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Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

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Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Viber even End to End encrypted at all?

Supposedly. https://www.viber.com/blog/2018-01-28/your-data-is-protected... https://www.viber.com/blog/2016-04-19/giving-our-users-contr...

Just one remark: Viber/WhatsApp client's code is closed, where is the guarantee that they do not have some "backdoor" to the client's chat right in the application?

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#222
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or XMPP+OMEMO which adds things like multi-client support and encrypted group chat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13396083 I'm running this on my own server (using ejabberd [1] as Prosody - which I used previously - still has problems with some of the required XEPs[2]) using several different clients (Conversations [3] on Android, Pidgin on Linux, etc). The one weak link in OMEMO is the difficulty of verifying…

we should take a leaf out of the signal/telegram book and convert the hex strings to emoji thumbprints. It's "good enough" for 90% of cases, but it depends on clients supporting emoji.. :(

That would work for graphical clients but not so much for textual versions. Some type of ASCII-art might serve the purpose but whatever solution is chosen it will be hard to visualise the entropy of a 64-digit hex string in such a way as to distinguish it from the same string with 1 bit flipped.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#223
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant that only Telegram would be be blocked instead of possibly affecting half of the Internet on the way there. For Telegram it wouldn't be any better.

They would still be blocking the IPv6 netblocks assigned to Amazon and Google, only it would be easier because the blocks would be more contiguous.

I'm assuming it would be easier having one IPv6 address used only by a single application, that's why. Amazon/Google services would be less affected then. There's a whole different question if government would bother to be that precise, still.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#224
post #94
post #26

Why block Telegram and not .. all the others? Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, ... Are they objecting to the use of encryption? Because everyone uses encryption almost all the time for everything everywhere. The cat has been well and truly released from that bag. Are they just going to turn off the internet altogether?

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. They probably have a data-sharing agreement with Russia.

Not yet. Moreover, the head of russian regulatory says this year Facebook probably might be blocked as well if they will not receive all data they need.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#225
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would still be blocking the IPv6 netblocks assigned to Amazon and Google, only it would be easier because the blocks would be more contiguous.

I'm assuming it would be easier having one IPv6 address used only by a single application, that's why. Amazon/Google services would be less affected then. There's a whole different question if government would bother to be that precise, still.

The whole point of moving to the cloud was to make themselves harder to block. I don't think they would self-defeat by limiting themselves to a single /64 or something.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you create a true point to point channel between households without any corporate or government equipment, this is just a dream. Many people are mistaken about the internet, they think it cannot be easily filtered but this is not true at all. Every country has few major telcos that own the equipment where 100% of the internet traffic flows through. This is why banning IP ranges is super easy for them.

Until SpaceX launches its low-orbital fleet of internet satellites... That would be fun to watch.

It won't. The antennas will be pretty big and visible, and also they will inevitably leak some RF sideways. It's easy to ban them and catch people who get them illegally.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#227
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It a repo of "leaked" blacklist. Roskomnadzor don't publish it to public and share it only with ISPs.

They do publish it, but here: http://eais.rkn.gov.ru

Where? It's just a way to check single domain/ip/page if it's blacklisted or not. They don't give access to entire blacklist.

Re: Russia Bans 1.8M Amazon and Google IPs in Attempt to Block Telegram

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sad part is that it's not just authoritarian countries that are doing this, but also the democratic ones Which democratic country has blocked a major messaging app because it is used by political dissenters?

> Which democratic country has blocked a major messaging app because it is used by political dissenters? While it hasn't yet blocked it, the UK Government is certainly constantly after WhatsApp to remove the encryption (or build a backdoor) because a couple of terrorist jackoffs used it that one time (and I think they count as "political dissenters".)

> the UK Government is certainly constantly after WhatsApp to remove the encryption (or build a backdoor)

Australia too. :-(

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