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#1 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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Set up a proxy for Iran citizens!
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Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#2 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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#3 |
Intellectual Gladiator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,948
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Visit my blog: The Skeptical Teacher "We ****** up the air, the water, we ****** up each other. Why don't we just finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?" -- John Trent, In the Mouth of Madness |
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#4 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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Ok some security concerns here, now that I have read this...
I see where they set trusted IPs incoming as what is presumably Iranian IPs, however I don't see where this proxy is anonymizing. IE: This doesn't seem to be distributed, you're providing direct 1:1 proxy for someone, and don't have much control over what they do. This concerns me greatly. The point of Tor is that no one can be tracked back through the proxy, and the list of nodes is massive. This seems to me, on quick review, a process by which anyone tracking activity would see my IP and only if they followed up would notice a squid proxy running. This has legal implications for those in the US. Be forewarned of that. While I support the circumventing of oppressive censorship, I'm not sure I want to assume a legal liability to running an open proxy on this basis. Why, exactly, has Tor not been suggested? This is already in place, already gets the Chinese folks around the great firewall of China, and is very effective. On top of that, I don't have to assume liability for use of tor nodes, since I don't know where the traffic comes from when I run it. |
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#5 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#6 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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You obviously miss my point. If you want to trust that an entire country now getting full internet access won't find CP somewhere on the net and it be tracked to your proxy, fine. Tor is an answer to do exactly what they want to do, it's in place, it works, and it protects those that run tor nodes by having the ability to deny knowledge as to where traffic comes from and what it is (the proxy can't tell much.)
As I said, I am all for helping circumvent oppressive censorship, but there is a smarter way to do this. ETA: If I were an iranian government official and I wanted this to stop, all I would have to do is use the system to go get illegal content for those running the proxy and cause legal problems for these proxy owners. Tor stops that by only making the end point (which can be any point in the network) the only part that can be compromised, leaving thousands of other endpoints to use. Ps: the cheap attempt at a guilt trip is obnoxious. |
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#7 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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Is there a link to the organizers of this, so we can make suggestions that will help them accomplish what they want to without running risks as they are? Or is it just the guy's blog who you linked to?
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#8 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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The message came across wrong: no guilt trip was intended. You're right that someone could cause problems for me if my public server address were to fall into the wrong hands. I'm willing to take a risk with the anonymity. The proxy doesn't need to be up long, and I'm trying to make it easy on non-experts trying to get the word out under less than ideal circumstances.
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#9 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#10 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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Fair enough, I'll try not to be thin skinned
![]() To the rest: It has implications for the success of this, though. What I'm worried about isn't just your legal problems, it's the success of the movement in a sustainable way. Eventually this needs to move to a system (like tor) that can survive attacks on end points or it will fail. |
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#11 |
Scholar
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 101
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Why not tor?
Because it's dog slow, the idea is to let the Iranians get their stories out in a timely manner and tor can't really handle that, could you imagine uploading a 40+ MB vid to Youtube at 5-15 kb/s max? Tor is great for getting information in an anonymous fashion(good or bad) but sucks at providing information to the rest of the interwebs. |
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#12 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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Ok the OP didn't mention what this is for. It said to help circumvent the firewalls, not that there is a timely immediate need for this.
You're right, Tor is slow. If you weren't trying to push large things out fast it would be the better answer. I was under the impression this was a generic need (like China's) and not a time-sensitive large-volume need. That said, the risk is still there. |
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#13 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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That was my real concern- not that the mullahs will download CP, but that my proxy would be hit with DOS attacks. I see this as a temporary measure in any case- there's a short but critical window of opportunity for the uprising to work. I don't plan on keeping the proxy running for very long.
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#14 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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ravdin: I'm apparently not getting the full picture here (as evidenced by drainbred's post) can you detail what the specific need is here? My responses were under the assumption this was like helping the Chinese people get around the great wall, which is a general and sustained need. This appears more immediate, can you detail what the goals/technical needs are for me?
(ETA: Also what is going on. I have been face deep in a bash shell on a deadline for the past week or so and am totally out of touch.) ETA2: Ok so apparently there's something between a riot and a revolution going on and some contention about a fixed election (color me unsurprised.) I assume then, that this is in place as a temporary measure to move large files (video, audio, pictures etc.) to blogs to document what's going on, not a suggestion to help subvert government oppression in a sustained and permanent way (like my example of China.) In that case the security needs are still valid, however the time sensitive nature of what is going on may outweigh the issues and Tor may well indeed be completely ineffective for large volume traffic. I would, however, caution that a DDoS response either from sheer traffic pointed at your proxy, or in a way to cause you legal problems, is probably a real issue and should be mitigated. I'd love to suggest to the organizers a way to more quickly use a central registry to bring up more nodes and down ones attacked in the list. Who do I email these scripting ideas to (and they wouldn't take long to script with squid.) |
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#15 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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Ah! I forget this is not the Politics section.
Long story short: The Iranians recently held a fake "election" over the weekend. Even though the poll was a sham, there was an 85% turnout (compared to a 63% turnout with our last election in the USA). The current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, was reportedly reelected in a landslide. The supposed results are highly dubious. A lot of angry protesters took to the streets today, even though the government imposed a ban. The police have been using live ammunition and beating protesters. There will certainly be more happening tomorrow. Most significantly, the protesters have been using Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube to get the story out to the world. The regime is trying to block these sites, but they are failing miserably. Hence the call for proxy servers. A bit more background: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8102224.stm http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/ (live blogging the revolution). ETA: Going to bed now, so I may not respond to your next post for a while. |
__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#16 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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hahaha we cross posted.
Is there a central contact for this proxy movement? |
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#17 |
Scholar
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 101
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#18 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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me@austinheap.com. So far, the only person who has my proxy address- so I hope he is reliable.
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#19 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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#20 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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Sent the following:
Quote:
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#21 |
Misanthrope of the Mountains
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 24,124
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From what I'm seeing on the news it's looking like things are degenerating fast and there may very well be a government toppling revolution happening in Iran that is being organized largely on the internet. Would this be the first time something like this has happened?
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"Because WE ARE IGNORANT OF 911 FACTS, WE DEMAND PROOF" -- Douglas Herman on Rense.com
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#22 |
Intellectual Gladiator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,948
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__________________
Visit my blog: The Skeptical Teacher "We ****** up the air, the water, we ****** up each other. Why don't we just finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?" -- John Trent, In the Mouth of Madness |
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#23 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 8,276
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There are people calling for anyone with a twitter account to change their location to Tehran and their time to +3:30 GMT in order to throw off government searches for Iranian students who are tweeting.
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Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts |
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#24 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#25 |
Pith Artist
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: The '80s
Posts: 8,694
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__________________
With extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat. - Jeffrey Burton Russell It is obvious to any scientist that the bumblebee can fly because experiment proves it. - Zetie 1996 |
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#26 |
Master Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 2,585
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4 Tor nodes fired up as well as having had good 'talks' with 'friendly' sysadmins.
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"All is needed (and it is essential to my definitions) is to understand the actuality beyond the description, for example: Nothing is actually" - Doron Shadmi "But this means you actually have nothing." - Realpaladin --- |
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#27 |
Intellectual Gladiator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,948
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I'm blogging about this right now, so as to spread the word as widely as possible.
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Visit my blog: The Skeptical Teacher "We ****** up the air, the water, we ****** up each other. Why don't we just finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?" -- John Trent, In the Mouth of Madness |
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#28 |
Guest
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4,986
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I've done the Twitter change too.
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#29 |
King of the Pod People
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 25,613
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#30 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2001
Posts: 53,081
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If I see somebody with a gun on a plane? I'll kill him. Lupus is Lupus tor central scrutineezer |
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#31 |
Intellectual Gladiator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 15,948
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__________________
Visit my blog: The Skeptical Teacher "We ****** up the air, the water, we ****** up each other. Why don't we just finish the job by flushing our brains down the toilet?" -- John Trent, In the Mouth of Madness |
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#32 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 4,985
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__________________
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. -Christopher Hitchens Believe what you're told. There would be chaos if everyone thought for themselves. -Top Dog slogan |
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#33 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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I have yet to receive a reply from the guy I emailed re: proxy servers.
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#34 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 8,276
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Right, because no one ever lies on the intarwebs.
![]() Honestly, at this point, if the choice is between a small lie and someone getting tracked down and kidnapped or killed-- I kid you not, people are being taken from dorms, from hospitals, and from public places-- you can bet your patootie that I'll sing a song so sweet yet untrue. |
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Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts |
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#35 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 8,276
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If it helps, you should know that there are now also several Tor proxies being used out there right now along with all the rest. At this point people are using whatever possible method they can to get messages out, because the windows for people to send out any information is getting smaller and smaller due to crackdowns.
As to a lack of reply to your e-mail, the guy could just be paranoid or very busy (or both). ![]() |
__________________
Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts |
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#36 |
The gap in the plot
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: BFE
Posts: 3,654
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Kudos to all of you for making this effort.
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#37 |
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
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#38 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 8,276
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That's certainly scary. I wouldn't eff wit' ya.
Note to proxy-ers: a few people running proxies have reported being harassed and threatened. While the risk isn't as great as it is to those in Iran, be aware of the risks. |
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Like love, criminals will always find a way. -- foxholeatheist The kind of pacifism I endorse is brought about by eliminating one enemy combatant at a time.-- JoeyDonuts |
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#39 |
Zygoticly Phased
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 3,477
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#40 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 22,634
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I'm twittering from "Tehran" now. Should we perhaps write pretend twits, like "nice fallafel for lunch today"?
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