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A word of advice for those living under truly oppressive governments - do not connect to Tor directly (nor to a Tor bridge, to be on the safe side). Get a cheap

A word of advice for those living under truly oppressive governments - do not connect to Tor directly (nor to a Tor bridge, to be on the safe side). Get a cheap VPS/EC2 abroad and use SSH tunnel to connect to that and from then onwards - to a Tor bridge. The reason is that, if connecting to Tor directly, security services will be able to figure out you are using Tor (although not what you are using it for) and may take an interest.

tuxcanfly 14y ago
By the same logic, won't they be able to detect SSH tunneled traffic too?
- noonespecial 14y ago
  My advice would be to spin up a free EC2 instance, put a small "dog fancy" type blog/website up with a few articles about poodles, and then use something like openVPN to tunnel your traffic via tcp, port 443 through this. It looks like you're just doing your wordpress thing, fancying your dogs. Just watch how much data you tunnel this way. 500 gig in a month might raise some eyebrows. Also remember to use your regular un-vpn'd connection to visit ILoveAhmadinejad.com on a fairly regular basis so not all your traffic goes to this mysterious blog.
  - klearvue 14y ago
    If using OpenVPN, there is one precaution one must take - make sure your firewall prevents traffic escaping when your VPN connection fails. Shorewall lets you set up such an arrangement fairly easily. Many US poker players have been burnt this way when using overseas VPN services to play poker as operators are able to catch their real location during brief moments of VPN failure. With SSH tunnel, if your connection fails, no traffic will escape regardless.
- praptak 14y ago
  There's a world of difference between "citizen spotted using SSH" and "citizen spotted using Tor". In the first case you are just one in a huge number of people using SSH to avoid sniffers. With Tor the authorities know you're doing something you'd rather not be seen doing. It's a much, much bigger red flag.
  - nacker 14y ago
    I'd rather "the authorities" would stop spying on me whatever I'm doing, and I believe everyone should actively send up as many red flags as possible to confuse the bastards. I don't accept the authority of any random gang of thugs over me, from whatever part of the world, period.
    - alexqgb 14y ago
      "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
      - Karunamon 14y ago
        Just because it's a funny quote doesn't make it any less of a non sequitur...
    - praptak 14y ago
      Mind the context. People under oppressive regimes do not have the luxury of messing with the thugs just to confuse them.
bwilson 14y ago
Many people who need Tor can't afford or are unable to purchase VPSes abroad. However, the obfsproxy feature is available in the latest versions of Tor, which can mask traffic, and worked effectively against Iran's DPI earlier this year. You can contact the Tor Project directly to get a few bridges that support this feature. https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy.html.en https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy.html.en
nikcub 14y ago
Jeremy Hammond, aka. 'Anarchaos', the Lulzsec member from Chicago, who was raided and arrested[1] by the FBI used Tor and it is mentioned in his indictment as one of the points that lead to his identification. [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/stakeout-how-the-fbi-tracked-and-busted-a-chicago-anon/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/stakeout-how-the-... [2] http://www.scribd.com/doc/84134934/Hammond-Jeremy-Complaint http://www.scribd.com/doc/84134934/Hammond-Jeremy-Complaint - Tor info starts at sec 37.
- dfc 14y ago
  First of all the discussion of TOR starts at section 39. The FBI did not identify Anarchaos traffic coming out the other end of the TOR network. The FBI did not identify Anarchaos because of TOR. The complaint mentions that Anarchaos had previously mentioned the use of TOR and that one of the devices (Mac laptop) on the network under surveillance connected to a known TOR router. The complaint goes on to correlate traffic from the laptop to the TOR network with Anarchaos's presence in his residence. They already knew who he was before they found the TOR traffic. Thats why they had a PEN/TRAP warrant, and wireless and physical surveilance in place.
  - nikcub 14y ago
    the FBI played 33 bits and 1 of the bits was Tor use
    - dfc 14y ago
      I do not even know what you mean? Is this a reference to that one academic who said you needed X bits to identify someone? They already knew who he was. The tor use was circumstantial evidence that strengthened the case...at best. Do you think the TOR information was neccessary for an identification? Surely you do not think it was sufficient?
      - qohen 14y ago
        http://33bits.org/about/ http://33bits.org/about/
zalew 14y ago
How governments have tried to block Tor [28C3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ
- klearvue 14y ago
  thanks so much for that video, inspired me to make a resolution to volunteer for Tor
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

tuxcanfly 14y ago

By the same logic, won't they be able to detect SSH tunneled traffic too?

noonespecial 14y ago
My advice would be to spin up a free EC2 instance, put a small "dog fancy" type blog/website up with a few articles about poodles, and then use something like openVPN to tunnel your traffic via tcp, port 443 through this. It looks like you're just doing your wordpress thing, fancying your dogs. Just watch how much data you tunnel this way. 500 gig in a month might raise some eyebrows. Also remember to use your regular un-vpn'd connection to visit ILoveAhmadinejad.com on a fairly regular basis so not all your traffic goes to this mysterious blog.
- klearvue 14y ago
  If using OpenVPN, there is one precaution one must take - make sure your firewall prevents traffic escaping when your VPN connection fails. Shorewall lets you set up such an arrangement fairly easily. Many US poker players have been burnt this way when using overseas VPN services to play poker as operators are able to catch their real location during brief moments of VPN failure. With SSH tunnel, if your connection fails, no traffic will escape regardless.
praptak 14y ago
There's a world of difference between "citizen spotted using SSH" and "citizen spotted using Tor". In the first case you are just one in a huge number of people using SSH to avoid sniffers. With Tor the authorities know you're doing something you'd rather not be seen doing. It's a much, much bigger red flag.
- nacker 14y ago
  I'd rather "the authorities" would stop spying on me whatever I'm doing, and I believe everyone should actively send up as many red flags as possible to confuse the bastards. I don't accept the authority of any random gang of thugs over me, from whatever part of the world, period.
  - alexqgb 14y ago
    "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
    - Karunamon 14y ago
      Just because it's a funny quote doesn't make it any less of a non sequitur...
  - praptak 14y ago
    Mind the context. People under oppressive regimes do not have the luxury of messing with the thugs just to confuse them.

bwilson 14y ago

Many people who need Tor can't afford or are unable to purchase VPSes abroad. However, the obfsproxy feature is available in the latest versions of Tor, which can mask traffic, and worked effectively against Iran's DPI earlier this year. You can contact the Tor Project directly to get a few bridges that support this feature. https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy.html.en https://www.torproject.org/projects/obfsproxy.html.en

nikcub 14y ago

Jeremy Hammond, aka. 'Anarchaos', the Lulzsec member from Chicago, who was raided and arrested[1] by the FBI used Tor and it is mentioned in his indictment as one of the points that lead to his identification. [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/stakeout-how-the-fbi-tracked-and-busted-a-chicago-anon/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/stakeout-how-the-... [2] http://www.scribd.com/doc/84134934/Hammond-Jeremy-Complaint http://www.scribd.com/doc/84134934/Hammond-Jeremy-Complaint - Tor info starts at sec 37.

dfc 14y ago
First of all the discussion of TOR starts at section 39. The FBI did not identify Anarchaos traffic coming out the other end of the TOR network. The FBI did not identify Anarchaos because of TOR. The complaint mentions that Anarchaos had previously mentioned the use of TOR and that one of the devices (Mac laptop) on the network under surveillance connected to a known TOR router. The complaint goes on to correlate traffic from the laptop to the TOR network with Anarchaos's presence in his residence. They already knew who he was before they found the TOR traffic. Thats why they had a PEN/TRAP warrant, and wireless and physical surveilance in place.
- nikcub 14y ago
  the FBI played 33 bits and 1 of the bits was Tor use
  - dfc 14y ago
    I do not even know what you mean? Is this a reference to that one academic who said you needed X bits to identify someone? They already knew who he was. The tor use was circumstantial evidence that strengthened the case...at best. Do you think the TOR information was neccessary for an identification? Surely you do not think it was sufficient?
    - qohen 14y ago
      http://33bits.org/about/ http://33bits.org/about/

zalew 14y ago

How governments have tried to block Tor [28C3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwMr8Xl7JMQ

klearvue 14y ago
thanks so much for that video, inspired me to make a resolution to volunteer for Tor
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]