities to start posting their content on local networks/apps, so in time Western media sources like Youtube and Twitter will be blocked. The government wants to get full control of the information channels so it can squash dissent easily.
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