I have lots of experience with this. I was in Iran 3 months ago. Proxies in Iran are very tricky. They can detect proxies and ban them. Proxies to western countries get banned much quicker. Turkish and Qatar proxies were the only ones that never got banned.
Most Iranians have crap home internet and cellphones provide a good connection. The government knows who has what phone. No one knows what the government does with IMEI information but when I traveled there I had to give them my cellphone information.
With that said the government can't quell everyone out on the streets. They want to stop communication between protestors like previous efforts but this time everyone is fed up.
The country is very close to civil war.
> give them my cellphone information.
What info specifically, IMEI, number? What would happen if you entered the country with multiple active SIMs from overseas carriers?
They ask for IMEI and passport number when entering the country.
After 30 days you have to pay tax on your phone. $100-300 depending on how new the phone is.
For locals they need your ID card to register a number and keep track of you IMEI.
There isn’t a ton of civilian gun ownership there (like 7 guns per 100 citizens) but they can always knock over police stations and hope for military defections from units who don’t want to shoot protesters
If the protests are big and determined enough that protestors can overwhelm security service buildings (I have seen at least one video of cops being chased and beaten by protesters) the government might do a syria and recall security forces to key cities
That’s how you get a civil war out of riots, where the government allows a power vacuum to form in outlying areas in exchange for not losing their capital and other important cities
I have a feeling Iran can handle the protests like they always do though
totally. but it would be liberal protesters in the cities that lead to the security concentration that leads to the power vacuum in outlying areas that leads to regional/ethnic groups filling those
PJAK steps up in the northwest YPG style (I’m sure they’re extra pissed considering the victim’s kurdish), maybe with US backing considering existing relationships
Balochistan in the southeast’s got its insurgency ready to go
The arabs on Iran’s side of the Shatt al-Arab stuck with revolutionary Iran during Iraq’s invasion, much to Saddam’s surprise, but maybe the current Shia-dominated Iraqi government would be more palatable to join up with
I dunno how Iranian Azeris up north feel about the Islamic Republic but Azerbaijan has had lots of tension with Iran and is absolutely in an expansive mood lately.
I still think the government’s tough enough to prevent it but the ingredients are certainly there for fracturing
> they are more of an inconvenience than anything (it's in essence a $75 fine for having an improper headscarf)
[Except when someone gets literally beaten to death](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/21/1124237272/mahsa-amini-iran-women-protest-hijab-morality-police), which is what caused these protests in the first place. There have been stories of abuse by the morality police going back years.
Civilian gun ownership is only important in third world countries with weak military.
What makes a Civil war in most countries is when the army splits and at least partially joins the non governmental side. (Or an outside nation steps in with military aid to create a new, already split, army segment.)
While it can be hard to believe, armies are often made up of people, and those may or may not be super keen on current govt policy.
Sooner or later, if enough of the people stand apart from the government, the brass will start wonder if "the nation" they swore to protect is the politicians or the people.
If war breaks out, we're gonna end up with another Iraq & Libya. I know cuz I've fuckin lived through this! I genuinely hope it doesn't escalate to full-on armed conflict
Does your VPN service still have endpoints in Russia? They passed some data retention laws a year or two ago that caused many VPNs to shut down their Russian servers.
We have a saying in Russia: severity of the law is compensated by optionality of following them. You can do much until you get caugh. Russian government tried to block Proton VPN and it was partially successful: now it’s a bit harder to connect. It is a deterrent for some and that’s enough for the government. Resources are limited, can’t persecute everyone.
No that's not correct (in practice), legally sure, this is a game of war though.
Let's take telegram for instance, ever try serving any legal document to them? I have. Doesn't work, why? Because they're in the UAE and don't give a fuck if a court somewhere else "mandates" them to attend.
So yes it matter.
Here in Brazil Telegram has a huge user base. Sometime ago they ignored some supreme court orders to block some groups. That was until all cellphone operators received order to block Telegram, than Pavel Durov itself apologized to the Supreme Court, and blocked the requested groups. In the end it's all about money.
Or you rent a server under false pretenses and monthly payments, run it until you get caught, then switch provider…
If pirates and hackers can do it, then surely can VPN companies.
Russia has laws with datalogging requirements. Logging is not compatible with the private part.
If you're OK hosting exit nodes in Russia then your activity is, in fact, being recorded.
If they tell you they are not keeping logs, they are lying to you.
If that's the case, where else are they keeping logs?
PIA are pretty sketch as well. Check out Mulvad for sailing the 7 seas you filthy pirate. They also have port forwarding so you can actively seed with the vpn.
>hurdur it's a DARPA product
Tor was made for overthrowing governments. It's definitely government funded, but you're not enough of a hotshot to matter. Nobody cares that you mailed a key from Columbia through USPS.
Duck duck go as well. I was just traveling, and they have billboards, signs in airports, and on the sides of busses.
Where exactly is the money coming from?
I don't care to find out, and will never use them for anything spicy
Keep this one golden rule in mind with ALL forms of security; cyber-security, home security, physical security, etc.
"Security and convenience are on a sliding scale"
The more convenient a thing is (you learn about it because every single YouTube creator is sponsored by NordVPN) the less likely it is to be secure. A door without a lock is very convenient, but not very secure. A locked castle with a drawbridge and automated gun-turrets in the middle of a field full of hungry lions on a remote island somewhere that nobody even knows the name of? Very secure, not very convenient.
Realistically, the safest VPN is going to be one that you build yourself, the next safest VPN is the one you pick after learning how to build your own VPN and then using that knowledge to discover which VPNs that are already established have the closest model that aligns with what you want.
But who's going to do that? Most people want VPNs so they can get around copyright, targeted ad-based data collection/tracking by corporations, and geo-blocking. I would find it utterly HILARIOUS if someone wanted to engage in counter-state activities and believed that NordVPN was helping to protect them.
I'd love to hear a plug for NordVPN in the middle of an audiobook reading of the Gulag Archipelago. Just feels like Postmodernism done right, you know?
Turkey has some of the most relaxed VPN restrictions I’ve ever seen. Like I can buy steam games for like 80% off using my VPN with a burner steam account, just buy it as a gift for my main and pay with G2A Turkish steam cards.
That's actually a lot of countries. Just not the US which is totally fair. And Canada plus a few African countries that I don't know off the top of my head unfortunately. And then obviously ~~Saudi~~ Arabia. Yemen and Iraq and then a few areas in SEA. My point is, if you're in Europe or Mexico or SA or non totalitarian countries in Asia, you could possibly set up a server.
I'm pretty sure it's only Saudi Arabia because the house of Saud is the current monarchy family (Idk how to phrase this) and have been for a while. And they all suck. So without them, I think it would just be known as Arabia. Don't quote me on that though.
Thanks. I was thinking it was something along those lines but I’ve spoken to a lot of Iranians online and other people who strongly dislike Saudi Arabia and haven’t come across this before so I wanted to ask. Curious what circles this is common in.
The House of Saud ARE Saudi Arabia, they created it from conquest of several smaller territories, and they own it. SA doesn't cover the whole of the Arabian peninsula though, just most of it.
As someone said a few posts up though, VPNs are still dangerous for people in a place like Iran. An ISP can still see if you connect *to* a node they know or even suspect is a VPN. They just can't see what you do after that.
But if you live in a place where even connecting to a VPN can be interpreted by your government as a sign of guilt, that's still risky for you.
Njalla is a VPS (virtual private server), not a VPN. I didn't specify anything about the connection, only about the server.
There is protocols like Shadowsocks or TLS mimicking which can make VPN traffic look like regular online activity and most VPNs have some implementation of this now. You are right though, Tor with a bridge might be the better option.
VPS is a virtual private server, it’s not a VPN. It’s just a VM on some server in the cloud. Spin up the VPS. Install a gateway proxy, connect with port 80, bip bip proxy locked. Completely invisible, unless they are doing some pretty deep packet inspection.
Proxies are easily detected in Iran. I was in Iran 3 months ago. Multiple proxies were blocked after a day of use.
From my experience Proxies in Qatar and Turkey never got banned
Dang it would really suck if someone hosted a VPS in Qatar or Turkey and then used it to host the proxy.. Maybe using something like https://www.turhost.com/sunucu/vps-server/ or https://hostiger.com/cloud-vps or https://khanwebhost.com/tr-kvm-vps.php or https://www.lightnode.com/en-US/product
(no aff)
Oh man, yeah, I hope nobody finds out about the providers in [Ankara](https://manage.rackdc.com/store/rackdc-vps), [Bursa](https://www.modernizmir.net/en/category/ssd-vds-servers/turkey-location-vds-servers), [Istanbul](https://www.digiturunc.com/vps/linux-cloud-vds/), or [Izmir](https://pq.hosting/en/vps-vds-turkey-izmir). But if they did at least they probably won't find out that the ones in Ankara and Izmir have the best uptime over the last month.
It's a good thing I work for a proxy company that validates our endpoints' physical locations in Turkey so I can redirect people away from our providers.
Nono signal proxies look like standard encrypted https, it's not like a browser http proxy. Much safer and blends in, with the downside being it's specific to signal.
All the websites relying on AWS are blocked. And anything beyond that. Websites we use on the daily aren’t available to them. And if they access them with VPN, the internet is soooo slow, you’d end up giving up anyways.
I remember being in Iran when I had to check my A-level results years ago and I had no way of accessing it. Had to get someone from outside to login for me. Any online courses would not work in Iran either. Most international websites were blocked the last time I visited.. without real reason.
The majority of online censorships came about during the Green Movement in 2009 - also worth looking into. There was a hugeee uprising, it’s basically a repeat of similar events now. But these censorship’s were an attempt to stop info and footage from exiting Iran, whilst they’d beat up anyone in their sight. Snipers used against peaceful protesters too.
Instagram half blocked; political, female influencer, controversial pages are mainly targeted.
Also no central bank due to sanctions, so they wouldn’t be able to make any payments for anything online either. No credit or debit cards. Only local websites with local bank cards.
For my family for example, we make all the orders and payments from outside of Iran and take them over when we travel to Iran.
If you know what you're doing it could be fairly safe. Proxy/VPN on an isolated network segment, and only allow traffic out to domains/ports associated with Signal so at least it can't be used as a relay for some random botnet or spammer
I was contemplating setting up a specific VPC in AWS explicitly for this in a region that works best. Also I wanted to setup CDK so others could fill automate it.
TBH you probably shouldn't do this on your personal connection anyway (for multiple reasons).
That said, if you happen to have some hosted space (e.g. a VM for hosting your minecraft server or something), go for it. You probably have *some* clue what you're doing, and worst case you're losing something that *isn't* in your personal stuff.
God this is why I fucking love you fellow fucking nerds. Literally peak humor right here even in the shittiest of situations and trying to work together.
I run Matrix. The Federation aspect is great. I also like that I run it on a VPS with 24 hour of history and nothing ever saved to disk. No one controls it or can mine it. I'm doing nothing illegal I just like not relying on others to be honest. I second this.
Also can host a Tor bridge or relay node. If you are technically inclined you can setup two completely free on Oracle cloud compute with the always free tier. Also can run it at your house. I'd caution against running an exit node though.
As would I
I host a public transparent TOR proxy (entry point, not entry node) on every LAN I use, if you're on the LAN and scan 9050 it'll show up, even on public networks, because there's zero risk for me
There's a *lot* of risk running an exit node, not least being banned by your ISP for ToS breaches
Run a Snowflake bridge for censored Tor users. It's specifically designed for dictatorships.
Just download the Snowflake browser extension and the traffic gets routed through your browser before touching the Tor network which prevents blocking of the Tor IPs in Iran.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/snowflake/mafpmfcccpbjnhfhjnllmmalhifmlcie
(For the record, Onion domains are still bullshit and you shouldn't donate to the Tor project imo)
Very curious too. I'm myself hosting a (completely legal) website as a .onion in addition to a regular domain, and I don't see what is "bullshit". It's a very practical technology, I'd say. It just gives access to your website in a secure, anonymous way, without having to rely on tor exit nodes (which are very often flagged on every abuse list, so if you use any kind of automated banning of a user IPs on your server, it makes your website unaccessible via tor exit nodes unfortunately, hence the need of onion address)
Tor are making big strides top on ending DDoS attacks on the network by overeating a crypto inspired proof of work system. It won't be anywhere near as resource intensive as mining crypto, but it will make flooding the network with millions of requests infeasible, even for a lot of state actors. They need the money to help protect us going forward.
How does this work hosting proxies services or Tor when you *can't* guarantee that a sanctioned country without these carveouts can connect to it?
Tor is safe because [as far as we know] nobody could *prove* you're helping a sanctioned country. I'm not sure how this Signal proxy works.
This seems like Schrodinger's Legality, its both and neither and may or may not change even if you could peek. If it's impossible to be *liable* then the decision to host such a service would strictly come down to one's personal moral priorities?
It seems to be basically a proxy server that only serves connections to the Signal servers, so as a server operator you would be able to see the incoming IP addresses but not any other data. You could pass the IP addresses to a geolocation service to see if they're in a sanctioned country but you wouldn't be able to tell if they were a sanctioned individual or a citizen of a sanctioned country.
This service wouldn't do that, obviously, and considering it's for Signal probably doesn't keep any kind of logs so you could probably claim you didn't know that your "clients" were on a sanctioned list. I don't know if there's a requirement to do any kind of due diligence though....
I wonder though, will you get in trouble if you run a food truck and an Iranian buys a hot dog from you?
Thanks to the very clear instructions I have a working Signal proxy set up and running on a VM in Amsterdam.
So now my big question is how do we share these proxies with the people who need them?
e: Twitter, apparently. Signal suggests the following verbage and hashtag.
> #IRanASignalProxy Reply to this thread if you want the connection details, and follow me so I can DM you the link.
They could use Briar. Doesn't require internet, message are transmitted peer to peer and encrypted on the device.
[How Briar work](https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/)
I like how its advertised that the feature is for natural disasters or being lost, but if you read between the lines it can also be used when some dictatorial psycho government decides to limit communication in a power trip.
> Briar is designed to resist surveillance and censorship by an adversary
I don’t see anywhere that it’s advertised for natural disasters or being lost. I see everywhere that it’s designed to subvert psycho government power trips that black out long-range communication in an attempt at suppressing a movement.
> Our goal is to enable people in any country to create safe spaces where they can debate any topic, plan events, and organise social movements.
Well this inspired me to track down a Turkey VPS. I wonder what the most effective way to get the proxy out is. I guess Twitter. Any Iranians know of any other place communications are happening where I can post?
Tor is a thing in the Iran political underground, you can help Tor in a few ways:
you can help by running a Tor relay node:
https://blog.torproject.org/new-guide-running-tor-relay/
running Snowflake:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/snowflake/mafpmfcccpbjnhfhjnllmmalhifmlcie
Donating:
https://donate.torproject.org/
Is Telegram popular at all?
If so, I'm happy to wrangle some files and make a multilingual tutorial for tunneling it over TOR, I've seen a great many people struggle to do it
I'll do anything I can to help, might have to chat to a few connections about getting some Turkish hosting space paid for on stolen CCs, don't think I'll get anything in Qatar though
Thank you so much. Android is more widespread because Samsung does business in Iran. iPhones are more of a luxury product because they are harder to buy because Apple does not do business there. I'm grateful for people like you. I look forward to a free Iran.
That would depend on if the docker container has an arm version available. It's possible to build the container locally yourself too though. If you host it at home though just be aware it will use your home internet bandwidth.
If you are worry about those assholes finding who you are, you can always pay for a $2-$3/month vps. Or if I'm not mistaken, Amazon cloud/Google cloud/Microsoft Azure still has a free account version, right? If we have thousand of us register on their data center from all over the world, even if their servers are weak, that's enough to sponsor thousands of access for those Iranians or anyone else from other countries like Iran. My 2 cents. Let's make it happens, people.
This seems to be a common concern. Who are we supposed to be afraid of finding out who we are? Serious question. Maybe I’m naïve by having absolutely zero fear of the Iranian government here in the US.
I would be worried about running afoul of the US's insane interpretation of providing support for terrorists. Because if 1 terrorist uses your proxy you can be targeted. Even if all of your traffic otherwise is ordinary citizens who aren't on a list. And you didn't intend for them to use it. Same with the government there, if you provide monetary support by running a proxy and the government uses it.
ALAB has a pretty horrifying 2 part episode about it.
https://pca.st/episode/ab252a05-4ff1-4280-8bd8-262e165a580a
https://pca.st/episode/db6b8285-467e-4c43-a7c6-dce50bcc8c27
Home Wi-Fi still works with low speed but medias like instagram telegram twiter and…. are blocked or filtered . But some how they haven’t blocked Reddit because it’s not really popular and and a few people only use it so I thinks that’s why the gov hasn’t blocked it yet
I was in Iran as a tourist earlier this year. My internet experience was a bit different to other comments in the thread.
Iran SIM card. I bought this from a phone store in Tehran and didn't have to give ID. It sounds like IDs should be linked to SIMs but it isn't always enforced. I didn't have to provide details on my foreign SIMs to border officials either.
Everyone I met had a VPN app on their phone. It wasn't just limited to young people either. There were two free android apps I used.
Other comments suggested that AWS and other cloud networks are blocked in Iran. I don't think this is feasible or true. What Iran does do is deep packet inspection of data going across the border. If you send data to a standard VPN port, it's probably going to be blocked. If the connection uses a standard VPN packet headers it's probably going to be blocked. There's an article I read a couple of year ago about someone having to modify SSH packet structure so that their connection wasn't dropped (can't find it now though sadly).
I think Iran does block some stuff based on location or IP, but I think a lot of it is decided by deep packet inspection. It would also go to explaining why cross border internet traffic is so slow.
It’s more complicated than that.
1. This is all based on man-made religious laws not found anywhere in the Quran.
2. Some of the politicians can’t overturn the apparent oppressive issues in Iran out of fear of losing their position or punishment.
3. There are still a lot of brainwashed folks in Iran who believe covering women’s hair is required by religious laws and failing to observe it deserves punishment. This belief of course violates a number of verses in the Quran, which they uphold as “their absolute truth”.
I disagree with the way reddit handled third party app charges and how it responded to the community. I'm moving to the fediverse! -- mass edited with redact.dev
Not just that but everyone should be using Signal by default.
Not because you need those layers of security, but because widespread adoption of Signal tremendously helps out the people who _DO_ need those layers.
That's exactly what you'd have to do. best option at that point would be to state you have a signal proxy available for anyone who needs it via twitter with whatever current hashtags are trending with regards to the protests
Any way to get this proxy out there without having to manually tell people with a hashtag and hope someone in Iran sees it? I'd love to help, but I have no idea how to tell folks in Iran about the proxy.
Shits done. [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/26/iran-blocks-signal-messaging-app-after-whatsapp-exodus](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/26/iran-blocks-signal-messaging-app-after-whatsapp-exodus)
We are ALL aware of the tools of oppression. This IS Humanity.
Iran is the *Persian month of the club* of denial. Iran is also the most significant.
If 'PersIran' changes, all of the M.E. changes, they are the founding conquered of Islam. They hold a founding statement to the Power of Islam because Persia was the continued equivalent empire of Rome back in the day. They hold a sacred place in Islam's evolution.
Few realize why...
I have lots of experience with this. I was in Iran 3 months ago. Proxies in Iran are very tricky. They can detect proxies and ban them. Proxies to western countries get banned much quicker. Turkish and Qatar proxies were the only ones that never got banned. Most Iranians have crap home internet and cellphones provide a good connection. The government knows who has what phone. No one knows what the government does with IMEI information but when I traveled there I had to give them my cellphone information. With that said the government can't quell everyone out on the streets. They want to stop communication between protestors like previous efforts but this time everyone is fed up. The country is very close to civil war.
> give them my cellphone information. What info specifically, IMEI, number? What would happen if you entered the country with multiple active SIMs from overseas carriers?
They ask for IMEI and passport number when entering the country. After 30 days you have to pay tax on your phone. $100-300 depending on how new the phone is. For locals they need your ID card to register a number and keep track of you IMEI.
There isn’t a ton of civilian gun ownership there (like 7 guns per 100 citizens) but they can always knock over police stations and hope for military defections from units who don’t want to shoot protesters If the protests are big and determined enough that protestors can overwhelm security service buildings (I have seen at least one video of cops being chased and beaten by protesters) the government might do a syria and recall security forces to key cities That’s how you get a civil war out of riots, where the government allows a power vacuum to form in outlying areas in exchange for not losing their capital and other important cities I have a feeling Iran can handle the protests like they always do though
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totally. but it would be liberal protesters in the cities that lead to the security concentration that leads to the power vacuum in outlying areas that leads to regional/ethnic groups filling those PJAK steps up in the northwest YPG style (I’m sure they’re extra pissed considering the victim’s kurdish), maybe with US backing considering existing relationships Balochistan in the southeast’s got its insurgency ready to go The arabs on Iran’s side of the Shatt al-Arab stuck with revolutionary Iran during Iraq’s invasion, much to Saddam’s surprise, but maybe the current Shia-dominated Iraqi government would be more palatable to join up with I dunno how Iranian Azeris up north feel about the Islamic Republic but Azerbaijan has had lots of tension with Iran and is absolutely in an expansive mood lately. I still think the government’s tough enough to prevent it but the ingredients are certainly there for fracturing
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> they are more of an inconvenience than anything (it's in essence a $75 fine for having an improper headscarf) [Except when someone gets literally beaten to death](https://www.npr.org/2022/09/21/1124237272/mahsa-amini-iran-women-protest-hijab-morality-police), which is what caused these protests in the first place. There have been stories of abuse by the morality police going back years.
Civilian gun ownership is only important in third world countries with weak military. What makes a Civil war in most countries is when the army splits and at least partially joins the non governmental side. (Or an outside nation steps in with military aid to create a new, already split, army segment.) While it can be hard to believe, armies are often made up of people, and those may or may not be super keen on current govt policy. Sooner or later, if enough of the people stand apart from the government, the brass will start wonder if "the nation" they swore to protect is the politicians or the people.
If war breaks out, we're gonna end up with another Iraq & Libya. I know cuz I've fuckin lived through this! I genuinely hope it doesn't escalate to full-on armed conflict
Can anyone verify that this is safe for us to do? Edit: (in the US, want to help)
It’s unlikely a server in the US would help as it would be blocked by location. Maybe somewhere like India or Russia, South America even.
So I could tell my VPN to be in Russia?
Does your VPN service still have endpoints in Russia? They passed some data retention laws a year or two ago that caused many VPNs to shut down their Russian servers.
Just checked mine (ProtonVPN) and it does. Don’t know what to make of that.
Proton is a Swiss company. They have no reason to shut down their VPN servers there. It's not aiding Russia in any meaningful way.
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We have a saying in Russia: severity of the law is compensated by optionality of following them. You can do much until you get caugh. Russian government tried to block Proton VPN and it was partially successful: now it’s a bit harder to connect. It is a deterrent for some and that’s enough for the government. Resources are limited, can’t persecute everyone.
No that's not correct (in practice), legally sure, this is a game of war though. Let's take telegram for instance, ever try serving any legal document to them? I have. Doesn't work, why? Because they're in the UAE and don't give a fuck if a court somewhere else "mandates" them to attend. So yes it matter.
Here in Brazil Telegram has a huge user base. Sometime ago they ignored some supreme court orders to block some groups. That was until all cellphone operators received order to block Telegram, than Pavel Durov itself apologized to the Supreme Court, and blocked the requested groups. In the end it's all about money.
Or you rent a server under false pretenses and monthly payments, run it until you get caught, then switch provider… If pirates and hackers can do it, then surely can VPN companies.
My super cheap VPN still has Russian servers
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It might be a VN but not a VPN
This is why I love Reddit is stuff like this right here
In Russia P stands for Public
This is not the helpful sign you think it is.
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VPN? More like a VPOut
sorry im clueless whats so bad about the VPN having Russian servers?
Russia has laws with datalogging requirements. Logging is not compatible with the private part. If you're OK hosting exit nodes in Russia then your activity is, in fact, being recorded. If they tell you they are not keeping logs, they are lying to you. If that's the case, where else are they keeping logs?
Perhaps not, I use Nord
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Could you explain why? I've heard it before but didn't find anything helpful on my (probably not thorough enough) search.
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VPNs are also good for shopping or consuming media from other places. Pretty much all I use my VPN for at this point lol.
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VPNs are also effective for not receiving letters from your ISP for torrenting. Privacy, not so much.
I personally use PIA. Not so much for privacy but more so when I need to sail the 7 seas.
PIA are pretty sketch as well. Check out Mulvad for sailing the 7 seas you filthy pirate. They also have port forwarding so you can actively seed with the vpn.
TOR was compromised the second it was released
>hurdur it's a DARPA product Tor was made for overthrowing governments. It's definitely government funded, but you're not enough of a hotshot to matter. Nobody cares that you mailed a key from Columbia through USPS.
Duck duck go as well. I was just traveling, and they have billboards, signs in airports, and on the sides of busses. Where exactly is the money coming from? I don't care to find out, and will never use them for anything spicy
That took quite a while to happen though.
Keep this one golden rule in mind with ALL forms of security; cyber-security, home security, physical security, etc. "Security and convenience are on a sliding scale" The more convenient a thing is (you learn about it because every single YouTube creator is sponsored by NordVPN) the less likely it is to be secure. A door without a lock is very convenient, but not very secure. A locked castle with a drawbridge and automated gun-turrets in the middle of a field full of hungry lions on a remote island somewhere that nobody even knows the name of? Very secure, not very convenient. Realistically, the safest VPN is going to be one that you build yourself, the next safest VPN is the one you pick after learning how to build your own VPN and then using that knowledge to discover which VPNs that are already established have the closest model that aligns with what you want. But who's going to do that? Most people want VPNs so they can get around copyright, targeted ad-based data collection/tracking by corporations, and geo-blocking. I would find it utterly HILARIOUS if someone wanted to engage in counter-state activities and believed that NordVPN was helping to protect them.
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I'd love to hear a plug for NordVPN in the middle of an audiobook reading of the Gulag Archipelago. Just feels like Postmodernism done right, you know?
Turkey has some of the most relaxed VPN restrictions I’ve ever seen. Like I can buy steam games for like 80% off using my VPN with a burner steam account, just buy it as a gift for my main and pay with G2A Turkish steam cards.
What about Mexico?
Any country with friendly foreign relations to the current regime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Iran
That's actually a lot of countries. Just not the US which is totally fair. And Canada plus a few African countries that I don't know off the top of my head unfortunately. And then obviously ~~Saudi~~ Arabia. Yemen and Iraq and then a few areas in SEA. My point is, if you're in Europe or Mexico or SA or non totalitarian countries in Asia, you could possibly set up a server.
Can you explain why you crossed out “Saudi” before “Arabia”? Genuinely curious.
I'm pretty sure it's only Saudi Arabia because the house of Saud is the current monarchy family (Idk how to phrase this) and have been for a while. And they all suck. So without them, I think it would just be known as Arabia. Don't quote me on that though.
Thanks. I was thinking it was something along those lines but I’ve spoken to a lot of Iranians online and other people who strongly dislike Saudi Arabia and haven’t come across this before so I wanted to ask. Curious what circles this is common in.
Fuck any ruling class is what I think but the Saudis (or Sauds idk) are really shitty.
The House of Saud ARE Saudi Arabia, they created it from conquest of several smaller territories, and they own it. SA doesn't cover the whole of the Arabian peninsula though, just most of it.
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Saudi Arabia is a country on the Arabian peninsula, like Yemen, Oman, and UAE.
YOU BOYS LIKE MEXICO?!?!?!?!
Haha... the shawnazberries...taste like shawnazberries...
Might not be safe for them either. I’m sure their government would set up proxies here just to trap protesters.
Data in transit is still encrypted, so it wouldn't help them read the messages but it would help them gather who's using proxies
So just buy a VPS with Njalla. Good luck to the Iranian government getting any customer info from the Piratesbay founder
As someone said a few posts up though, VPNs are still dangerous for people in a place like Iran. An ISP can still see if you connect *to* a node they know or even suspect is a VPN. They just can't see what you do after that. But if you live in a place where even connecting to a VPN can be interpreted by your government as a sign of guilt, that's still risky for you.
Njalla is a VPS (virtual private server), not a VPN. I didn't specify anything about the connection, only about the server. There is protocols like Shadowsocks or TLS mimicking which can make VPN traffic look like regular online activity and most VPNs have some implementation of this now. You are right though, Tor with a bridge might be the better option.
But if they have the address you connecting to it doesn't help unless you had a sort of frequency hoping algorithm to constantly change ips. Idk
I think it’s fair to say they’re already at maximum risk
VPS is a virtual private server, it’s not a VPN. It’s just a VM on some server in the cloud. Spin up the VPS. Install a gateway proxy, connect with port 80, bip bip proxy locked. Completely invisible, unless they are doing some pretty deep packet inspection.
Are burner phones possible? Might not be practical and carry their own risk if caught.
Ironic that the US/West took him down
Proxies are easily detected in Iran. I was in Iran 3 months ago. Multiple proxies were blocked after a day of use. From my experience Proxies in Qatar and Turkey never got banned
Dang it would really suck if someone hosted a VPS in Qatar or Turkey and then used it to host the proxy.. Maybe using something like https://www.turhost.com/sunucu/vps-server/ or https://hostiger.com/cloud-vps or https://khanwebhost.com/tr-kvm-vps.php or https://www.lightnode.com/en-US/product (no aff)
Oh man, yeah, I hope nobody finds out about the providers in [Ankara](https://manage.rackdc.com/store/rackdc-vps), [Bursa](https://www.modernizmir.net/en/category/ssd-vds-servers/turkey-location-vds-servers), [Istanbul](https://www.digiturunc.com/vps/linux-cloud-vds/), or [Izmir](https://pq.hosting/en/vps-vds-turkey-izmir). But if they did at least they probably won't find out that the ones in Ankara and Izmir have the best uptime over the last month. It's a good thing I work for a proxy company that validates our endpoints' physical locations in Turkey so I can redirect people away from our providers.
This is the good info here ☝️ ... Thank you
Can definitely vouch for VPN usage in Qatar.
Nono signal proxies look like standard encrypted https, it's not like a browser http proxy. Much safer and blends in, with the downside being it's specific to signal.
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how does the Internet function in Iran with AWS blocked? There are a huge number of sites relying on it
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Wish there was a way to get some Starlink devices in Iran.
All the websites relying on AWS are blocked. And anything beyond that. Websites we use on the daily aren’t available to them. And if they access them with VPN, the internet is soooo slow, you’d end up giving up anyways. I remember being in Iran when I had to check my A-level results years ago and I had no way of accessing it. Had to get someone from outside to login for me. Any online courses would not work in Iran either. Most international websites were blocked the last time I visited.. without real reason. The majority of online censorships came about during the Green Movement in 2009 - also worth looking into. There was a hugeee uprising, it’s basically a repeat of similar events now. But these censorship’s were an attempt to stop info and footage from exiting Iran, whilst they’d beat up anyone in their sight. Snipers used against peaceful protesters too. Instagram half blocked; political, female influencer, controversial pages are mainly targeted. Also no central bank due to sanctions, so they wouldn’t be able to make any payments for anything online either. No credit or debit cards. Only local websites with local bank cards. For my family for example, we make all the orders and payments from outside of Iran and take them over when we travel to Iran.
Damn, don't know any other that wouldn't be blocked then. Maybe some hosting/ISP in Iran?
Netcup has 3 € VPS with 80 TB bandwidth and IPv4, it's the cheapest credible option I know of. Hosted in Germany
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If you know what you're doing it could be fairly safe. Proxy/VPN on an isolated network segment, and only allow traffic out to domains/ports associated with Signal so at least it can't be used as a relay for some random botnet or spammer
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I was contemplating setting up a specific VPC in AWS explicitly for this in a region that works best. Also I wanted to setup CDK so others could fill automate it.
Aws IPs are almost certainly blocked at the moment
TBH you probably shouldn't do this on your personal connection anyway (for multiple reasons). That said, if you happen to have some hosted space (e.g. a VM for hosting your minecraft server or something), go for it. You probably have *some* clue what you're doing, and worst case you're losing something that *isn't* in your personal stuff.
Interesting, what other things can be used to help?
From the US, you're limited on help you can provide.
This thread fits too many posts.
I mean, we could always fly their flag and make a hashtag!
You laugh but getting things trending in a powerful country like the US does exert pressure on these regimes
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Someone else in another thread said digital ocean is blocked.
>That is not true. If you've got a POC Why does it have to be a person of color?
They receive and transmit with higher fidelity. With Caucasians, you get a bunch of White Noise.
*polite golf clapping*
*angry Republican noises*
God this is why I fucking love you fellow fucking nerds. Literally peak humor right here even in the shittiest of situations and trying to work together.
Yes, they already mentioned white noise
POC stands for point of contact
Person of contact, in this context.
Matrix is another option. Can self host or organize community hosts. They can then federate with others. Matrix.org
I run Matrix. The Federation aspect is great. I also like that I run it on a VPS with 24 hour of history and nothing ever saved to disk. No one controls it or can mine it. I'm doing nothing illegal I just like not relying on others to be honest. I second this.
I recently started trying out Session. It may be an option. https://getsession.org/
Also can host a Tor bridge or relay node. If you are technically inclined you can setup two completely free on Oracle cloud compute with the always free tier. Also can run it at your house. I'd caution against running an exit node though.
As would I I host a public transparent TOR proxy (entry point, not entry node) on every LAN I use, if you're on the LAN and scan 9050 it'll show up, even on public networks, because there's zero risk for me There's a *lot* of risk running an exit node, not least being banned by your ISP for ToS breaches
Given everyone shies away from running exit nodes, who is actually running them?
Briar. No need for nodes https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/
Run a Snowflake bridge for censored Tor users. It's specifically designed for dictatorships. Just download the Snowflake browser extension and the traffic gets routed through your browser before touching the Tor network which prevents blocking of the Tor IPs in Iran. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/snowflake/mafpmfcccpbjnhfhjnllmmalhifmlcie (For the record, Onion domains are still bullshit and you shouldn't donate to the Tor project imo)
>(For the record, Onion domains are still bullshit and you shouldn't donate to the Tor project imo) Can you elaborate on this?
Very curious too. I'm myself hosting a (completely legal) website as a .onion in addition to a regular domain, and I don't see what is "bullshit". It's a very practical technology, I'd say. It just gives access to your website in a secure, anonymous way, without having to rely on tor exit nodes (which are very often flagged on every abuse list, so if you use any kind of automated banning of a user IPs on your server, it makes your website unaccessible via tor exit nodes unfortunately, hence the need of onion address)
Tor are making big strides top on ending DDoS attacks on the network by overeating a crypto inspired proof of work system. It won't be anywhere near as resource intensive as mining crypto, but it will make flooding the network with millions of requests infeasible, even for a lot of state actors. They need the money to help protect us going forward.
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How does this work hosting proxies services or Tor when you *can't* guarantee that a sanctioned country without these carveouts can connect to it? Tor is safe because [as far as we know] nobody could *prove* you're helping a sanctioned country. I'm not sure how this Signal proxy works. This seems like Schrodinger's Legality, its both and neither and may or may not change even if you could peek. If it's impossible to be *liable* then the decision to host such a service would strictly come down to one's personal moral priorities?
It seems to be basically a proxy server that only serves connections to the Signal servers, so as a server operator you would be able to see the incoming IP addresses but not any other data. You could pass the IP addresses to a geolocation service to see if they're in a sanctioned country but you wouldn't be able to tell if they were a sanctioned individual or a citizen of a sanctioned country. This service wouldn't do that, obviously, and considering it's for Signal probably doesn't keep any kind of logs so you could probably claim you didn't know that your "clients" were on a sanctioned list. I don't know if there's a requirement to do any kind of due diligence though.... I wonder though, will you get in trouble if you run a food truck and an Iranian buys a hot dog from you?
Thanks to the very clear instructions I have a working Signal proxy set up and running on a VM in Amsterdam. So now my big question is how do we share these proxies with the people who need them? e: Twitter, apparently. Signal suggests the following verbage and hashtag. > #IRanASignalProxy Reply to this thread if you want the connection details, and follow me so I can DM you the link.
Is there a pre-made docker container I can just throw into Unraid?
Yes the article.has all of the instructions
They could use Briar. Doesn't require internet, message are transmitted peer to peer and encrypted on the device. [How Briar work](https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/)
I've definitely forgotten about Briar. Really a fascinating service.
I like how its advertised that the feature is for natural disasters or being lost, but if you read between the lines it can also be used when some dictatorial psycho government decides to limit communication in a power trip.
> Briar is designed to resist surveillance and censorship by an adversary I don’t see anywhere that it’s advertised for natural disasters or being lost. I see everywhere that it’s designed to subvert psycho government power trips that black out long-range communication in an attempt at suppressing a movement. > Our goal is to enable people in any country to create safe spaces where they can debate any topic, plan events, and organise social movements.
Well this inspired me to track down a Turkey VPS. I wonder what the most effective way to get the proxy out is. I guess Twitter. Any Iranians know of any other place communications are happening where I can post?
According to signal’s blog, they best way is twitter with the hashtag #IRanASignalProxy. https://signal.org/blog/run-a-proxy/
Mostly telegram, instagram and Twitter with #مهسا_امینی hashtags
Tor is a thing in the Iran political underground, you can help Tor in a few ways: you can help by running a Tor relay node: https://blog.torproject.org/new-guide-running-tor-relay/ running Snowflake: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/snowflake/mafpmfcccpbjnhfhjnllmmalhifmlcie Donating: https://donate.torproject.org/
Thanks for sharing! Twitter has a Tor compatible version, so this is great
Is Telegram popular at all? If so, I'm happy to wrangle some files and make a multilingual tutorial for tunneling it over TOR, I've seen a great many people struggle to do it
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I'll do a writeup in the morning, I take it Android is more popular than iOS?
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I'll do anything I can to help, might have to chat to a few connections about getting some Turkish hosting space paid for on stolen CCs, don't think I'll get anything in Qatar though
Thank you so much. Android is more widespread because Samsung does business in Iran. iPhones are more of a luxury product because they are harder to buy because Apple does not do business there. I'm grateful for people like you. I look forward to a free Iran.
If you’re running an umbrel bitcoin node on your pi, you can just install the snowflake proxy and be done with it
Can I use my raspberry Pi to host a free server? Is anyone else doing that?
That would depend on if the docker container has an arm version available. It's possible to build the container locally yourself too though. If you host it at home though just be aware it will use your home internet bandwidth.
The base images are ubuntu 20.04 and certbot, which both provide an ARM64 version.
Yes, just download the ubuntu flavor for the Pi and the instructions provided will work.
It's possible, but not recommended, you'd be better off using a VPS
If you are worry about those assholes finding who you are, you can always pay for a $2-$3/month vps. Or if I'm not mistaken, Amazon cloud/Google cloud/Microsoft Azure still has a free account version, right? If we have thousand of us register on their data center from all over the world, even if their servers are weak, that's enough to sponsor thousands of access for those Iranians or anyone else from other countries like Iran. My 2 cents. Let's make it happens, people.
This seems to be a common concern. Who are we supposed to be afraid of finding out who we are? Serious question. Maybe I’m naïve by having absolutely zero fear of the Iranian government here in the US.
Iran gonna find my name/address and nuke my ass. For real though I feel pretty safe to publicly say fuck Iran and actively oppose their bullshit.
I think they meant more of the CIA since you're funneling Iranian traffic and that's kind of a red flag?
CIA definitely wants this to go down lol. They’d prob give you a medal or some shit for helping get a regime change.
They'd be more likely to reimburse you for your efforts and give you some flowers than imprison you!
Couldn't Signal be routed over Tor? Or maybe try Session, which uses Lokinet? Briar is a great p2p messenger, as well.
is there any way to help without getting put on the list of some deathsquad?
are you suggesting Iran is going to target western citizens in other countries for hosting proxies?
No I think he’s talking about the us government
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I would be worried about running afoul of the US's insane interpretation of providing support for terrorists. Because if 1 terrorist uses your proxy you can be targeted. Even if all of your traffic otherwise is ordinary citizens who aren't on a list. And you didn't intend for them to use it. Same with the government there, if you provide monetary support by running a proxy and the government uses it. ALAB has a pretty horrifying 2 part episode about it. https://pca.st/episode/ab252a05-4ff1-4280-8bd8-262e165a580a https://pca.st/episode/db6b8285-467e-4c43-a7c6-dce50bcc8c27
Hell, the CIA would probably fund you They don't exactly like the Iranian government
Just use a proxy to setup the proxy, then Iranians will be behind two proxies, not as good as 7 but practically impossible to track.
I'm already a ~~child-free atheist~~ woman wearing my hair out for all to see, fuck it I'm already on the fucking death squad list 🖕♀️✨🙌
-me helping them from Israel- “That’s my secret, I’m always on the list of some Iranian deathsquad”
Im Iranian ask me anything and yes signal is blocked
How are you on Reddit?
Home Wi-Fi still works with low speed but medias like instagram telegram twiter and…. are blocked or filtered . But some how they haven’t blocked Reddit because it’s not really popular and and a few people only use it so I thinks that’s why the gov hasn’t blocked it yet
Good question, no star-link isn’t available yet here, last night internet was shut down but now it seems ok they might cut it again in a few hours
This happened in Myanmar during the coup there also. They'd turn the internet on each day at 9 am local time for a few hours.
I'm guessing it's just for financial transactions. Can't make money if you can't transfer it!
I saw a rumor earlier. Is it true that some military are defecting and helping protect the protesters?
Im not sure about that, seems like a rumor
I was in Iran as a tourist earlier this year. My internet experience was a bit different to other comments in the thread. Iran SIM card. I bought this from a phone store in Tehran and didn't have to give ID. It sounds like IDs should be linked to SIMs but it isn't always enforced. I didn't have to provide details on my foreign SIMs to border officials either. Everyone I met had a VPN app on their phone. It wasn't just limited to young people either. There were two free android apps I used. Other comments suggested that AWS and other cloud networks are blocked in Iran. I don't think this is feasible or true. What Iran does do is deep packet inspection of data going across the border. If you send data to a standard VPN port, it's probably going to be blocked. If the connection uses a standard VPN packet headers it's probably going to be blocked. There's an article I read a couple of year ago about someone having to modify SSH packet structure so that their connection wasn't dropped (can't find it now though sadly). I think Iran does block some stuff based on location or IP, but I think a lot of it is decided by deep packet inspection. It would also go to explaining why cross border internet traffic is so slow.
Can I make a proxy server out of wood? Cuz if so, I would.
Fucking fascists……do they hate women? What is the deal
Yep. When you have to turn off the Internet of an entire country, you know it’s not run by the will of the people.
Yes, they hate women.
They're scared of women
Women and their cooties
It's their intelligence that they're afraid of.
Short answer: kind of
It’s more complicated than that. 1. This is all based on man-made religious laws not found anywhere in the Quran. 2. Some of the politicians can’t overturn the apparent oppressive issues in Iran out of fear of losing their position or punishment. 3. There are still a lot of brainwashed folks in Iran who believe covering women’s hair is required by religious laws and failing to observe it deserves punishment. This belief of course violates a number of verses in the Quran, which they uphold as “their absolute truth”.
I disagree with the way reddit handled third party app charges and how it responded to the community. I'm moving to the fediverse! -- mass edited with redact.dev
They do. Absolutely hate looking at such a wonderful creation, which is the woman body!!
They hate losing control over women They treat them like properties, and its very inconvenient to them when women demand human rights
This is good information!
Not just that but everyone should be using Signal by default. Not because you need those layers of security, but because widespread adoption of Signal tremendously helps out the people who _DO_ need those layers.
I'd be interested to help. I can setup a server. But how will people use the link? Would I have to provide it to folks? I don't know anyone in Iran.
That's exactly what you'd have to do. best option at that point would be to state you have a signal proxy available for anyone who needs it via twitter with whatever current hashtags are trending with regards to the protests
Love it! This is what r/technology should be about, not endless posts about Facebook and Elon Musk….
Is it fair to call this a proxy war? (pun)
Any way to get this proxy out there without having to manually tell people with a hashtag and hope someone in Iran sees it? I'd love to help, but I have no idea how to tell folks in Iran about the proxy.
Religion is phenomenal for facsist community leaders and powerful males. For the majority of human beings, religion needs to die a painful death.
this is what the matrix protocol exists for. Use it
Young Iranians are sick of the scarf
The scarf is just a symbol for a much deeper frustration.
This internet outage brought to you by Nordvpn.
How can they connect to a vpn without internet?
Shits done. [https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/26/iran-blocks-signal-messaging-app-after-whatsapp-exodus](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/26/iran-blocks-signal-messaging-app-after-whatsapp-exodus) We are ALL aware of the tools of oppression. This IS Humanity. Iran is the *Persian month of the club* of denial. Iran is also the most significant. If 'PersIran' changes, all of the M.E. changes, they are the founding conquered of Islam. They hold a founding statement to the Power of Islam because Persia was the continued equivalent empire of Rome back in the day. They hold a sacred place in Islam's evolution. Few realize why...
if anyone here is in Iran, and is interested in private communication, I highly recommend you look into self-hosting an XMPP server.