subliminalpanda

Based on news like this, rightfully so.

Seeing these block pages come up in Australia, a free country, is awfully troubling. I shudder everytime I had to see this: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3G10OAwNPgw/VD-Kzl_coHI/AAAAAAAAA...

Thanks!

easy-rsa 3 has saner defaults, especially how it configures OpenSSL, so if you fork that would be a good place to start.

I misread your question, my apologies. At a quick glance (and a very quick one at that), Streisand's OpenVPN setup is configured to work on both TCP and UDP ports, where as the references project is being templated from [https://github.com/Stouts/Stouts.openvpn/tree/9c83736608e4cc...]. Looking at the linked project's setup, it seems it's using outdated configurations for OpenVPN (BF-CBC instead of AES-CBC, 1024 bit keys instead of 2048) [https://github.com/Stouts/Stouts.openvpn/blob/9c83736608e4cc...]. It's also configured to log info where as Streisand tries its best not to.

They have different objectives. Streisand's goal is to circumvent censorship, so it provisions a set of different VPN protocols (OpenVPN, LT2P/IPSEC, Shadowsocks, etc...) and instructions on how to use them, where as sovereign sets up e-mail, caldav, and other cloud related tools (which Streisand does not do).

PS4 hdd is indeed removable/upgradable. I swapped my 500gb for a 2tb.

Sony even gives out instructions on how to do it: https://support.us.playstation.com/articles/en_US/KC_Article...

I think it's the best messenger I have used all around, in terms of UI.

I particularly like their take on the verification levels using a traffic light metaphor - giving visual feedback on how well trusted a contact is on my list; I wish other clients would adopt it something similar and encourage more people to verify keys out of band.

Not unless you MITM the connection, otherwise it wouldn't be an effective measure.

There's a pretty good write up I found here:

https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/meek

commit for the ios version is here:

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/SignalServiceKit/commit/78...

They're hosting a proxy on appspot.

Looking that the easy-rsa 3 script that now comes bundled with OpenVPN, that value is set to 2048 bits:

set_var EASYRSA_KEY_SIZE 2048

# gen-dh backend: gen_dh() { verify_pki_init

local out_file="$EASYRSA_PKI/dh.pem" "$EASYRSA_OPENSSL" dhparam -out "$out_file" $EASYRSA_KEY_SIZE || \ die "Failed to build DH params" notice "\

https://github.com/OpenVPN/easy-rsa/blob/master/easyrsa3/eas...

It does, however you have the option of compiling it with PolarSSL (now mbedTLS).

OpenVPN can be configured to go over TCP port 443, but it can run on any port number, TCP or UDP.

I used to pay about $90USD for 12-15mbps in Oman, horrible ping (300ms) and censored (voip blocking, 'hacking sites', pornography, political content)

Try Streisand: https://github.com/jlund/streisand

To put it into perspective, audio call quality is much better on WhatsApp by comparison. However due to my family member connecting to a VPN the additional latency would cause audio jitters. Calls would also drop after 10-15 minutes.

With this technique the jitters have all but gone, and no disconnections.

I asked my aunt in Dubai to update Signal on her iPhone and managed to place a call sans VPN.

Completely stable, clear audio.

Thanks for that! I will.

There are other countries in the MENA region that block signal as well due to te VoIP functionality; My native country of Oman comes to mind. Will the anti-censorship tech also work for users in this country? Country code is +968

It should be enabled for everybody regardless of country.

I'm curious as to how they intend to circumvent the censorship from their end.

Always got a chuckle when Canadian tourists would take pictures of Tim Hortons written in Arabic: http://cdn.torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/tim-ho...

They don't need WhatsApp's help to do it. WhatsApp voice calls are done over different ports, so only these need to be blocked.

The UAE (and Saudi Arabia) went through the extra step of asking WhatsApp to perform a block server side because of legal regulatory issues. Oman has made no such demand.

My family regularly makes WhatsApp calls to me from Oman; they just have to switch on a VPN to tunnel out of Oman's censorware.

>In the UAE, where VoIP is illegal, the government was not able to selectively block voice traffic since it is indistinguishable from text traffic. So they had to ask WhatsApp to block voice functionality whenever a user is in the UAE.

Authorities can selectively block WhatsApp voice calls, it's been done in Oman where I used to live. If I leave Oman and use WhatsApp in an uncensored country, voice calls work just fine.

This is not the case where WhatsApp is registered via a UAE number; the blocks persist no matter where you connect from.

Personally speaking I would have much rather have a feature in Signal that allows me to send documents or attachments from my various cloud providers rather than a gif search.

It's surprising how many websites (mis)handle internationalized phone numbers, or insist on an area code when there is none.

Seconded for Adguard. I've tried several others blockers, such as Blockr (which don't update their filters often enough), to something more all encompassing like Weblock (which creates a proxy link and filters at the system level); ended up breaking a lot of things like App store downloads and updates.

Perhaps even looking at credit card billing addresses or issuing banks maybe, if they're non US based and service is being accessed by a US IP address could raise a flag?

Just my speculation.

I've had to re-install WhatsApp because of a botched updated. I do not get an option now to opt-out of Faecebook data sharing now. I wonder if my decision prior to the update to opt-out persists with them.

It has several you can choose from in fact, can be enabled in the options pane.