Can someone explain from a technical standpoint how they can block OpenVPN running on port 443? my admittedly limited understanding is that port 443 is the common port for https. If they blocked that port wouldn’t that mean that they would be blocking nearly the entire internet?
I don’t know what they actually do but one possibly is to look for (absence of) the TLS handshake. Or maybe they simply infect all devices on the Chinese market with MITM certificates to be able to decrypt all TLS encrypted traffic. Should be easy to force companies to do that in such a country.
The port isn’t their focus, they’re looking at the protocol that is being used, regardless of the port. The protocol is still visible when not doing deep packet inspection. That’s why there suggesting a socks proxy for Russian citizens, because that uses HTTPS to tunnel traffic, so it wouldn’t be caught up in protocol analysis.
Look up NBAR for the basic idea. Each vendor has their own ‘secret sauce’ implementation, Palo Alto only needs 9 bytes of payload for disambiguation, iirc.
thank you! so it is basically looking at identifiable patterns in the packet flow and matching them to protocols. i also found this paper about traffic identification interesting.
From my understanding, they are most likely just blocking the defualt port of wireguard / openvpn and IPs associated with the VPN servers of VPN providers they dont like.
If they wanted to block VPN traffic over 443 to any IP, they would have to do deep packet inspection, which I would imagine is infeasible for Russia.
Supposedly, the Chinese great firewall does use deep packet inspection, so it is possible to do this at the country level.
They specifically mention it’s on the protocol level which would imply it’s doing more than just blocking some ports. Not sure why you’d think China could pull that off but it would be infeasible for Russia?
You can analyze the traffic, detect common patterns and also detect source of the request. Russian IT specialists are now using very complex solutions to come around the block which work a lot like MITM attacks.
I don’t know why some moron downvoted you, but the answer is maybe. For reference, I have always bypassed SSH firewall blocking by sneaking SSH packets within https.
The only way this won’t be possible is if the government enforces installing a certificate to use the internet, so that they can do a man-in-the-middle-attack. I heard this is already being done in Afghanistan.
I remember, back in the late 1990s, if I have the time right, when RealPlayer phoned home to check for updates, and there was enormous uproar over the privacy implications.
After a discussion that lasted for way too long, it appears that they like censorship.
They think that this is a perfectly reasonable argument: youtu.be/QFgcqB8-AxE and that the government knows better and thus information should be suppressed.
Yes they are. And they shadow delete comments! That’s after several of their members straight up sent abusive messages to me. I of course reported them. That’s when I noticed my comments deleted.
I’m not too worried about it. If that’s how they are with others, their message and community won’t reach far. Fuck em
I would love to see true metrics on what percent of them are Russian, Bots, Eastern European and people living in western countries… considering every other comment from that instance seems to simply be “fuck the west”
Russia is less terrorist than Azerbaijan, but the latter isn’t even being sanctioned (and there’s been an ICJ decision against them, but everybody ignores it) for starving out a little country of 120k people right now in a medieval siege, and openly stating that they are doing exactly that.
I don’t think Ukraine has lots of problems. At least the aggressor there is recognized for what it is and the victim is recognized for what it is and armed by half the world.
I don’t think Ukraine deserves any attention, in fact, since in Artsakh they support Azerbaijan. Support of now finally actual genocide happening is what makes me think that.
Russian likes to threaten the world with nukes - nuclear war would inevitably lead to a nuclear holocaust that would cause the near extinction of the human species.
I don’t give a flying fuck about Azerbaijan. Russia is terrorizing the entire species of humanity. Until you’re threatening to wipe out the entire planet, you are not a terrorist on the same level as Russia.
nuclear war would inevitably lead to a nuclear holocaust that would cause the near extinction of the human species.
If you use tactical nukes, then it’s not much more significant than using thermobaric ordnance or cassettes or even chemical weapons or anything else kinda nasty and non-conventional.
It won’t lead to a global thermonuclear war and thus a nuclear holocaust any more than use of sarin in Syria did.
However! If you don’t give a flying fuck about a smaller holocaust then I don’t give one about your bigger one even if it involves me, I just don’t care.
If you don’t give a flying fuck about a smaller holocaust then I don’t give one about your bigger one even if it involves me, I just don’t care.
Sure, Russia threatens the entire human species, but if it doesn’t suit your liberal virtue-signalling for some marginalized minority, then it’s fine with you.
What’s the survival of humanity vs your imaginary liberal internet points.
Your life is worth at best as much as any Artsakhi farmer’s life. In fact much less, if by “the entire human species” you mean yourself.
Now, Russia can’t threaten anybody, I’d be surprised if any of those strategic nukes are still operational. I happen to live in Russia and know how things are usually done here. That aside, Russia’s regime consists of thieves and murderers, not some Hollywood fascist hardliners. They care for their lives very much.
but if it doesn’t suit your liberal virtue-signalling for some marginalized minority
At this point I’d actually prefer that somebody nukes the miserable being you are.
And people of Artsakh are very much the majority in their land, however they are besieged and dying from hunger.
But, well, it’s good to know that you care about Ukraine only because of being afraid that, again, somebody nukes you.
Also my ancestors on paternal side happen to be from a certain valley in the province of Tayq, Western Armenia, currently occupied by a certain genocidal NATO country. I won’t buy your bullshit. I’ll care about Ukraine and somebody, again, nuking you personally when enough people care about that, which is never.
The people of Artsakh are also people of the world. Russia is threatening them with extinction too. You don’t actual care about them. You’re a fake and a liar begging for liberal minority points online.
Russia is threatening them in much more material way, with all its deals with Azerbaijan (which would be something sanction-worthy for the latter if it were, I don’t know, Georgia), but it isn’t killing them right now.
You don’t actual care about them.
I very definitely do, my aunt’s husband is from there and a participant of the first war.
You’re a fake and a liar
Judging by your use of the words “liberal” and “minority”, I’d say your opinion on the matter is not worth much, neither are you as a whole.
If you actually cared about them, you should do something about Russia’s short pathetic clown of a dictator. Then Russia would have a chance at respect on the world stage.
Right now, the entire rest world would be better off if Russia didn’t exist. You let Putin make that so.
Your own country is not a dictatorship yet it deals with Azerbaijan and Turkey. So you are responsible for that, democracy and all. I suggest you fix that first, then blabber about what I do and don’t do, which you don’t know anyway. Right now you are a valid target for that “hit them where they don’t expect it” option that the weaker side always has.
Iraq was not good, but the US didn’t just bomb everything to hell, it also built a lot of new infrastructure and invested money and resources back into the local population.
Can you even imagine Russian rebuilding anything for Ukrainians? Can you imagine Russia spending money to make life for Ukrainians better?
Russia is full on the #1 most terrorist dictator state in the entire world.
What country is Turkey invading and destroying right now?
Syria, Artsakh, Cyprus.
Who is Turkey threatening with nukes?
It doesn’t have nukes, but it’s threatening its every neighbor, especially Greece and Armenia.
What country is Saudi Arabia destroying right now?
Yemen.
What country is Saudi Arabia threatening with nukes?
It doesn’t have nukes, but it was threatening Iran all the time until their recent rapprochement.
Other than these, one is a fascist genocidal horde and another a medieval kingdom with beheadings and sharia law, both allied to NATO, though. Russia is just a very big mafia state in comparison.
Russia is objectively the worst of all, by far.
Why are you repeating something you can’t support with facts?
Maybe you think Ukraine has more value than Syria or Yemen or Artsakh due to it being “European”? For me a human life is a human life, but if we differentiate them, then civilization-wise compared to people of these countries Ukrainians (and Russians) are almost savages.
It’s not about numbers. For example, I don’t think that if n+1 lives of your compatriots can be saved by sacrificing n of mine (or n/10 of mine), then it’s better than vice versa.
Other than that, more than 2.5 mln of Armenian, Greek, Assyrian and Yazidi lives are not yet avenged since the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX century, and their lands not returned to the rightful owners. You are mistaken if you think there’s an expiration date, and that Turkey’s allies (as in any NATO country) are immune from this responsibility.
Don’t be a hypocrite, follow your own rules and back yourself up with facts and statistics as why why Turkey is worse than Russia.
I don’t think refusing to do this would make me a hypocrite, there’s nothing except your words to support that idea.
What you’re saying is that you think Russia isn’t evil because Ukrainian lives are worth less than other lives. You excuse Russia from large-scale murder, and large scale nuclear threat.
It’s pretty clear what your agenda is. You’re pro-Russia terrorism.
In my opinion it’s you who’s trying to divert this conversation from a genocidal terrorist NATO member Turkey and its by extension genocidal terrorist NATO allies to a paper tiger which is Russia.
I suggest you get busy with fixing your shit in your genocidal terrorist country and don’t bother humans like me until you are good enough to be called such.
Way to tell on yourself or trying to divert a post that is originally about Russia and try to make it about Turkey.
paper tiger which is Russia
Yeah Russia might be weak, and stupid, but like an animal that backs itself into a corner there’s a good chance Russia decides it has nothing to lose so it’ll take down the rest of the world with it.
I’ve answered a moron who said that Russia is a terrorist state by providing examples of NATO-allied states which are more terrorist than Russia.
This can be interpreted two ways - that I want those states to be treated as such, just like Russia, or that I want Russia to be excused, just like them.
Naturally I meant the former, it’s obvious from the focus I’ve made.
Basically I’m saying that if you are fine with Turkey being your ally, then there’s nothing particularly terrorist about Russia.
His statement would mean nothing without context, and with context it’s hypocritical.
like an animal that backs itself into a corner there’s a good chance Russia decides it has nothing to lose so it’ll take down the rest of the world with it.
You are not in a Hollywood movie. “Russia decides” would mean that there’s some singular will making decisions. Usually this is not the case, and as we’ve recently seen with Wagner circus, definitely not here.
And no, there’s no “good chance”, why such phrasing even? In a Hollywood movie any person saying such things is supposed to have knowledge and expertise for us to assume they know their shit.
Also with what exactly would it “take down the rest of the world”? Read something about Russian strategic forces commanders since independence, and also administrative and financial state of those strategic forces through most of the last 30 years.
I’d expect there are operational nukes to say a firm goodbye to area the size of Poland, but there are also THAAD deployments in Europe, I think, which are supposedly capable of shooting down these.
Back to people knowing their shit - it doesn’t seem that any of Western political or military leaders are seriously afraid of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange. Think about that.
Escalation policies tend to become very elastic when implemented by humans.
They really can get to some limited strategic exchange, but after that point some countries are democratic and that demos which supposedly rules them will tear into pieces everybody preventing the cessation of hostilities, and others are authoritarian, and their authority cares about its lives and well-being the most.
I mean, NATO officials have become much more modest with words about “any attack on NATO territory is an attack on NATO” after a few stray missiles have landed on Polish territory, for example.
Escalation policies tend to become very elastic when implemented by humans.
I’m talking about the Rules of Engagement during wartime. Especially when it comes to the release of nuclear weapons. These rules are very un-elastic.
Each use of nuclear force is responded to by an escalated nuclear force reply. This can keep happening until all the missiles are in the air, flying to their destinations.
Ukraine is not “western” puppet, it’s just a big oligarch-dominated part of the ex-USSR.
Say, Transcaucasia was toxic nationalist-bandit-oligarch dominated, with these components being initially almost equally mixed, and to some extent still is.
Russia was oligarch and FSB dominated, until those merged with FSB being on top.
Ukraine was similar, but oligarchs are on top now.
I wholeheartedly agree that Ukraine is better than Russia. It’s just more similar to Russia in the dimension of evil than most here seem to think.
I love all my fellow Russians and Ukrainians who rise above the brainwashing that this commenter is demonstrating.
Fuck patriotism and slogans, that’s what politicians want you to do to die for them. All wars would be over in a day if people just realized this as politicians can’t fight their wars without people like this commenter.
I live in Russia and I have vps with wireguard vpn in Netherlands. At the current moment it works for me pretty well except the some connection failures two days ago. But they were very short. But I don’t know how long my vps will be accessible with these fucking blocking.
Can you confirm that it is still working fine on normal home internet but not on cellular data? Have been back to Russia multiple times per year (family reasons) and none vpn ever works on cellular network. Some work at home and places.
My own vpn is to my house in different country. Wireguard. That has always been working over home wifi here (not cellular). Even until now.
For now it works both via mobile data and home provider. My mobile operator is Tinkoff. The home Internet provider - City Telekom. But sometimes it losses connection for several minutes. But generally it works well.
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