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I think Reed-solomon should be considered in future network protocols designs to combat censorship. Every byte should be demuxed into bits and transferred in in

by est 4y ago

I think Reed-solomon should be considered in future network protocols designs to combat censorship. Every byte should be demuxed into bits and transferred in independent data streams, so MITM boxes can only intercept incomplete streams, and aggregate streams back to original would be insanely difficult. Let transport layers do only one job and no distinguish whatever the content might be inside. Currently H2 does support M:N stream muxing but popular browsers only support N:1 mode.

vlovich123 4y ago
It’s a comparatively expensive operation (CPU and memory) compared with just encrypting the information which also blinds the network operator to the same extent. Unless you’re saying that you’d send the stream across multiple disparate networks. But if you’re able to get packets out of one, what’s stopping you from getting the whole stream out that network?
- est 4y ago
  > comparatively expensive operation (CPU and memory) Which is good, because it means higher cost of middle boxes > But if you’re able to get packets out of one, what’s stopping you from getting the whole stream out that network? It's practically impossible, unless the MITM box were setup very close to both ends on the edge. In real world packets were routed slightly different, the server might have several IPs or CDNs, so if your middlebox were placed in backbone it will be useless as packets were transfered out-of-order and not in the same stream. > just encrypting the information which also blinds the network operator Yes, but the network operator was sure every information is inside one exact stream, just with a thick layer of protection, state-of-the-art classifiers are able to match metadata patterns to the individual websites, so protocol designers would then take huge amount of time to fight it. You either have a very fast TTFB protocol, or you'd have to add some padding redundancy (noise) to disguise the metadata. By metadata I mean packet length and frequency pattern.
not2b 4y ago
That seems an inferior approach to just using encryption.

by est 4y ago

vlovich123 4y ago

It’s a comparatively expensive operation (CPU and memory) compared with just encrypting the information which also blinds the network operator to the same extent. Unless you’re saying that you’d send the stream across multiple disparate networks. But if you’re able to get packets out of one, what’s stopping you from getting the whole stream out that network?

est 4y ago
> comparatively expensive operation (CPU and memory) Which is good, because it means higher cost of middle boxes > But if you’re able to get packets out of one, what’s stopping you from getting the whole stream out that network? It's practically impossible, unless the MITM box were setup very close to both ends on the edge. In real world packets were routed slightly different, the server might have several IPs or CDNs, so if your middlebox were placed in backbone it will be useless as packets were transfered out-of-order and not in the same stream. > just encrypting the information which also blinds the network operator Yes, but the network operator was sure every information is inside one exact stream, just with a thick layer of protection, state-of-the-art classifiers are able to match metadata patterns to the individual websites, so protocol designers would then take huge amount of time to fight it. You either have a very fast TTFB protocol, or you'd have to add some padding redundancy (noise) to disguise the metadata. By metadata I mean packet length and frequency pattern.

not2b 4y ago

That seems an inferior approach to just using encryption.