There needs to be a way for the same Signal application to, in an emergency, connect to a different server. Perhaps even some form of federation so that once somebody switches server, they can still reach people on a different server if need be. I would absolutely love to see some work done on making a Matrix/Signal hybrid.
Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
241–250 of 417 posts
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been mulling this over today, as your ability to get the name/IP of the proxy has to be censorship resistant as well. The best idea I've had so far is using a CNAME response to a very common DNS query which would pass a basic filter, like I'd ask for "mail.mydomain.com" and it would respond with a CNAME pointing to the actual proxy. I have dead domains which I have configured with null records for MX and stuff (…
Using innocent sounding CNAMEs on abandoned domains is definitely a smart idea. I’ve definitely got some old domains kicking about, I’ll see how far off they are from expiration and do something similar if they have at least a few months left in them. The proxies themselves can also be hosted at normal sounding domains and subdomains like cdn.technology.memes or whatever. And when you point other domains to them as C…
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, both Google and Amazon told Signal not to use them for domain fronting: https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/
Gross! I wonder what motivated these decisions inside Amazon & Google. This likely affects the Tor project domain fronting as well. We really should not have let the majority of internet traffic be served by a small handful of giant companies without some legal protections as to what they're allowed to do.
So it was not an act by google and amazon to activly harm Signal, but rather canceling ongoing support of Signal, that could put their buisness to harm, which is something different.
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#244Signal could learn a lot from Telegram in this regard. Russian govt had tried to block Telegram but telegram servers just keep jumping over various cidrs and users got the ip addresses for connecting over push updates and the only thing the govt succeeded in was blocking a wide range of subnets including AWS ranges and GCP ranges thus disrupting a whole lot of businesses and even some government services. They gave u…
Feels like there could be a good business in providing this CIDR-hopping push-updating proxy as a service other apps could embed. Like what CloudFlare does for DDoS protection, but as a forward-proxy + client middleware, instead of a reverse-proxy.
Dealing with hostility from government bodies is probably no fun.
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#245It's an irony how American companies try circumvents another country's law (regardless of whether you call it censorship or not, it is still a law) and boast about it. Yet, in the US these companies help the mainstream narrative to enforce censorship by banning (Google and Apple App market) or simply not offering other point of views basic hosting services (AWS). I am an Iranian and don't agree with all of our govern…
And sure enough, the FBI is investigating.
Signal is a charity rather than a company, but dunno if that makes any actual difference.
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you mean the phone vendors, as they are the ones holding the unencrypted chat history in the users cloud storage. Facebook themselves do not have access to the chat logs (unless they are compelled to inject keys).
They could literally have a hidden function in WhatsApp that scoops up all your chat history and sends it to Facebook if the government ask them to. It’s closed source. No one has a clue what it’s doing. To be clear I’m not suggesting this is absolutely happening. I’m merely pointing out it’s entirely possible from a technological perspective given it’s closed source software owned by Facebook. That’s not a recipe fo…
I'd love for iOS and android to add some sort of OS-level application hash or something. "This app was compiled with xcode version X / llvm version Y with this set of options. The resulting binary hashes to ZZZ". That way with the source code you could verify that the binary on your phone is unchanged.
(Another approach would be to get apple / google to do the compilation themselves from the project on github. If apple builds my project, they could put some signed metadata in the bundle saying "We (apple) compiled this from git SHA XXX")
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just set up one of these Signal proxies. Hope it helps you and others in your country communicate freely and safely. [1] Regarding Tor: if you want a Signal-like app that uses an onion router look at Session. [2] It uses the same encryption protocol and very similar UI to Signal but routes all traffic through the Loki network so your traffic passes through three nodes. It is an onion network like Tor. One other ben…
Session has: 1. An associated crypto-currency (not outright bad but weird smell IMO) [1] 2. Abandoned perfect forward secrecy and deniability [2] 3. Never completed an audit (though supposedly one is in progress) [3] There are a million and one encrypted chat programs out there. Why should I use this one? [1]: https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mobile-wallet [2]: https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informa…
The lack of metadata is also quite a unique selling point in my eyes. There’s a million encrypted messengers now sure. How many automatically connect through an onion router with zero config required and don’t require you to create an account at all, but instead assign you a random ID disconnected entirely from your phone number, email, and other personal identifiers?
It’s certainly an option to consider is the only thing I’m saying. Tor was mentioned so Session popped into my head for the reasons mentioned above.
Regarding PFS. They currently implement the Signal Protocol. Session is of course FOSS so anyone can check this. Your source does say they’re planning to fork it as the Session Protocol later this year so it integrates with their network more easily. But that’s an upcoming, unfinished project. To be honest I don’t know much about it as it’s still in development. I do know that currently Session uses the Signal Protocol through an onion router without the need to so much as create an account.
And yes the network itself is a bit of a convoluted idea that tries to do many things at once, but the fact they run on a blockchain means they already have a lot of nodes set up in different countries around the world through which to route traffic, and the reason they could build a decentralised network quite quickly despite being a relatively young project is they incentivise those node operators with cryptocurrency.
Because it is a young project they are still undergoing audit yes. This is absolutely something worth noting. It’s a relatively new project. It’s no longer in beta, but nowhere near as well established as Signal. However it’s precisely because of this it’s unlikely governments are bothering to target it yet.
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you mean the phone vendors, as they are the ones holding the unencrypted chat history in the users cloud storage. Facebook themselves do not have access to the chat logs (unless they are compelled to inject keys).
They could literally have a hidden function in WhatsApp that scoops up all your chat history and sends it to Facebook if the government ask them to. It’s closed source. No one has a clue what it’s doing. To be clear I’m not suggesting this is absolutely happening. I’m merely pointing out it’s entirely possible from a technological perspective given it’s closed source software owned by Facebook. That’s not a recipe fo…
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoa whoa whoa… there can be legal consequences for spinning-up a proxy in countries sanctioning Iran. This is a case where action can in fact be way worse for someone than inaction. I still can't find any discussion about that and it's worth investigating.
I imagine that you're right, but it feels like a really weird case to choose to prosecute.
Point being there are already discussions about the relay topic with cloud providers and it's not a weird edge case to me (and the law in your jurisdiction may have a strong opinion on this), I imagine there are legal things about where you live vs. where the server lives which also matter.
Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal
#250It's an irony how American companies try circumvents another country's law (regardless of whether you call it censorship or not, it is still a law) and boast about it. Yet, in the US these companies help the mainstream narrative to enforce censorship by banning (Google and Apple App market) or simply not offering other point of views basic hosting services (AWS). I am an Iranian and don't agree with all of our govern…
Can someone please explain to me why it's a OK to reconnect Iranians to Signal, but not Trump supporters to Twitter (the ones censored and banned by Twitter)?