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Some analysis and discussion here: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/519 https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/519 > After its founding in 2018, one

Some analysis and discussion here: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/519 https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/519 > After its founding in 2018, one of Geedge's first clients was the government of Kazakhstan, to whom the company sold its flagship Tiangou Secure Gateway (TSG), which provides functions similar to China's own Great Firewall, monitoring and filtering all web traffic that passes through it, as well as attempts to bypass such censorship. > The same tool has been rolled out in Ethiopia and Myanmar, where it has been instrumental in enabling that country's military junta to enforce a ban on VPNs. In many cases, Geedge works with other private companies, including internet service providers (ISPs) such as Safaricom in Ethiopia, or Frontiir and Ooredoo in Myanmar, to enact government censorship, the documents show. No ISPs that have partnered with Geedge responded to a request for comment. > The leaks show employees at the company working to reverse-engineer many popular tools and find means of blocking them. One set of documents lists nine commercial VPNs as "resolved," and provides various means of identifying and filtering traffic to them. Similar capabilities have long been demonstrated by the Great Firewall, with most commercial VPNs inaccessible from within China and many dedicated anti-censorship tools also hard to access. > At least one Jira support ticket shows evidence of plaintext capture of email

MangoToupe 1y ago
> At least one Jira support ticket shows evidence of plaintext capture of email I would be surprised if western governments didn't do the same, and folks should act accordingly.
- nilamo 1y ago
  We don't need to guess, we know they do. That was one of Snowden's big reveals.
- oogali 1y ago
  The US has been doing this for a long time (1997), on a targeted basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)
- perihelions 1y ago
  The NSA was storing bulk plaintext emails from (at least) Microsoft, as of the time of the Snowden leaks. Microsoft actively assisted them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... ("Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages") > "Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;" > "The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;"
- brookst 1y ago
  In general none of the disclosures of what GFW is doing g should be seen as evidence that western governments do not do the same thing. Hope nobody is drawing that conclusion.
  - bjt 1y ago
    Western governments do not routinely block VPNs.
    - hulitu 1y ago
      Different phylosophy: why block VPNs when you can monitor them. Most Root CAs are in US.
      - immibis 1y ago
        Certificate transparency is mandatory in browsers; interception certificates appear in certificate logs to be accepted. Have you found one? Edit: OCSP has been ended.
        edgineer 1y ago
        He might be referring to OCSP. Browsers ping CAs by default, revealing to them the sites that are visited.
        arcfour 1y ago
        OCSP is very much on the way out, this is hardly true anymore; although some things still check OCSP, many things do not.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Western governments effectively control 99% of consumer technology, and hack whatever else they can't have. VPNs are a false sense of security going up against a nation-sized adversary like the US.
bbminner 1y ago
I bet that the recent wave of VPN bans implemented in Russia also uses this tech. For example the mechanism of how suspicious websocket endpoints are being "knocked" by the firewall itself or how suspiciously traffic heavy ssh connections are being dropped suggests that Russian govt simply bought the entire stack from China.
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  the bans are probably a consequence of this leak. they are in a better safe (from the people, heh) than sorry mode.
- r721 1y ago
  From 2016: >The strategy is being developed in close cooperation with China after a string of high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow this year. At their first cybersecurity forum, in April, top Chinese officials and their Russian counterparts gathered in Moscow for the talks. Delegates included Lu Wei, the head of China’s state internet information office, Fang Binxing, the so-called father of the Great Firewall and Igor Shchyogolev, President Vladimir Putin’s assistant on internet issues and former minister of communications. >“The principal agreement to have a forum was reached by Igor Shchyogolev and Fang Binxing at a meeting in December 2015 in Beijing,” said Denis Davydov, the executive director of the misleadingly named League of Safe Internet, a government-affiliated group that has drafted internet-filtering legislation and recruited teams of volunteers to patrol the web for “harmful content”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/putin-china-internet-great-firewall-russia-cybersecurity-pact https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/putin-china-in...
deepsun 1y ago
Russia tests it all in Belarus first. In 2020 they blocked almost all Internet, including VPNs, Tor etc (but left some areas connected, like banking). It's somewhat easier in Belarus, as they have a legal monopoly on cross-border Internet.
miohtama 1y ago
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MangoToupe 1y ago

> At least one Jira support ticket shows evidence of plaintext capture of email I would be surprised if western governments didn't do the same, and folks should act accordingly.

nilamo 1y ago
We don't need to guess, we know they do. That was one of Snowden's big reveals.
oogali 1y ago
The US has been doing this for a long time (1997), on a targeted basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software)
perihelions 1y ago
The NSA was storing bulk plaintext emails from (at least) Microsoft, as of the time of the Snowden leaks. Microsoft actively assisted them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... ("Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages") > "Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;" > "The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;"
brookst 1y ago
In general none of the disclosures of what GFW is doing g should be seen as evidence that western governments do not do the same thing. Hope nobody is drawing that conclusion.
- bjt 1y ago
  Western governments do not routinely block VPNs.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    Different phylosophy: why block VPNs when you can monitor them. Most Root CAs are in US.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Certificate transparency is mandatory in browsers; interception certificates appear in certificate logs to be accepted. Have you found one? Edit: OCSP has been ended.
      - edgineer 1y ago
        He might be referring to OCSP. Browsers ping CAs by default, revealing to them the sites that are visited.
        arcfour 1y ago
        OCSP is very much on the way out, this is hardly true anymore; although some things still check OCSP, many things do not.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Western governments effectively control 99% of consumer technology, and hack whatever else they can't have. VPNs are a false sense of security going up against a nation-sized adversary like the US.

bbminner 1y ago

I bet that the recent wave of VPN bans implemented in Russia also uses this tech. For example the mechanism of how suspicious websocket endpoints are being "knocked" by the firewall itself or how suspiciously traffic heavy ssh connections are being dropped suggests that Russian govt simply bought the entire stack from China.

1oooqooq 1y ago
the bans are probably a consequence of this leak. they are in a better safe (from the people, heh) than sorry mode.
r721 1y ago
From 2016: >The strategy is being developed in close cooperation with China after a string of high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow this year. At their first cybersecurity forum, in April, top Chinese officials and their Russian counterparts gathered in Moscow for the talks. Delegates included Lu Wei, the head of China’s state internet information office, Fang Binxing, the so-called father of the Great Firewall and Igor Shchyogolev, President Vladimir Putin’s assistant on internet issues and former minister of communications. >“The principal agreement to have a forum was reached by Igor Shchyogolev and Fang Binxing at a meeting in December 2015 in Beijing,” said Denis Davydov, the executive director of the misleadingly named League of Safe Internet, a government-affiliated group that has drafted internet-filtering legislation and recruited teams of volunteers to patrol the web for “harmful content”. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/putin-china-internet-great-firewall-russia-cybersecurity-pact https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/putin-china-in...

deepsun 1y ago

Russia tests it all in Belarus first. In 2020 they blocked almost all Internet, including VPNs, Tor etc (but left some areas connected, like banking). It's somewhat easier in Belarus, as they have a legal monopoly on cross-border Internet.

miohtama 1y ago

[dead]