4 ms·

I was hoping to read through the comments and find someone would correct you, but it seems everyone is under the same false belief. Encryption doesn't matter.

I was hoping to read through the comments and find someone would correct you, but it seems everyone is under the same false belief. Encryption doesn't matter. Automated deep packet and encrypted packet inspection is burgeoning with advances that put the single-actor work-arounds to shame. 1). Your ISP knows your traffic is encrypted. It knows what cipher and protocol you're using, and its routing is not protocol-agnostic. 2). Your ISP knows beyond "mostly confident" the type of files your packets contain. If you don't keep your connection open and use any of the public encryption methods, your ISP will know exactly what you've downloaded to a reasonable degree. 3). HTTPS is only as good as all the different pieces combined (browser, root CA, server, site, client). And if one of those goes bad, it's worthless. 4). If you use encryption heavily, you're already flagged. 5). If you don't use your ISP's CDN, you're already flagged. 6). If you connect to any other site besides Google, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, or Instagram your aggregate data will be quickly analyzed and compared with a threat table, and appropriately flagged. 7). Traffic analysis is trivial when you're the one routing the traffic. Google is Dunning Kruger evil. ISPs are "pick up that can" evil. The lack of serious developments in HTTPS are "see no evil" stupid. The thought that HTTPS is anything but a red hearing is "Ivan the Fool" stupid.

thebongoboy 9y ago
>If you connect to any other site besides Google, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, or Instagram your aggregate data will be quickly analyzed and compared with a threat table, and appropriately flagged. Huh? What are you talking about? >If you use encryption heavily, you're already flagged. >If you don't use your ISP's CDN, you're already flagged. What types of encryption? Since when did ISPs make users use a CDN? Again, I don’t get what you’re saying. Sources and more information would be greatly appreciated.
- jbros 9y ago
  This sounds about right. I came to most of these conclusions myself after trying to build a secure personal VPN . Oh what a fool I was.
- jeff_tyrrill 9y ago
  The grandparent doesn't say this specifically, but I've long suspected that a middleman adversary can identify, with high accuracy, which top-1000 website you are accessing (even through a VPN) based on the timing and bandwidth signature of the encrypted traffic. Probably to a lot more detail if they gather and analyze longer-term traffic pattern data. They can certainly tell whether you're using streaming video with this type of analysis. If people start using VPNs en masse, ISPs and/or other interested actors will develop this technology, if they have not already. (I would guess it already has been, albeit perhaps not widely deployed.) If the ISP is the same as the ad network, or a data broker with one (and some are, see: Verizon Wireless), they can then link your IP address to a cookie-based profile. (Yes, there are counter-measures there, like disabling third-party cookies. And there are countermeasures to that, like browser fingerprinting.)

thebongoboy 9y ago

>If you connect to any other site besides Google, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, or Instagram your aggregate data will be quickly analyzed and compared with a threat table, and appropriately flagged. Huh? What are you talking about? >If you use encryption heavily, you're already flagged. >If you don't use your ISP's CDN, you're already flagged. What types of encryption? Since when did ISPs make users use a CDN? Again, I don’t get what you’re saying. Sources and more information would be greatly appreciated.

jbros 9y ago
This sounds about right. I came to most of these conclusions myself after trying to build a secure personal VPN . Oh what a fool I was.
jeff_tyrrill 9y ago
The grandparent doesn't say this specifically, but I've long suspected that a middleman adversary can identify, with high accuracy, which top-1000 website you are accessing (even through a VPN) based on the timing and bandwidth signature of the encrypted traffic. Probably to a lot more detail if they gather and analyze longer-term traffic pattern data. They can certainly tell whether you're using streaming video with this type of analysis. If people start using VPNs en masse, ISPs and/or other interested actors will develop this technology, if they have not already. (I would guess it already has been, albeit perhaps not widely deployed.) If the ISP is the same as the ad network, or a data broker with one (and some are, see: Verizon Wireless), they can then link your IP address to a cookie-based profile. (Yes, there are counter-measures there, like disabling third-party cookies. And there are countermeasures to that, like browser fingerprinting.)