As Governments Get Censorship Happy, New Technologies Popping Up To Route Around That

from the damage dept

Mon, Aug 15th 2011 10:04pm — Mike Masnick

We've been discussing more and more movements from various governments towards censoring the internet, whether it's things as simple as "filters" of "bad sites" or more recent efforts by governments to shut down speech they don't like from people they don't like. However, as tends to be the case, technology seems to quickly come to the rescue. Late last week a new effort from J. Alex Halderman started to get some attention. Called Telex, it's a system for getting around internet censorship on a massive level, by using a variety of distributed nodes and disguising the type of traffic being sent over them. The idea is to try to make it effectively impossible to filter out certain sites.

So if you're in China, and you want access to a banned site like YouTube, you just type YouTube.com into your browser, and the Telex station will see that connection, and disguise it as something innocuous. You might be watching YouTube, but to a censor, it will just seem as if you're visiting a harmless, non-blocked site.

But that's not the only new technology popping up. Via Ross Pruden, we learn about a relatively new offering, called Where's The Party? which is designed as a "censorship-resistant mirror network." Basically it's a system that will mirror content more easily.

What's interesting also, is that this alerted me to Streisand.me, a project that is connected to Where's The Party? Streisand.me is (as you might have guessed) a mirroring system for content that is targeted in an attack likely to bring about a Streisand Effect response. I had no idea Streisand.me existed, despite my minor claim to fame of having coined the phrase "Streisand Effect." I have to say that's pretty cool...

But the larger point remains: as various governments move more towards trying to censor the web, technologists will create the technologies that make each of those efforts obsolete before they can get very far.

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Filed Under: censorship, free speech, streisand.me, technology, telex, where's the party?

44 Comments

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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 15 Aug 2011 @ 10:27pm

So what your saying is these Governments are like our Pok�mon trainers getting us to evolve into a stronger form?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2011 @ 10:28pm

It's amusing, but a program like Telex shows and incredibly high intent to bypass the filters, and in China, that would be a pretty high level crime.

"censor resistant" stuff all sort of ends up in the same pile, if you are trying to avoid blockages which are legal in your country, you are just adding to your potential legal miseries in the long run.
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BuzzCoastin (profile), 15 Aug 2011 @ 10:32pm

blocked access to the Telex station?
> So if you're in China, and you want access to a banned site like YouTube, you just type YouTube.com into your browser, and the Telex station will see that connection, and disguise it as something innocuous.

Only if China or the UK don't block access to the Telex station. China can block the TOR connection and to bypass the Great Firewall you need a VPN, which can then reach TOR.

So at the end of the day the average Joe is dependent upon governments and ISPs to allow access to anonymous networks. There has to be a better way.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2011 @ 10:56pm

Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
you beat me to it...i stopped reading the telex articles at "would require major ISP support"

that's sure as hell not happening.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2011 @ 11:13pm

Re:
Gotta oppress 'em all?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2011 @ 11:24pm

Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
Plus, as a bonus, you get to participate in one of the largest possible "man in the middle" attack setups.

WTG Mike - proving once again that doing it the illegal way isn't easy, useful, or safe.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Aug 2011 @ 11:26pm

Arms race [was Re: blocked access to the Telex station?]
China can block the TOR

Tor: Bridges

Bridge relays (or "bridges" for short) are Tor relays that aren't listed in the main Tor directory. Since there is no complete public list of them, even if your ISP is filtering connections to all the known Tor relays, they probably won't be able to block all the bridges. If you suspect your access to the Tor network is being blocked, you may want to use the bridge feature of Tor.

The addition of bridges to Tor is a step forward in the blocking resistance race. It is perfectly possible that even if your ISP filters the Internet, you do not require a bridge to use Tor. Many filtering programs look for unencrypted Tor directory requests to recognize that you're using Tor, but Tor version 0.2.0.23-rc and later use encrypted directory queries by default. This change means that most filtering programs are now unable to recognize Tor connections. So you should try to use Tor without bridges first, since it might work.

�.�.�.�.

It's an arms race.

�
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 1:49am

Re:
The thing is it doesn't show, the traffic gets masked as another thing that is why it is called steganography, it hides things in plain sight.

Besides I don't think the Mongolians care about Chinese law that much, I also don't think a lot of discontent people care about laws that say what they can and cannot say.

And I doubt in any other country people would care if they really want to say something.
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NamelessOne, 16 Aug 2011 @ 2:02am

ITS called TUNNELING
and it aint new , he needs to worry however and needs encryption and too now a days mask the protocols with said encryption so that DEEEEEEEP packet stupidity can't tell.

AND YES ELELACOYA there are exploits to your silly machines were not telling....
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 2:13am

Re: Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
http://am4wuhz3zifexz5u.onion/Library/
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 2:27am

13th April 2011 - Freenet top anti-censorship tool in survey of Chinese users!
https://freenetproject.org/news.html#freedom-house-april-2011

http://www.i2p2.de/
http:/ /www.cs.cornell.edu/People/egs/herbivore/
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mike allen (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 2:49am

If british government decide to block twitter or facebook i will use it and other programs.
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BuzzCoastin (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 3:12am

Re: Arms race [was Re: blocked access to the Telex station?]
Thanks, will try bridging and see if that helps.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 3:54am

Surely you don't think this is the ONLY approach?
We will not permit the censorship of the Internet.

By anyone.

There are at least twenty different projects that I'm aware of which are using distinct approaches to routing around the assholes (whether governments or companies or ISPs or anyone else) who have the audacity to believe that they will be permitted to interfere with the Internet. I'm sure there are many more that I'm NOT aware of...yet.

Some of these will work out, some won't. Some will be dead ends, some will lead to fresh approaches. But the end result will be the same: the censors will be defeated.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:10am

Re:
"It's amusing, but a program like Telex shows and incredibly high intent to bypass the filters, and in China, that would be a pretty high level crime."

I sure am glad our forefathers didn't have your attitude.
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Bengie, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:19am

Anonymous browsing/filesharing
http://freenetproject.org/

Slowly maturing over time, Freenet could one day take off. Did I saw slowly? I meant very very slowly. But they've been getting help from Google Summer of Code for a few years now.
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abc gum, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:28am

Re: Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
"WTG Mike - proving once again that doing it the illegal way isn't easy, useful, or safe."

WTG AC - missing the point again.
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abc gum, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:35am

In the future one will have to hide their surfing from the watchful eye of the telescreen.
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out_of_the_blue, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:52am

"Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.
Who's going to pay for it, and how do you keep the high traffic hidden from a simple monitor?

I see two comments that I wish to reply to, so I'm going to break my one comment per thread rule.
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out_of_the_blue, 16 Aug 2011 @ 4:54am

Re: "hide their surfing from the watchful eye of the telescreen"
No, no. The future is here, and your own computer IS the telescreen. You're spied on at every second by Google and too many others to mention.
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Ed, 16 Aug 2011 @ 5:35am

Well...
Time to activate skynet... -.-'
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abc gum, 16 Aug 2011 @ 5:37am

Re: Re: "hide their surfing from the watchful eye of the telescreen"
I doubt Google is as evil as some would like us to think, I'm certain others are much more nefarious.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:32am

Re: "Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.
You have a "one comment per thread rule"?

So it's clear, then, that you have no interest in participating in the discussion... you just want to come, drop your extreme (and often off-topic) assertions then leave? How very constructive of you...
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 7:01am

"The tighter your grip, the more systems will slip out of your control"
If the government ever doubted that we will fight back. They don't doubt us now.
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dfed (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 7:30am

Oh hey, well now we're seeing the UK follow suit with NSA and half the arab world:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/15/mi5-social-messaging-riot-organisers-police

Listen, UK.

Stop trying to shoot the messenger. Stop wasting time looking like you're doing something to address the problem by hunting down some kids and start addressing the needs of your populace. Stop trying to become more controlling of communications over this. Take a step back and look at the social, political and economic reasons why your youth decided they had little to lose by rioting and address that.

Or, you know, you could keep turning more into an oppressive state that spies on it's own citizens, shuts off the telecom messaging systems and ponders creating a kill switch for internet social media because of your problems.

That could totally solve your problems, right? Let me know how that works out, UK.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 7:32am

Re: Re:
The mongolians care very much about Chinese law, because if they screw up, they can go to jail, "training camps", or even end up dead. Yes, you can get the death penalty for helping people route around the great firewall of China.

The traffic is "masked", but like any system, the way it is done isn't going to really be masked. If you are doing it, it is visible in it's own way. It undoubtedly has some feature, some method that makes it easy enough to spot.
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chris (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 7:57am

Re: "Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.
Who's going to pay for it, and how do you keep the high traffic hidden from a simple monitor?

tunnels are encapsulated+encrypted routes inside existing routes. you pay (or your school, corporation, or gov't pays) for your censored connection and your tunnel goes thru that. tor is a way to smuggle anonymized traffic through an existing network.

of course there's overhead, especially when you are tunneling through a protocol that isn't meant for sustained connections, like DNS. tor, i2p and all other anonymous networks are incredibly slow, but that basically means that you have to be patient.

streaming video (like youtube) probably isn't a good application for a tunnel. downloading files via a low bandwidth friendly protocol and saving them to a portable disk for offline viewing is probably a better approach.

bit torrent would be a great tool for collecting materials from a tunneled link. it lets you pull files from multiple sources at once, and with a good client you can manage the bandwidth usage and number of connections.

wget is a great tool for snarfing files and even whole websites for later review.

getting materials to and from the internet is just part of your anti-censorship toolkit. you'll also want to run a darknet to get collect and disseminate materials to people who don't have access to your tunnels, or who have access to different tunnels. pirates do this already, trading DVDs and portable hard drives IRL in order to save ratio. this works really well when you and your friend have hookups on different private trackers.

projects like the pirate box or the digital dead drop would be great darknet solutions for distributing and trading contraband materials. you can use block crypto on these devices if you are worried about the contents falling into the wrong hands.
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chris (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 8:04am

Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
...i stopped reading the telex articles at "would require major ISP support"

that's sure as hell not happening.

it requires major ISP support from ISP's who are not complicit in censorship. FTFA:

"We like to envision this technology as a possible government-level response to government-level censorship," he says, with governments providing incentives for ISPs to install Telex.

as in, a major american ISP (like level3) can provide support for dissidents in countries with censored network connections by running telex.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 8:14am

Re: Re: Re:
"It undoubtedly has some feature, some method that makes it easy enough to spot."

Translation; I have no idea wtf I'm talking about, but I'm sure I'm correct!

lolz
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BuzzCoastin (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 8:15am

Re: Re: "Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.
good points, nice wiki

Getting censored sites from China is one thing but TOR and crypto networks are for more clandestine purposes.

Telex works as long as the blocker has an enemy who is willing to host Telex; probably won't be a shortage of those.

There is no such thing as total anonymity yet, but the cost of knowing can be a deterrent to the snoop dog.
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chris (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 8:31am

Re: Re: Re:
The mongolians care very much about Chinese law, because if they screw up, they can go to jail, "training camps", or even end up dead. Yes, you can get the death penalty for helping people route around the great firewall of China.

millions of chinese practice falun gong despite it being officially banned by the chinese communist party. i don't think the chinese government has as much control as you think it does:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
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mike Rice, 16 Aug 2011 @ 8:40am

The Streisand Effect
OK, you referenced the Streisand Effect and Streisand.me Only, I just tune into Techdirt periodically so I don't follow every reference.

When one picks up a gun in the first act of the play he's writing, he'd best fire it by the third act.

The same goes for column writing.

What's a Texas Leaguer?
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Jeffrey Nonken (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 9:33am

Re: "Routing around" Youtube requires high bandwidth.
Please don't.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 9:41am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The two sources on Falun Gong participation are a shaky news article and the US state department. You don't think that the US has some interest in supporting dissenting movements in China, do you? ;)

The Chinese government has much more control than you think. You need to experience it first hand to understand how it works, and why it works, and how it works down to the "apartment block" level. Tolerance is high, but observation and application of the laws when it is decided they need to be applied is absolute.
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steve davidson (profile), 16 Aug 2011 @ 10:06am

Changing world
The Chinese are fighting a losing battle, and I think they know it, but that doesn't keep them from trying to block all the content and freedoms they can for the current generation and hope to punt the issues into the next generation for them to monitor and attempt to dominate, but they are losing ground. It's a flat world, and there are too many profits to be had by opening up the marketplace, thus innovative technologies are going to dominate. You just can't stop progress, and sometimes even slowing it down has an opposite effect....
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 11:07am

Re: Re:
I sure am glad our forefathers didn't have your attitude.

They were a bunch of traitors.
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Mr. Oizo, 16 Aug 2011 @ 2:19pm

Re: Surely you don't think this is the ONLY approach?
'the censors will be defeated'

Yes that would be nice. But nothing stopped middle-aged europe from witch hunts. Which is what we are heading for.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:40pm

Re: Re: Surely you don't think this is the ONLY approach?
They didn't have the internet back then
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chris, 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:44pm

Re:
On the flip side, the chances of getting caught are incredibly low, as with most intrusive laws.
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chris, 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:48pm

Re: Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
A VPN is not easy?
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chris, 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:52pm

Re: Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
Ha, American ISPs are more likely to copy China's current system than they are to help route around it. I would say Google might help but last time I checked they caved.
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chris, 16 Aug 2011 @ 6:57pm

Re: Re: "hide their surfing from the watchful eye of the telescreen"
You don't have to be spied on. Just block google-analytics.com

As far as the others go, here's a nice list.
http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/
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Carl Barron_agpcuk (profile), 17 Aug 2011 @ 10:03am

Laws to halt you finding the truth
Most of the time Internet Censorship is about stopping Joe Public accessing the truth.

Signed Carl Barron Chairmen of agpcuk
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chris (profile), 18 Aug 2011 @ 11:17am

Re: Re: Re: Re: blocked access to the Telex station?
Ha, American ISPs are more likely to copy China's current system than they are to help route around it.

all american telcos and ISPs will do what the american government tells them, even when it's illegal. just ask AT&T and verizon about their little eavesdropping project after 9/11.

that's what the article means by "government-level response".
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