3 ms·

Perhaps there is also the need for untraceable/hidden tools for censorship circumvention. This may involve masquerading as normal traffic. I've heard of special

Perhaps there is also the need for untraceable/hidden tools for censorship circumvention. This may involve masquerading as normal traffic. I've heard of specialized hidden censorship circumvention tools that do this by tunneling information though protocols like ping or DNS which won't look as suspicious as a VPN. Of course, for wide deployment this will become a game of cat and mouse, but I don't see any reason it would be impossible to make a good solution that is very hard to detect.

gen3 7y ago
Tor has setting that hide your data to make it look inconspicuous. The issue with tor is its speed and ease of use in my opinion. https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports
Klonoar 7y ago
Your intentions are really good, but this kind of comment is _exactly_ what the person you're responding to was talking about - you're just playing another cat-and-mouse game and not solving the real issue. The world is hitting a breaking point where this has to be solved by fixing governments/legislation/what have you, not by programming more. (Edit: a typo)
- godelski 7y ago
  We're on a tech form. We aren't political experts, we're tech experts. While we should be aware and discuss the political issues at the end of the day we aren't experts in that. But being experts in tech, we can approach the problem from that end. This isn't a "I'm a hammer therefore every problem is a nail" this is "It is a complicated problem that involves nails, screws, rivets, welding, etc. I am good at using a hammer, so let me take care of the nails".
  - Klonoar 7y ago
    The hammer analogy is amusing, given the old adage of "if your only tool is a hammer...". :) I'm of the opinion that a voice (such as yours), if it's so much of an expert, would be better off in advocacy and consulting rather than tinkering with more tools. Not everyone has to agree with me, but I agree with OP's comment and I maintain that your response is emblematic of the issue. I probably won't respond further to this, given we disagree (which is fine) and I've said my piece.
    - godelski 7y ago
      I just think that since we can't know everything that we instead form coalitions. Use our expertise together to function better, together. The OP's comment make me feel that they are requesting that we be experts in everything. While I believe this is a popular belief (I think it is especially common among us nerdy types that we _have_ to be experts on everything), it is also unhealthy and makes us weaker as a society. Instead lets form coalitions. Coalitions are stronger than their individual parts.
  - jfk13 7y ago
    Sometimes hammering nails into the broken thing will just end up splitting the wood and it'll be more broken than before. Yes, this is a tech forum, but it's entirely reasonable to argue that in some cases, a tech solution is by its very nature not the right solution.
    - godelski 7y ago
      > Sometimes hammering nails into the broken thing will just end up splitting the wood and it'll be more broken than before. I 100% agree? But we're trying to build a house here. We may not want to hammer nails into those boards, but there are plenty of places we want to. We also don't want to hammer into steel or into live wires. Maybe my analogy didn't work. I'm saying form coalitions and we apply our domain knowledge to the domain of the problem where our knowledge is most effective. We leave the other domains up to the other domain experts. I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware and help where we can with those issues, but that we also aren't the experts there and shouldn't be leading the conversations (again, participate, but not leading).
  - scrumbledober 7y ago
    wait are you telling me that experts in tech are not by default also experts in all other fields? i'm going to have to let everyone i work with know about this...
    - godelski 7y ago
      I know... such a radical belief. But for some reason it is...
godelski 7y ago
I remember reading on the Signal Blog[0] about using domain fronting to hide their traffic from governments. I think we not only need to have a serious conversation about this (hey corps, if you want to do some good, just look the other way or actually embrace this!) but need to push for technology like this and others. India is heavily invested in WhatsApp and we know that it leaks a lot of metadata. We see in HK users being deanonymized through WA/Telegram/Signal because phone numbers are how social graphs are created or through weak encryption. There's currently a lot of apathy because people feel defeated. But as the tech literate I feel it is our place to lead these conversations. [0] https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/
lozaning 7y ago
Checkout ScrambleSuit and OBFS4 https://github.com/Yawning/obfs4 https://github.com/Yawning/obfs4 https://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/scramblesuit/ https://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/scramblesuit/

gen3 7y ago

Tor has setting that hide your data to make it look inconspicuous. The issue with tor is its speed and ease of use in my opinion. https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports

Klonoar 7y ago

Your intentions are really good, but this kind of comment is _exactly_ what the person you're responding to was talking about - you're just playing another cat-and-mouse game and not solving the real issue. The world is hitting a breaking point where this has to be solved by fixing governments/legislation/what have you, not by programming more. (Edit: a typo)

godelski 7y ago
We're on a tech form. We aren't political experts, we're tech experts. While we should be aware and discuss the political issues at the end of the day we aren't experts in that. But being experts in tech, we can approach the problem from that end. This isn't a "I'm a hammer therefore every problem is a nail" this is "It is a complicated problem that involves nails, screws, rivets, welding, etc. I am good at using a hammer, so let me take care of the nails".
- Klonoar 7y ago
  The hammer analogy is amusing, given the old adage of "if your only tool is a hammer...". :) I'm of the opinion that a voice (such as yours), if it's so much of an expert, would be better off in advocacy and consulting rather than tinkering with more tools. Not everyone has to agree with me, but I agree with OP's comment and I maintain that your response is emblematic of the issue. I probably won't respond further to this, given we disagree (which is fine) and I've said my piece.
  - godelski 7y ago
    I just think that since we can't know everything that we instead form coalitions. Use our expertise together to function better, together. The OP's comment make me feel that they are requesting that we be experts in everything. While I believe this is a popular belief (I think it is especially common among us nerdy types that we _have_ to be experts on everything), it is also unhealthy and makes us weaker as a society. Instead lets form coalitions. Coalitions are stronger than their individual parts.
- jfk13 7y ago
  Sometimes hammering nails into the broken thing will just end up splitting the wood and it'll be more broken than before. Yes, this is a tech forum, but it's entirely reasonable to argue that in some cases, a tech solution is by its very nature not the right solution.
  - godelski 7y ago
    > Sometimes hammering nails into the broken thing will just end up splitting the wood and it'll be more broken than before. I 100% agree? But we're trying to build a house here. We may not want to hammer nails into those boards, but there are plenty of places we want to. We also don't want to hammer into steel or into live wires. Maybe my analogy didn't work. I'm saying form coalitions and we apply our domain knowledge to the domain of the problem where our knowledge is most effective. We leave the other domains up to the other domain experts. I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware and help where we can with those issues, but that we also aren't the experts there and shouldn't be leading the conversations (again, participate, but not leading).
- scrumbledober 7y ago
  wait are you telling me that experts in tech are not by default also experts in all other fields? i'm going to have to let everyone i work with know about this...
  - godelski 7y ago
    I know... such a radical belief. But for some reason it is...

godelski 7y ago

I remember reading on the Signal Blog[0] about using domain fronting to hide their traffic from governments. I think we not only need to have a serious conversation about this (hey corps, if you want to do some good, just look the other way or actually embrace this!) but need to push for technology like this and others. India is heavily invested in WhatsApp and we know that it leaks a lot of metadata. We see in HK users being deanonymized through WA/Telegram/Signal because phone numbers are how social graphs are created or through weak encryption. There's currently a lot of apathy because people feel defeated. But as the tech literate I feel it is our place to lead these conversations. [0] https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/

lozaning 7y ago

Checkout ScrambleSuit and OBFS4 https://github.com/Yawning/obfs4 https://github.com/Yawning/obfs4 https://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/scramblesuit/ https://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/scramblesuit/