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Australian Censorship Bypassed Before Live Trials

Posted by timothy on from the you-expect-free-choice-from-the-government? dept.

newt writes "The Australian Government is planning to conduct live trials of as-yet-unspecified censorship technology. But as every geek already knows, these systems can't possibly work in the presence of VPNs and proxy servers. PC Authority clues the punters in." Maybe the ISPs secretly like encouraging SSH tunneling — and making everyone pay for the extra bandwidth used. Not really; Australia's major ISPs, as mentioned a few days ago, think it's a bad idea.

21 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. The old saying still holds by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

    (And if you don't know who, turn in your Slashdot account by tomorrow morning.)
    =Smidge=

    1. Re:The old saying still holds by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A wise man once said: "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

      In fact, the original quote was that "Usenet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," although the saying is widely misquoted.

      (Note how incredibly useful the uncensored usenet has become.)

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    2. Re:The old saying still holds by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be fair, the Usenet was killed by the old truth that if you give the people a cheap broadcast mechanism, the first thing they'll do is try to put advertisements on it.

      It has been said that prostitution is the oldest profession, but before they could be prostitutes they had to advertise their services.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:The old saying still holds by Speare · · Score: 4, Funny

      (And if you don't know who, turn in your Slashdot account by tomorrow morning.)

      Translation:

      (And if you don't know who, I'm too lazy to google it for you as it has slipped my mind also.)

      --
      [ .sig file not found ]
  2. Positive aspect by khellendros1984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can see a positive possibility here. Find a work-around, and when you're caught visiting "illegal sites", claim that you thought your actions were legal since there's a "foolproof" filtering system that should've properly protected you.

    --
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  3. China! by vik · · Score: 4, Funny

    Won't it be embarrassing when people start routing their traffic through China to get around American and Australian internet legislation?

    Vik :v)

  4. Advantages to Censorship by Sasayaki · · Score: 4, Funny

    As an Australian who fervently opposes Chairman Rudd's censorship bill...

    There is one advantage I can see to all of this. Big Brother will block anything illegal and offensive to me, right? So I can download absolutely anything I DO find since it MUST be legal. After all, the censorship is perfect!

    Pirate bay here I come!

    --
    Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
  5. Not very good blocking software by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any decent blocking software also blocks all the popular proxy lists and proxies too (and it constantly updated). Software that does this (like Websense) may not be impossible to get around, but it makes it damn hard (and I know, this is what my school uses and even with my knowledge it's still hard to find a proxy).

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Not very good blocking software by compro01 · · Score: 3, Informative

      My college uses websense, but Tor goes right through it, and with ready-packaged stuff like xB Browser and OperaTor, it's readily available for practically anyone as long as you can grab the program once (long live the sneakernet).

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:Not very good blocking software by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Informative

      Any decent blocking software also blocks all the popular proxy lists and proxies too (and it constantly updated). Software that does this (like Websense [wikipedia.org]) may not be impossible to get around, but it makes it damn hard (and I know, this is what my school uses and even with my knowledge it's still hard to find a proxy).

      Bypassing Websense:

      1. Have a PC running on a high-speed Internet connection on the other side of the Websense proxy.
      2. On that PC, you need to run OpenSSH and an HTTP proxy server, say at mypc.example.com. In this example, I my proxy server will be using port 8080. Run SSH on Port 443 (works every time) on this box.
      3. Using PuTTY or Plink or one of the front-ends for plink, forward 8080 through an SSH connection to this PC from the inside of the Websense firewall. Putty and Plink can tunnel right through the proxy connecting to port 443 just like an HTTPS connection would do.
      4. Set your browser to use the proxy on localhost at port 8080
      5. Done. All Web accesses will go through the SSH proxy and all of this data will be encrypted as a result.

      I will leave the details as an exercise to the reader.

      Doesn't seem 'damn hard' to me at all.

      --
      My blog
    3. Re:Not very good blocking software by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's becoming painfully obvious you're a highschooler trying to get around some stupid proxy. You don't "go find" hosts outside the firewall. You know what they are. They're your home computer, your home router (if you run ddwrt/tomato), your shell account provider (dreamhost for me). This isn't a proxy list, this isn't a list of proxies. It's a computer with OpenSSH running on it.

      Everyone HAS told you how to do it, you're just so anxious about showing your l33t skills of haxoring to the Homecoming queen you aren't listening.

  6. Follow up by Sasayaki · · Score: 3, Funny

    So far it's working out great! Haven't had my net cut off y

    --
    Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
  7. Re:Uh. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Until the Aussie government considers SSH, VPN's, and anonymizing proxies to be "hacking"(illegally circumventing a la DMCA) and takes steps to outlaw them.

  8. Google 'Nolan Chart' by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The US voted out the religious right yesterday. Pitty our religious right goverment isn't due for re-election for another couple of years...

    It has little to do with being religious or right. The problem is statists, no matter their views on God, Gods, no Gods, or economics.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  9. Re:Uh. by heretic108 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm an Australian myself, and it saddens me to say that you might have a point there. Australia's legendary convict streak has always been counterbalanced by a lurking streak of repressive authoritarianism of a kind which, if permitted to fully express itself, would make the UK's big brother state look tame.

    --
    -- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
  10. Misunderstanding by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The filter is there for people who don't want to bypass it.

    The only reason there is no opt out planned for the "illegal material" filter is because a "reasonable person" should not want to opt out of it.

    In other words: it's not malice, it's stupidity.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  11. Re:Uh. by drsparkly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many businesses rely on VPNs to connect their remote offices? How many sysadmins use SSH to remotely connect to their unix systems? If the government moved to outlaw VPNs and SSH, there is no point having an internet any more. If the government did this there would be a major backlash from the business community. It would be political suicide, if the current plan isn't already.

    My internet connection is paid for by my current employer so I can (a) telecommute (VPN) (b) remote administer systems in case of problems (VPN, SSH). Its a home internet plan, so they could not simply limit this block to home internet users.

    I repeat my point... if the Aussie government starts blocking every protocol that can be used to bypass their stupid filter, there is no point having an internet. Australia will be back to the stone age.

  12. Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The US voted out the religious right yesterday.

    Really? You might want to read up on California's newest constitutional amendment.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  13. Re:Even though geeks and tech savy people can bypa by maglor_83 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not if they block google.

  14. Or use OpenVPN! by toby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's LZO compressed by default - not to mention encrypted and X509 authenticated - which probably means a net reduction in bandwidth. Go visit their site. It's truly excellent open source software.

    But seriously. As a practical matter, anyone stuck behind state censorship can use a friend's OpenVPN and proxy in another country.

    --
    you had me at #!
  15. Re:Uh. by tabrisnet · · Score: 3, Informative

    On any kind of WAN link, it's a savings. It only costs you something on a 100mbit LAN link. The basic problem is that if you hit the CPU limit before you hit the bandwidth limit, compression (or encryption) will suck. But if you can hit the bandwidth limit first, then you will get a reasonable savings.

    I've so far found that on a reasonably modern CPU, you need to be pushing in excess of a 10mbit ethernet, but less than a 100mbit ethernet, for it to hit the CPU limit first.

    Reasonably modern CPU being defined as, approximately, a 1GHz Athlon or higher. My Thinkpad R51 (1.6GHz Pentium-M) caps out at ~2Mbyte/sec if compression or aes128-cbc is used (arcfour & no compression lets it hit 4-6Mbyte/sec [very very slow hard-drive]).

    On a much more modern system, with compression disabled and arcfour encryption (and the MAC cranked down to the hmac-md5), I cap at approximately 40Mbyte/sec.