>SMS in Iran is unencrypted. SMS everywhere is unencrypted
Yes, although many people probably don't know the difference between SMS and RCS and use SMS to refer to both.
A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
31–40 of 130 posts
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#32> IPv4 addresses are limited and constantly reallocated. Most are rented and passed between hosting providers, resold between datacenters, or migrated across regions. The Iranian filtering system uses GeoIP databases and BGP information to decide which IP ranges to trust and which to block. But those records lag behind the changes.
This is surprising to me. Surely iranian ISPs would have directly allocated IP space?
Or alternatively, surely Iran's gov would be in the routers and be able to blackhole any routes leaving the country?
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#33I 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…
Maybe, or Starlink and software destabilize the authoritarians.
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#34If you are ever thinking of writing somethings like this: please be aware that people could be executed based upon the validity of your assumptions and advice offered.
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#35I 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.
> whether or not hosting your own encrypted messaging platform is illegal
Matrix isn't meaningfully encrypted, so it's mostly irrelevant, hooray!
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#36> IPv4 addresses are limited and constantly reallocated. Most are rented and passed between hosting providers, resold between datacenters, or migrated across regions. The Iranian filtering system uses GeoIP databases and BGP information to decide which IP ranges to trust and which to block. But those records lag behind the changes. This is surprising to me. Surely iranian ISPs would have directly allocated IP space?…
Are they sanctioned away from RIPE, like Russia is? Russia isn't allowed to be allocated any IP addresses they don't already have. They're Russia, so they already have a bunch, but if they didn't, they'd have to keep borrowing them on grey markets, possibly different ones each time. Iran might be that way.
(Fun fact about sanctions: the International Criminal Court is sanctioned away from Microsoft, so they can't legally get access to Windows or Office. This is because they prosecuted a war criminal the USA likes.)
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#37I 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…
The current global Internet is an anomaly in space and time, and it's held together by spit, prayers, and the hope the reliability gains from multiple redundant paths outweigh the reliability losses from so many distinct actors being involved. It would be quite easy for any major government to cause major problems in global connectivity. So far, they mostly seem content to only cut themselves off, and the ones with the power to mess up the global net don't seem to want to. But the NSA was diverting a whole lot of intra-Europe traffic via the USA at one time so they could snoop it.
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#38I 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…
Live in China/Iran for a few years and see if you would still post this same comment.
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#39I 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.
I feel like I’ve been hearing this for decades. During the initial wave of Napster-era piracy debates a lot of people assumed the end of the free internet was near because corporations wouldn’t allow it.
> It's simply not going to be possible to meaningfully use the Internet unauthenticated and unapproved in a few years.
I will take the opposite of that bet any day. Certain countries like Iran will impose their restrictions, but if you think the average country is going to restrict internet access in only a couple of years I don’t know what to say.
Re: A technical look at Iran's internet shutdowns
#40Earlier 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…
> but it's about modem speeds so virtually useless outside of toying around.
I don’t understand this sentiment. For exchanging information, modem speeds were great. Wikipedia, forums like this one, instant messengers, etc all worked fine