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A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

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Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#11

Post by alephnerd »

hexomancer wrote: post #10
alephnerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Google's AI Mode working? That might solve the problem you mentioned.

Well, the internet is not national anymore (for now!), but isn't Google AI Mode US only? Anyway, the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.).

Ah - I didn't realize Google AI Mode is US Only!

> the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.)

Yea, sounds like they resorted to a hard whitelist. How were other Internet services impacted in Iran? My understanding is payment is increasingly tap-to-pay or via digital wallets within Iran? How was that impacted during the shutdown?

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#12

Post by hexomancer »

alephnerd wrote: post #11
hexomancer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the internet is not national anymore (for now!), but isn't Google AI Mode US only? Anyway, the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.).

Ah - I didn't realize Google AI Mode is US Only! > the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.) Yea, sounds like they resorted to a hard whitelist. How were other Internet services impacted in Iran? My understanding is payment is increasingly tap-to-pay or via digital wallets within Iran? How was that impacted during the shutdown?

Well, Iran is sanctioned as fuck, so no global payment system works in Iran anyway. All the payment systems used by Iranians are local so they work even in national internet.

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#13

Post by alephnerd »

hexomancer wrote: post #12
alephnerd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah - I didn't realize Google AI Mode is US Only! > the only google service that did work at that time was google search as far as I know nothing else worked (no gmail, maps, etc.) Yea, sounds like they resorted to a hard whitelist. How were other Internet services impacted in Iran? My understanding is payment is increasingly tap-to-pay or via digital wallets within Iran? How was that impacted during the shutdown?

Well, Iran is sanctioned as fuck, so no global payment system works in Iran anyway. All the payment systems used by Iranians are local so they work even in national internet.

Yep! What I meant was during the recent conflict, was the domestic payment system working? How brittle or robust was it during that, especially given that my understanding is that Iran has transitioned to a cashless society?

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#14

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

joecool1029 wrote: post #8
RiverCrochet wrote: post #3

I wish this article went into more details on what the "National Information Network" is. I would guess it's at least a set of nationally managed DNS servers that will always resolve national IPs even if upstream global DNS is cut off. Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are. It's simply no…

> Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are. This is defeatist. You're probably right 'for the masses' but there will always be those networking and collaborating and bypassing whatever restrictions get put in place. I have online contacts in 'firewalled' regimes that use v2ray/shadowsocks or…

> What I'm trying to say is the stuff is there and it's accessible, but it's only going to be a minority of people that use it

Exactly. This is why the tech has to be made resistant to surveillance and censorship by default. Until usage of alternative connectivity and circumvention methods sticks out as a sore thumb (turns out, for most tools it does), it applies a constant pressure on anyone under oppression to stop, increasing the risks for those who continue to use them.

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#15

Post by hexomancer »

alephnerd wrote: post #13
hexomancer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Iran is sanctioned as fuck, so no global payment system works in Iran anyway. All the payment systems used by Iranians are local so they work even in national internet.

Yep! What I meant was during the recent conflict, was the domestic payment system working? How brittle or robust was it during that, especially given that my understanding is that Iran has transitioned to a cashless society?

Yes, it was working at least in my experience.

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#16

Post by mschuster91 »

joecool1029 wrote: post #8
RiverCrochet wrote: post #3

I wish this article went into more details on what the "National Information Network" is. I would guess it's at least a set of nationally managed DNS servers that will always resolve national IPs even if upstream global DNS is cut off. Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are. It's simply no…

> Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are. This is defeatist. You're probably right 'for the masses' but there will always be those networking and collaborating and bypassing whatever restrictions get put in place. I have online contacts in 'firewalled' regimes that use v2ray/shadowsocks or…

> hams have their own packet radio stuff

We got basically three different things. First we got APRS, mostly used for position reports (go on aprs.fi for a map). That is pretty nice but unusable for anything more than a SMS worth of things, and you need repeaters and not just internet gateway collectors to actually have something that's resilient.

Next thing is AX25, the technical foundation behind APRS. Yes you can use it to create actual data links, but it's about modem speeds so virtually useless outside of toying around.

And finally there is HamNet but it's line of sight based and not cross routed to the internet, and identically to all things ham radio, encryption is banned by law.

And on top of that, you can expect regulatory agencies to crack down on ham radio fast and hard, should it be used for political dissency motives at scale. It's already against ham practice to talk politics, especially with people in repressive countries - we don't want more countries other than Yemen and North Korea to just blanket ban ham radio.

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#17

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

> WireGuard uses UDP and a small handshake footprint, making detection and blocking via DPI harder.

Not quite true. Wireguard is already actively detected and suppressed if necessary. There's already a fork that employs basic changes to improve the protocol in this regard. AmneziaWG was shown to be more robust to detection for now.

https://docs.amnezia.org/documentation/amnezia-wg/

Too bad managing WG is such a pain and Tailscale/Netbird don't support this protocol yet. The following two issues need attention:

https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/10696

https://github.com/netbirdio/netbird/issues/1096

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#19

Post by Vulturus »

justusthane wrote: post #4
naryJane wrote: post #2

I appreciate the final paragraphs which suggest a solid method for those inside the country and under this oppressive regime to remain connected without surveillance. I wonder how many are up to this, and what active resistance or movements inside the country look like these days.

Does it, though? It doesn’t mention whether or not hosting your own encrypted messaging platform is illegal, what the repercussions are, or how to hide that you are doing so. I found the whole article to be unfortunately light on both technical details and practical details, and certainly wouldn’t suggest that anyone use it as a guide.

I was wondering myself, if it isn't very dangerous to host those kinds of services in an opressive state such as Iran? Hosting a site on Iranian IPs certainly sounds easy to track and I'm sure a Starlink receiver also makes substential RF noise. Anyone has any information about how likely is the Iranian government is to shut down such a site/service? Also, doesn't encrypted traffic in general (like Matrix servers) fall into this category?

Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns

#20

Post by swores »

mschuster91 wrote: post #16
joecool1029 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking at a bigger picture though, honestly I think we're seeing the end of the raw global Internet for the masses. 20 years ago, it seemed impossible, but here we are. This is defeatist. You're probably right 'for the masses' but there will always be those networking and collaborating and bypassing whatever restrictions get put in place. I have online contacts in 'firewalled' regimes that use v2ray/shadowsocks or…

> hams have their own packet radio stuff We got basically three different things. First we got APRS, mostly used for position reports (go on aprs.fi for a map). That is pretty nice but unusable for anything more than a SMS worth of things, and you need repeaters and not just internet gateway collectors to actually have something that's resilient. Next thing is AX25, the technical foundation behind APRS. Yes you can u…

Am I right to assume that it's easy to locate the source of ham radio signals?

i.e. if there's a blanket ban, can you use your radio hidden in your house or can the government easily find out that the user they've noticed on the airwaves is located there and knock down your door?

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