Amazon threatens to suspend Signal's AWS account over censorship circumvention

Post by aorth » Wed, May 02, 2018, 8:28 AM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #18

They're spoofing identity of non-consenting parties. The cause is noble, but it isn't what the headline would imply. Amazon isn't saying "You can't host encrypted services on our platform", they are saying "You can't use TLS and load balancing hacks to pretend to be us in oppresive countries". And >The idea behind domain fronting was that to block a single site, you’d have to block the rest of the internet as well. I…

Post by gspetr » Wed, May 02, 2018, 8:36 AM UTC

czardoz wrote: post #273

smsm42 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But effectively that is the case. If major providers like AWS and Google ban domain fronting, it is effectively dead - nobody needs domain fronting when you have three domains, three domains can be banned the same way as one. AWS and Google could throw their considerable weight on the side of anti-censorship and openness. They instead chose - as businesses frequently do - to play along with oppressive dictatorial reg…

AWS and Google are companies. It's not their job to push for societal changes really. In fact, I hope they don't push for those. I'd prefer them to steer clear of pushing for any higher objectives, that's best left to governments and lawmakers.

Post by mtgx » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:26 AM UTC

crazypyro wrote: post #293

tony101 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "They're spoofing identity" That's the entire point. By making it impossible for censors to distinguish Signal traffic from other web traffic going to AWS, domain fronting forces the government censors to either 1) stop censoring, or 2) censor many important websites that people rely upon. The associated economic cost has the tendency to discourage censors, and as shown by Signal, is actually quite an effective det…

My first thought is "How is it in the interest of Amazon's stockholders to prevent censorship in countries ruled by dictatorial regimes?" and secondly, "How does consenting to being a front for services that are strictly forbidden in certain countries benefit our company?"

Post by mvanbaak » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:35 AM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #420

mvanbaak wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not out of curiosity? Because you are lying about what domain you want to access. This is against the TOS, and simply something you should not do. I know it helps signal to get around censorship and blocks, and it's technically working, but one should not do that.

You are only pretending to contact a certain address during the (short) unencrypted phase of the request. As soon as encryption is present you reveal the real address you want to talk to. The only ones getting spoofed are the censors.

Post by nasredin » Wed, May 02, 2018, 9:53 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #377

andrepd wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it bluntly: fuck the shareholders. The question being asked shouldn't be "are the capital owners getting paid", but "is this company improving lives and delivering benefit". It's after all, what they're here for, not just to make money. No matter how much money I can make selling heroin, they're not gonna let me because, you guessed it, I'm doing damage by doing it.

What about countless of other, not censored, services delivered from the same network? Do they not "improve lives" and "deliver benefit"? Collateral freedom is akin to placing your guerilla command center in a hospital, in a gamble that the other side will leave you alone instead of risking extra harm to innocent civilians. In this case, the hospital decided to disallow guerillas to use it as cover.