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If Tor is illegal in your country, it seems pretty risky to try to use it. Since anyone can run a snowflake proxy, it would be a trivial exercise to just log co

If Tor is illegal in your country, it seems pretty risky to try to use it. Since anyone can run a snowflake proxy, it would be a trivial exercise to just log connecting IP addresses. Then it's a gamble with vanishing odds of staying safe each time you connect.

gary_0 3y ago
They could block Snowflakes with IPs from networks in unsafe countries, but that is trivially bypassed by the attacker just buying VPSs (or botnet nodes) in a freer country. Skimming the Technical Overview[0], I don't see anything about mitigating the risks you mention. The purpose of Snowflake seems to be to circumvent blocking of Tor, not to prevent detection of using Tor. It takes advantage of "Domain Fronting" and WebRTC to accomplish this. [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/wikis/Technical%20Overview https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-...
- heresie-dabord 3y ago
  > that is trivially bypassed by the attacker just buying VPSs (or botnet nodes) in a freer country A.K.A. "living off the economic land"
throwaway290 3y ago
"Just" don't connect from an IP that can be tied back to you, use black market sim in a separate phone, connect from places you don't go, turn it off when not in use... It gets expensive fast...
- petesergeant 3y ago
  > use black market sim in a separate phone In most countries this takes you from “may have committed a crime” to “have actually committed a crime”
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    We're talking about countries where using vpn is already a crime so no problem
tga_d 3y ago
In most places where Snowflake is useful, connecting to Tor is either legal or the laws against it aren't enforced. It's usually the creators/contributors of anti-censorship tools that face repercussions. That said, Tor Project pretty consistently emphasizes that all plugable transports are for AC purposes, not steganographic purposes, and while they're difficult to block, they will not stop the network operator from being able to tell you're connecting to Tor, and that it ultimately falls on the user to decide whether that's acceptable.

gary_0 3y ago

They could block Snowflakes with IPs from networks in unsafe countries, but that is trivially bypassed by the attacker just buying VPSs (or botnet nodes) in a freer country. Skimming the Technical Overview[0], I don't see anything about mitigating the risks you mention. The purpose of Snowflake seems to be to circumvent blocking of Tor, not to prevent detection of using Tor. It takes advantage of "Domain Fronting" and WebRTC to accomplish this. [0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-transports/snowflake/-/wikis/Technical%20Overview https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-...

heresie-dabord 3y ago
> that is trivially bypassed by the attacker just buying VPSs (or botnet nodes) in a freer country A.K.A. "living off the economic land"

throwaway290 3y ago

"Just" don't connect from an IP that can be tied back to you, use black market sim in a separate phone, connect from places you don't go, turn it off when not in use... It gets expensive fast...

petesergeant 3y ago
> use black market sim in a separate phone In most countries this takes you from “may have committed a crime” to “have actually committed a crime”
- throwaway290 3y ago
  We're talking about countries where using vpn is already a crime so no problem

tga_d 3y ago

In most places where Snowflake is useful, connecting to Tor is either legal or the laws against it aren't enforced. It's usually the creators/contributors of anti-censorship tools that face repercussions. That said, Tor Project pretty consistently emphasizes that all plugable transports are for AC purposes, not steganographic purposes, and while they're difficult to block, they will not stop the network operator from being able to tell you're connecting to Tor, and that it ultimately falls on the user to decide whether that's acceptable.