4 ms·

You can't send secure communications over a compromised network of ISPs. Well, you can, but not without looking suspicious. I really think you may as well for

by bhousel 15y ago

You can't send secure communications over a compromised network of ISPs. Well, you can, but not without looking suspicious. I really think you may as well forget about using the Internet for this. A better solution is to just use external USB hard drives with Truecrypt and ferry them around via a network or human couriers or through the mail. Truecrypt lets you install a hidden volume on the hard drives so that if the drives are ever captured you have some plausible deniability about what is really on them.

deleted 15y ago
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macca321 15y ago
How would you look suspicious? What if you stick to communication through innocently used domains using new accounts in internet cafes?
- bhousel 15y ago
  There are a lot of trust issues in sending data that way. 1. First you have to trust the machine in the internet cafe. It might have viruses or keyloggers. You can maybe get around this by using your own laptop, but not allowed in most places. 2. Next you have to trust the network. It could be monitored or logged. You could be vulnerable to MITM attacks or DNS poisoning. SSL is not guaranteed to get you any real protection in this situation. 3. So you have a compromised network - you can get around this by just PGP encrypting whatever you want to send to the receiver (assuming you and your receiver have done some kind of sane, out-of-band key exchange), or using steganography tools to hide your video inside some other file, but.. 4. Now you are uploading large encrypted files to 'innocently used domains' (whatever that means) from an internet cafe. And walking around with a laptop with either keypairs or steganography software on it.. That's suspicious. It's just far easier to use an external drive with TrueCrypt on it to send your sensitive information. You can have a hidden volume containing your really sensitive data, and a main volume where you can store some files that are plausibly sensitive enough to warrant TrueCrypt protection, e.g. a porn stash or some confidential business data.

by bhousel 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

macca321 15y ago

How would you look suspicious? What if you stick to communication through innocently used domains using new accounts in internet cafes?

bhousel 15y ago
There are a lot of trust issues in sending data that way. 1. First you have to trust the machine in the internet cafe. It might have viruses or keyloggers. You can maybe get around this by using your own laptop, but not allowed in most places. 2. Next you have to trust the network. It could be monitored or logged. You could be vulnerable to MITM attacks or DNS poisoning. SSL is not guaranteed to get you any real protection in this situation. 3. So you have a compromised network - you can get around this by just PGP encrypting whatever you want to send to the receiver (assuming you and your receiver have done some kind of sane, out-of-band key exchange), or using steganography tools to hide your video inside some other file, but.. 4. Now you are uploading large encrypted files to 'innocently used domains' (whatever that means) from an internet cafe. And walking around with a laptop with either keypairs or steganography software on it.. That's suspicious. It's just far easier to use an external drive with TrueCrypt on it to send your sensitive information. You can have a hidden volume containing your really sensitive data, and a main volume where you can store some files that are plausibly sensitive enough to warrant TrueCrypt protection, e.g. a porn stash or some confidential business data.