Iran + tor

2009-06-17 Thread basile
I thought the list might be interested in this:

http://iran.whyweprotest.net/

http://torir.org/


-- 

Anthony G. Basile, Ph.D.
Chair of Information Technology
D'Youville College
Buffalo, NY 14201
USA

(716) 829-8197





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Re: Iran + tor

2009-06-17 Thread Alexander Bernauer
Hi

I always wondered how Tor can help circumventing censorship. 

If I were a dictator I would force the ISPs to block access to the
directory servers. If that's not enough one can retreive the list of all
Tor nodes and block them.

Can anyone explain me what I am missing?

regards

Alex




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Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Sören Weber
Hi there,

this morning I got a call from my hosting provider Hetzner (in
Germany) and had a nice conversation with a guy who is handling the
abuse mails. He wondered what was running on those 12 servers (that's
a number he told me) which receive ~1 copyright-infringement mail per
day. He just wanted to warn me (and I want to warn you ;-) about the
fact that he wants to tell the management about the problems of
these servers (high traffic, maybe bad image for the company); he says
it'd be possible that Hetzner will forbid the use of TOR nodes by
their policy.
He also asked for an in-depth explanation of TOR, which I just sent
him. I tried to explain that his company's image could benefit from
just acting for freedom of speech and against censorship (by not
stopping TOR nodes). Hopefully that'll be heard.


It's not that important yet as there are other providers out there,
but that could start a trend, especially when put under pressure by
the German government.


Greetings,
Sören


Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Hannah Schroeter
Hi!

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 04:40:09PM +0200, Sören Weber wrote:
this morning I got a call from my hosting provider Hetzner (in
Germany) and had a nice conversation with a guy who is handling the
abuse mails. He wondered what was running on those 12 servers (that's
a number he told me) which receive ~1 copyright-infringement mail per
day. He just wanted to warn me (and I want to warn you ;-) about the
fact that he wants to tell the management about the problems of
these servers (high traffic, maybe bad image for the company); he says
it'd be possible that Hetzner will forbid the use of TOR nodes by
their policy.

Did he mean any kind tor nodes or tor exits?

He also asked for an in-depth explanation of TOR, which I just sent
him. I tried to explain that his company's image could benefit from
just acting for freedom of speech and against censorship (by not
stopping TOR nodes). Hopefully that'll be heard.

Hope so too. Perhaps also tell him about the role of tor in the recent
uprises in the Iran.

It's not that important yet as there are other providers out there,
but that could start a trend, especially when put under pressure by
the German government.

Definitely.

Greetings,
Sören

Kind regards,

Hannah.


Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Sören Weber
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Hannah Schroeterhan...@pond.sub.org wrote:
he says it'd be possible that Hetzner will forbid the use of TOR nodes by
their policy.

 Did he mean any kind tor nodes or tor exits?

I don't think that he had the knowledge about the differences of
nodes. As far as he told me, he just contacted those people with a
high amount of copyright infringements - so only exit nodes are the
real problem for him.

I tried to explain that his company's image could benefit from
just acting for freedom of speech and against censorship (by not
stopping TOR nodes). Hopefully that'll be heard.

 Hope so too. Perhaps also tell him about the role of tor in the recent
 uprises in the Iran.

Thanks for that suggestion! I'll try to get this pointed out in the
conversation.


Greetings,
Sören


Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Hannah Schroeter
Hi!

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 05:11:36PM +0200, Sören Weber wrote:
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Hannah Schroeterhan...@pond.sub.org wrote:
he says it'd be possible that Hetzner will forbid the use of TOR nodes by
their policy.

 Did he mean any kind tor nodes or tor exits?

I don't think that he had the knowledge about the differences of
nodes. As far as he told me, he just contacted those people with a
high amount of copyright infringements - so only exit nodes are the
real problem for him.

Ok, I understand.

I tried to explain that his company's image could benefit from
just acting for freedom of speech and against censorship (by not
stopping TOR nodes). Hopefully that'll be heard.

 Hope so too. Perhaps also tell him about the role of tor in the recent
 uprises in the Iran.

Thanks for that suggestion! I'll try to get this pointed out in the
conversation.

You're welcome.

Greetings,
Sören

Kind regards,

Hannah.


Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Fabian Keil
Sören Weber soe...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Hannah Schroeterhan...@pond.sub.org
 wrote:
 he says it'd be possible that Hetzner will forbid the use of TOR nodes
 by their policy.
 
  Did he mean any kind tor nodes or tor exits?
 
 I don't think that he had the knowledge about the differences of
 nodes. As far as he told me, he just contacted those people with a
 high amount of copyright infringements - so only exit nodes are the
 real problem for him.

Alleged copyright infringements.

Fabian


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Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Sören Weber
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Fabian
Keilfreebsd-lis...@fabiankeil.de wrote:
 Alleged copyright infringements.

Yes, of course. He stated that he doesn't believe that these mails are
caused by the owners of the servers. Rather he thinks that Hetzner
could lose its face in some way.
Additionally these mails are semi-automatically processed, so they
have to invest manpower to get them forwarded (I'd be happy if they
would just throw them away. Same effect).


Re: Iran + tor

2009-06-17 Thread Roger Dingledine
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 08:32:21AM -0500, Scott Bennett wrote:
 If I were a dictator I would force the ISPs to block access to the
 directory servers. If that's not enough one can retreive the list of all
 Tor nodes and block them.
 
 Can anyone explain me what I am missing?

See e.g. https://www.torproject.org/bridges

  For blocked directory servers:
 
 ## Use tunneled directory server connections when available
 ##  (defaults to 0)
 TunnelDirConns 1
 ## Avoid using directory servers that do not provide tunneled connections
 ##  (defaults to 0)
 PreferTunneledDirConns 1

The text you're quoting must be years old. TunnelDirConns and
PreferTunneledDirConns have defaulted to 1 starting in Tor 0.2.0.x.

We made that change in part because Smartfilter and Websense (used in
countries like Iran) learned how to detect the old unencrypted directory
requests from Tor 0.1.2.x and earlier.

--Roger



Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Eugen Leitl
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 08:28:47PM +0200, Sören Weber wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Fabian
 Keilfreebsd-lis...@fabiankeil.de wrote:
  Alleged copyright infringements.
 
 Yes, of course. He stated that he doesn't believe that these mails are
 caused by the owners of the servers. Rather he thinks that Hetzner
 could lose its face in some way.

I've used to run a Tor exit with Hetzner a couple years ago, which 
resulted in several tet-a-tetes with the local (Bavaria) police.

I don't think Hetzner will give a damn if you're running a middleman.
Especially if it's throttled, so you're not making them lose money
on you.

According to my last inquiry they won't log connection info (though
this might have changed, check for yourself).

 Additionally these mails are semi-automatically processed, so they
 have to invest manpower to get them forwarded (I'd be happy if they
 would just throw them away. Same effect).
-- 
Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org
__
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE


Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Michael Gomboc
does anyone know about the legal situation in germany?
i'm running a middle node. that should be no problem, isn't it?

rg
michael

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Eugen Leitl eu...@leitl.org wrote:

 On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 08:28:47PM +0200, Sören Weber wrote:
  On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Fabian
  Keilfreebsd-lis...@fabiankeil.de wrote:
   Alleged copyright infringements.
 
  Yes, of course. He stated that he doesn't believe that these mails are
  caused by the owners of the servers. Rather he thinks that Hetzner
  could lose its face in some way.

 I've used to run a Tor exit with Hetzner a couple years ago, which
 resulted in several tet-a-tetes with the local (Bavaria) police.

 I don't think Hetzner will give a damn if you're running a middleman.
 Especially if it's throttled, so you're not making them lose money
 on you.

 According to my last inquiry they won't log connection info (though
 this might have changed, check for yourself).

  Additionally these mails are semi-automatically processed, so they
  have to invest manpower to get them forwarded (I'd be happy if they
  would just throw them away. Same effect).
 --
 Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org
 __
 ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE



Help Iranian dissidents by collecting and posting Bridge addresses? (here?)

2009-06-17 Thread Chris Humphry
Hi,

I have been mounting a little movement to get people to run Tor and setup Tor 
Bridges to help those in Iran access the Internet.  

Then I found a great message which has been going around asking people to run 
Tor Bridges.  So I thought: what about or-talk?.  Would it be wise to ask 
people in or-talk to provide Bridge addresses to this topic?   When people have 
submitted say 5 or 10 (or more) Bridge addresses I could collect them and post 
them to Twitter and lots of other sites.  Is that wise?

Here is the messages I found:


--


Help
the Iranian dissidents!  

 

Run
a Tor Bridge and post your Bridge IP!  It
allows them access to the Internet...without proxies they have no voice!

 

Tor
Bridge: https://www.torproject.org/bridges

 

What
is Tor?: https://www.torproject.org/overview.html.en

 

Get
Tor: https://www.torproject.org/easy-download.html.en

 

Anonymously
post Bridge IP (use Tor for your anonymity): 
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/

 

Do not follw the Tor Bridge setup directions from the
iran.whyweprotest website. Follow the setup directions from the Tor
website, we now use Vidalia (Tor GUI):


Tor Bridge: https://www.torproject.org/bridges



Please help...without proxies (ie. Bridges) the Iranian dissidents have no
voice!

 

 

Posting
your Tor Bridge:

 

One
of the best ways is to post your Tor Bridge IP address on Twitter with the tag
#iranelection and #helpiranelection 

 

Below is a Google search string.  Use it to find places to post your Tor Bridge 
IP address.  Iran Government is blocking more and more
sites all the time...keep moving and they can't stop it!

 

Goolge
search string:  post + proxy + address + iran
--




  

Re: Help Iranian dissidents by collecting and posting Bridge addresses? (here?)

2009-06-17 Thread Ted Smith
On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 18:26 -0700, Chris Humphry wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I have been mounting a little movement to get people to run Tor and
 setup Tor Bridges to help those in Iran access the Internet.  
 
 Then I found a great message which has been going around asking people
 to run Tor Bridges.  So I thought: what about or-talk?.  Would it be
 wise to ask people in or-talk to provide Bridge addresses to this
 topic?   When people have submitted say 5 or 10 (or more) Bridge
 addresses I could collect them and post them to Twitter and lots of
 other sites.  Is that wise?
 

No. I'm sure the Iranian government is monitoring it at this point.
Posting a bridge IP there will just let them block it.

It would probably be best to email it to a trusted Iranian organization
or group, using OpenPGP encryption. They can disseminate it from there.


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Re: Help Iranian dissidents by collecting and posting Bridge addresses? (here?)

2009-06-17 Thread Roger Dingledine
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 06:26:43PM -0700, Chris Humphry wrote:
 Please help...without proxies (ie. Bridges) the Iranian dissidents have no
 voice!

Yeah, see, I'm not sure whether this is true. If ordinary bridges are
working, then probably ordinary Tor relays are working too. Or said
another way, if ordinary Tor relays aren't working, probably ordinary
bridges won't work either.

We've heard rumors they're blocking all encrypted traffic. Does this
mean everything that does an SSL handshake no matter the port? Or does
it mean the blocked port 443?

If the former, an automated system like Tor is going to have a tough time
keeping up -- at least without the tweaks we've been pondering over the
past few days. ;)

If the latter, then setting up a bunch of bridges on port 80 (even
though everything's still encrypted) might be the ticket.

Lots of misinformation going around, and not so much information.

--Roger



Re: Help Iranian dissidents by collecting and posting Bridge addresses? (here?)

2009-06-17 Thread Ted Smith
On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 22:11 -0400, Roger Dingledine wrote:
 On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 06:26:43PM -0700, Chris Humphry wrote:
  Please help...without proxies (ie. Bridges) the Iranian dissidents have no
  voice!
 
 Yeah, see, I'm not sure whether this is true. If ordinary bridges are
 working, then probably ordinary Tor relays are working too. Or said
 another way, if ordinary Tor relays aren't working, probably ordinary
 bridges won't work either.
 
 We've heard rumors they're blocking all encrypted traffic. Does this
 mean everything that does an SSL handshake no matter the port? Or does
 it mean the blocked port 443?
 
 If the former, an automated system like Tor is going to have a tough time
 keeping up -- at least without the tweaks we've been pondering over the
 past few days. ;)
 
 If the latter, then setting up a bunch of bridges on port 80 (even
 though everything's still encrypted) might be the ticket.
 
 Lots of misinformation going around, and not so much information.

If things get really bad, people can just resort to setting up DNS or
even ICMP tunnels. 

Internet censorship is probably the largest-scale game of whack-a-mole
ever played.


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Re: Hetzner

2009-06-17 Thread Sebastian Hahn

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Hash: SHA1

On Jun 17, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Sören Weber wrote:


On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Fabian
Keilfreebsd-lis...@fabiankeil.de wrote:

Alleged copyright infringements.


Yes, of course. He stated that he doesn't believe that these mails are
caused by the owners of the servers. Rather he thinks that Hetzner
could lose its face in some way.
Additionally these mails are semi-automatically processed, so they
have to invest manpower to get them forwarded (I'd be happy if they
would just throw them away. Same effect).



Hi Sören,

thanks for your efforts so far! It would be great if Hetzner learned a  
bit more about Tor, so if you want, you may point them in the  
direction of tor-assistants. There are a few Germans who would be able  
to talk to them, if you think they still have trouble understanding  
how Tor works. I think it would be a good idea to educate the hosting  
providers before they decide to dislike Tor.


Thanks!
Sebastian
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