Internet Censorship Arms Race Gets New Weapon From Georgia Tech

coondoggie writes "Trying to get out in front of what they call a censorship arms race, a team of researchers has come up with technology that lets users exchange messages through heavily censored networks in countries such as China and North Korea in hidden channels via user-generated content sites such as Twitter or Flickr. Researchers with the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science will demo the technology known as Collage for the first time at next month's Usenix security conference and ideally have a working package the public can download by the end of August."

Comments

I don't think this really solves anything.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

China's censor ship is designed to prevent people from openly sharing content that they don't want shared. Communications between two people who have an existing relationship and a desire to exchange information is always going to be possible through a variety of methods. This doesn't change that.

Re:I don't think this really solves anything.

[hackingbear]

In fact, if you can and prefer reading and writing English, then you can access to most information that are otherwise blocked. The Chinese government worries about the poor people. If you can and prefer reading English, you are likely well educated with some financial resources -- you are the successful ones in their society and you are not going to try hard to subvert it. The biggest problem in China is still poverty.

Neither they care any fringe way to bypass their censor, because they worry about mass unrest. For example, while you can't go to YouTube, you can go to other sites for video because not many people even know those small sites. Once the site becomes popular, it will be blocked.

Unless this technology can be shown to have a chance to become very popular and it still can't be blocked when it is very popular, it is not a relevant censor-bypassing technology.

Re:I don't think this really solves anything.

[PopeRatzo]

at least it gets people thinking in the right direction

And that direction is the opposite of anywhere that would seek to limit the free exchange of information, whether by heavy-handed government fiat or by para-legal "intellectual property" laws.

I hope to see a new arms race, between China, who wants to subvert the West's system of intellectual property and the US, that seeks to subvert China's limitation on open communications. It's the only kind of arms race where the rest of us win.

I'm afraid that the opposite is going to happen though: China will become more compliant to the US' corporate information lockdown and the US will become more tolerant of China's heavy hand. Both governments ultimately want the same thing: a weak and malleable work'n'consume force that will keep the corporations rich and the ownership elite richer, while not expecting too much and not threatening the hegemony of the monied. Good shoppers who will calmly strive for a lifestyle that is just out of reach so they can't make any lifestyle choices that would threaten the system.

At least the people in the Matrix had a nice dream. Our future is more along the lines of Metropolis only with large-screen TVs bought on credit.

Ah...

[Andorin]

Collage's success lies on a censor's unwillingness to block large quantities of legitimate content.

As we all know, the definition of "legitimate" varies from totalitarian regime to totalitarian regime, and also depends on what the leaders want the public to see and how badly something like this needs to be blocked.

Darknets are the only way to go.

[elucido]

Darknets are the best way to beat censorship. This does not mean providing tools to hide the data on known sites. That's not going to be good enough. A darknet means having a secret internet within the internet itself accessed by a covert channel. The channel could be hidden by steganography but the channel is just an access point. This could be the seed nodes to freenet. This could be the seednodes to a series of proxies to bounce the information from point A to point B.

Alice and Bob both want to communicate but they don't want to be discovered by Mallory or by Eve. So they both have a shared secret and that secret is the access point to the darknet. As long as this access point remains secret Mallory and Eve do not know it exists. The access point could be contained via steganography within an image. Inside the image would be IP addresses to the secret proxies or connection points to the darknet which could be Freenet. The traffic would look like browing lolcats or 4chan, just looking at pictures but it wouldn't display pictures on Alice or Bob's sites, it would display something else.

Technically it's not all that difficult in theory. In practice is a different story. First of all Alice has to be able to trust Bob enough to give the access point. The access point is the secret and once smoeone enters the darknet they can stay in it via a web of trust. It's not all that different from PGP where Alice vouches for Bob, so Bob is invited into the darknet. Now Bob can see whats going on and if Bob posts then Bob wins the opportunity to invite someone into the darknet. You could have websites like https://www.slashdot.dark/ instead of .com which can ONLY be accessed by individuals who not only have the right seed nodes but authentication from the web of trust.

The friend to friend model is proven to be the most secure way to do it. And really if you are in China going up against the government it's the only way to do it.

Re:Darknets are the only way to go.

[AnonymousClown]

Alice and Bob both want to communicate but they don't want to be discovered by Mallory or by Eve

I don't know about this Bob guy. I'm thinking he doesn't want any of the women to know about the other women's access points. That way he can keep "seeing" all of them and neither will get jealous.

Re:If it involves steganography it's useless now

[bky1701]

"Censorship can only be defeated by technology."

Revolution worked far better before we even had the technology we do. In fact, technology made people lazy and unwilling to fight censorship.

North Korea?

[ShakingSpirit]

...exchange messages through heavily censored networks in countries such as China and North Korea

As far as I'm aware, North Korea's internet is not filtered in any way, shape or form. It's simply that only the high-ranking military elite are allowed to access it...

Re:If it involves steganography it's useless now

[Caerdwyn]

If it involves steganography it's useless now. Because now China, North Korea and Australia know to look for it.

I wonder if the Aussie people and the Aussie government realize just what a condemnation of what they have become this is... to be legitimately and accurately grouped with the likes of China, North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar over a basic human rights and civil liberties issue.

The government for what it does to its citizens.
The people for tolerating it.

Re:If it involves steganography it's useless now

[PopeRatzo]

Revolution worked far better before we even had the technology we do.

You took the words out of my mouth. Censorship can only be defeated by a non-compliant citizenry willing to sacrifice comfort for freedom. Technology is just a tool, like a bomb or a gun, or a printing press, to use against repressive regimes.

And let's not forget the kind of censorship that's employed by corporations that would use patents and copyrights to enforce their power. Like a corporation that would seek to patent, say, the turning of a virtual page. Last week when the direct attacks against Creative Commons and the EFF started, the scales fell from my eyes. I finally realized that they're not just trying to protect their own "intellectual property", they want a monopoly on ALL intellectual property. They want to have a monopoly on all information, on all culture, on every product of human intellect.

That's when I realized the Pirate Party was the only political group I could possibly support going forward.