The History Of Haystack... And Why Online Censorship Will Remain Difficult
from the there-are-always-holes-in-the-wall dept
Over the years, it's been fascinating to watch the battle over internet censorship, monitors and filters, along with the equally rapid attempts to get around all of those things via technology. Many folks are familiar with anonymous proxies, like Tor, which do help provide anonymity, but can still be blocked once the censor is aware of the tor node. If you follow this space, you're probably already aware of Haystack, which is, in some ways, a step up from Tor and has been getting more and more attention lately. Newsweek actually has a pretty good article on the history of how Haystack came about, involving a 20-something programmer who had little interest in political activism or Iran, until he started seeing the various protests and responses after the Iranian election. Something clicked, and helped along by a "disaffected Iranian official" who sent him the details of how Iran's internet filter worked, and led to Haystack, which hides traffic inside what looks like legitimate traffic (and, in the case of Iran, is specifically designed to hide in traffic that is popular in Iran).What struck me most about the story is just how improbable a story it is if you look at it in a vacuum. We're talking about a 25-year-old guy, with little interest in Iran or activism, suddenly scratching an itch -- and within a week he had an Iranian gov't official leaking him information that was useful in building a system that could get around the Iranian internet censorship filter. That's impressive, no matter how you look at it. It also highlights why it's always going to be difficult to successfully censor the internet on a wider scale. Someone, perhaps from a totally unexpected place, is going to figure out how to get around it.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: censorship, free speech, haystack, iran
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Speed of innovation
The Internet connects everyone, and there is always someone somewhere in the world with the piece of the puzzle you need to make the next step.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Speed of innovation
Then we need to figure out how to develop quantum (or some other) non - local communication method and distributing the communication tools either via the white market or, if necessary, via the black market.
Communication must be open, we've tolerated too many years or brainwashing and systematic censorship from our government(s) and have seen the devastating effects it has caused. Censorship must be resisted, it absolutely must be.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Speed of innovation
To begin with, the majority of people lack the basic network chops to manage a functional routing node on the Internet, let alone protect their own computers from data that is merely "passing through". I guess this could be overcome with pre-configured hardware that is installed by your local computer service guy, but it's hardly plug and play at the moment which is where it would need to be to have anything like a useful level of penetration.
Secondly, there will always be "geographical chokepoints" where the hop to the next node is much further than you can run an ethernet cable or domestic WiFi connection. We have now surpassed the point where a single, interested user would be willing to stump up the cash to make the connection, especially if everyone in the local area needs this link to reach the outside world.
So what do you do? You ask everyone in the town if they would be willing to contribute some cash to setup this link. Enough of them say yes! Now you need to setup an organisation to collect the money and build and maintain the connection.
Congratulations, you've just started a Telco!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
Notice that I said we need to lobby the FCC to grant us more spectra that can travel longer distances. Television broadcasting spectra can travel miles and is capable of transferring a reasonable amount of data.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
People don't need more spectrum or radio waves that go further they need fiber from the purely technical point of view, coupled with radio frequencies that affect small areas and that people already have, new compression and decompression algorithms and ways of sending data on the logical layer are what is needed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
Most traffic across countries today works wirelessly via satellites. Satellites send tons of data back to earth already, even from Mars back to here. Most of the traffic sent across the Internet doesn't go via wires alone and is transmitted wirelessly at some point or another. If the traffic is properly directed/focused and the intensity is set so that the signal travels the required distance without traveling more than the required distance and was able to automate that, I don't see a problem. There are plenty of non - overlapping spectra that can transmit a lot of information. On a single block or in local areas there can be wires to reduce wireless needs and whenever wireless is needed it can be used.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
You need to erect some kind of tower to get the antenna above the landscape. You will need a small plot of land to put this on, let's assume (very optmistically) that your local community is OK with you putting this on some public land at no cost.
Now you need to build your tower. It needs to be strong enough to withstand the weather and not be a threat to public safety for many years to come. The design work, construction, delivery and materials cost for this tower alone will cost thousands if not tens of thousands.
Once it turns up, you can't just dig a little hole, put it in and pat the dirt down, oh no! Now you need a local builder to build you a concrete footing and hire a crane to stand the thing up.
Next you need to populate this tower with your actual hardware. Probably at least thousands to tens-of-thousands there too since it'll have to be capable of at least a multi-gigabit connection to make everyone happy. Oh and we'll need a little outhouse at the base of the tower to hold all the gear. Oh and we'll need to connect power to the outhouse for all the gear.
Oh yeah, nearly forgot, you now need to do all of that again at the other end!!!
What if the community at the other end is not interested in this sort of public network? Now you need to actually buy the land at the other end for your 2nd tower.. What's that gonna cost? $50,000+? Assuming you can buy a small plot in just the right spot?
Even once it's all built this is not just a set-and-forget operation. You will need to have a tech person to maintain the gear and an administrative personl to handle all the accounts. That's at least 1 full time employee if you find the right person who can do everything.
Chuck in the maintenance costs and electricity bill for the tower, plus putting money aside to upgrade to hardware every few years to meet rising demand and you're looking at an operation easily exceeding $100K in annual expenses.
And all of this is AFTER you've successfully dealt with the FCC.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell
It is all you described in a small form factor that can reside inside any house, it can even be replicated using arduino, but will be a bit bigger.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
From the Wikipedia link you supplied:
"Once plugged in, the femtocell connects to the MNO's mobile network, and provides extra coverage in a range of typically 30 to 50 meters for residential femtocells"
The point of a Femtocell is to extend mobile coverage in a smallish enclosed space. Not to provide a radio link over many kilometers.
Fail.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
Let's say you have connected up a small ad-hoc network with the houses near you, using ethernet, WiFi, etc. Now you can reach any house in your neighbourhood without using any Telco network.
OK, now you want to expand that network to connect up with the houses in the next town. That won is say, 10km away, and there is nothing but state forest or rural land in between. How do you bridge that gap?
The same situation arises when you want to connect up that local ad-hoc network to the existing Internet. Whoever provides a gateway out into the "real" Internet is going to get absolutely hammered by people wanting to use that link (assuming they don't have one of their own) So that person gets a really fast connection with lots of data that costs them a lot more. Now they need to charge the other network users to recoup their costs for such a fat connection.
Congratulations, you just started an ISP.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
Most of the communication to the real internet already crosses satellites at one point or another. Even this blog post, when transmitted to people of other countries or even states, already crosses wireless boundaries at least once until some more local provider caches it maybe. I'm just saying that what the telcos already do should be more decentralized and individualized.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
It's not a matter of can making it wireless be done. It's already being done, the telcos already do it. It's a matter of, who is allowed to do it, should the telcos have the exclusive right to access the frequencies required to do it so that they can be the only ones doing it, or should everyone have more rights so that everyone can more or less run the network in a more decentralized manner. I say the later. I don't mind the telcos existing alongside the decentralized network, but the govt should give us the freedom to run a own decentralized, more independent, network instead of putting in place so many restrictions that prevent such a thing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Speed of innovation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Haystack unreality warp
You're comments about Tor are also incomplete. Do your research before publishing, please. https://torproject.org/bridges works fine in Iran. Using tor without bridges works fine in Iran.
Austin is not a programmer, he's a marketing wonk. There is a vast difference.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Haystack unreality warp
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hyperpolymorphism...
I thought I had invented the word myself at the time I first recognized and named the effect, but later discovered the word is also used to describe certain logically similar DNA related actions.
Oh well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Hyperpolymorphism...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Herbivore.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/People/egs/herbivore/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Serious though - doesn't freenet already supply a solution?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Herbivore.
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/People/egs/herbivore/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sounds like Xnet
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]