Using Amazon EC2 as a web proxy | Hacker News Reader

Using Amazon EC2 as a web proxy

blog.thestateofme.com

33 pointscpswan16 comments

This tutorial is missing a crucial piece of information.

Firefox: Go to about:config, set network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to true.

Otherwise you'll be leaking out information on which domains you are visiting.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that the purpose of using a proxy in the way I illustrated was to access geographically restricted sites (such as the Amazon.com Kindle store) rather than for security/anonymity (which as you point out needs further consideration around side channel leakage etc.)

I believe that reverse DNS still leaks even if this is set in Firefox.

As long as DNS isn't blocked on the network you're on, you could change to a more neutral DNS provider (4.2.2.1 or Google)

I don't believe so. I checked with wireshark.

And there's no point in using another DNS provider if your network is compromised since they can see your requests in plaintext.

Even better (for me anyways), is to use my Linksys router at home, flashed with a linux firmware with SSH enabled. I'm already paying for my connection at home, so why not use it?

If you can then place the router in the country you need the proxy to be, and access it, then yes, your option is probably better.

I believe non-jailbroken iPhones don't support SSH. So, one way to get around this is to turn on PPTP VPN on a DD-WRT'd router and connect to it while you're away from home.

I've been doing this for years to prevent various network providers (from employers to coffee shops) from inspecting my traffic, although I typically use OpenSSH, and AutoSSH for restarting in the event that I change networks throughout the course of a day on my laptop:

http://www.harding.motd.ca/autossh/

On Linux, they're both obviously available without any drama. On Windows, I use both from Cygwin.

I used to use a home-based system, but I've been slowly trying to simplify my "home computing experience", and moving anything "hosted" to external providers. They can offer much better uptime than I can these days, and with much less personal frustration, especially if you consider the cost of a low-end VPS.

This coupled with the free micro instance Amazon is offering right now makes for a handy/free proxy.

so at 25c per GB transfered (10c in + 15c out), this would be a couple bucks a month for all of my mobile traffic. Route SMS through google voice...

wow, I sure wouldn't mind my carrier being out of the loop with respect to SMS privacy.

Don't you also need an EC2 instance?

I tried this quite a few years ago to watch geographically restricted video content - e.g. at Hulu - but gave up on it because the IP-ranges got blocked quite quickly. Is that not the case anymore?

If so, somebody should automate this RIGHT NOW. $0.02/hour to watch British/American TV! (Depending which side of the pond you're on)

Why would it be any good?

Obviously, the local VPN avoiders who would implement this would get blacklisted, so its a no-go.

And there is the basic fact that Pirate Bay has shows, with no IP screwery.

I highly recommend FoxyProxy for managing proxies in Firefox. http://getfoxyproxy.org/

You can easily enable/disable multiple proxy configurations and there is a rule-based mode where you define which traffic should go out on which proxy.

It is great for working remotely when your company doesn't have VPN access or you don't want to set the VPN up.

The annoying thing is that e.g. flash will ignore that and try to open a socket. This means that it will use the regular connection and not the tunnel.

This also means that hulu decides not to work because flash doesn't respect proxy settings... :(

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