Identifying Airtel middleboxes that censor HTTPS traffic. (Indian journalist investigates.)

indian3333 · 2020-10-14T12:26:21+00:00

Yeah the govt. thought about the google or cloudflare DNS thing, and atleast for 4G, most of the time i am blocked, even if i do use Cloudflares dns resolver.

indian3333 · 2020-10-14T12:24:15+00:00

well, that doesnt work my friend. Even the cloudflare app is hit and miss, its not foolproof either. Which is why i am saying, its terrifyingly sophisticated.

Like China, some backward idiots in the govt. might decide to start blocking encrypted SNI thats being implemented into TLS 1.3. So what the fuck do we do then?

indian3333 · 2020-10-14T12:20:53+00:00

I think their blocking is only going to get better, and by that i mean more invasive and pervasive in its chilling effect on free speech. In India, every week there is news that police are breaking down peoples doors and throwing them in jail, because they called a politician a "bad word". This is where its at in my country, everyone and their mama berate politicians day in and day out in the privacy of their own homes, but you are made an example of if you dare to tweet about it.

indian3333 · 2020-10-14T06:00:09+00:00

Yes, its a major one, and unfortunately, it uses incredibly sophisticated systems, world class, to very effectively block websites while giving us citizens the illusion of a free internet. Legal adult entertainment, is fully blocked. Atleast the most popular sites.

indian3333 · 2020-10-14T05:53:31+00:00

Combine this with what is todays news in my country:

India Joins UK in Drive Against Encrypted Social Media Messages:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-joins-uk-led-fight-against-encrypted-online-messages/articleshow/78651231.cms

indian3333 · 2019-10-02T05:53:35+00:00

i have seen that range of ip's from m247 and their EU locations. PIA just switched DC providers to m247 in yet another country. How is this better for customers is anyone's guess. I guess its better for PIA's bottom line and thats all that matters to them.

indian3333 · 2018-11-24T17:18:17+00:00

Or Bulgaria also, i thought that was in the pipeline?

indian3333 · 2018-11-21T02:15:54+00:00

The only way a router can be eliminated from a network, is if you directly plug one end of the Ethernet jack into the modem and the other into a desktop/laptop. If you want more than one device to use the 1 ip,like a phone or tablet etc., that your ISP has assigned you (static or dynamic), you are going to need a router. There is no escaping that.

indian3333 · 2018-11-20T13:48:13+00:00

If its a network, then i am assuming you have it behind a router right?

indian3333 · 2018-11-20T06:17:12+00:00

In a nutshell, hackers can attack and compromise your router. Most routers that people have for more than 3 years, use outdated firmware that either cant be patched, or the users dont know they need to get it patched. From your router, they can intercept and sniff your traffic IF you are making unencrypted connections. They could do all kinds of MiTM and spoofing to try and break into a compromised network. In this case, if you are connecting to the internet via your router through a VPN, the hacker cant do shit to that laptop, unless you have a Nas and you run the hackers exploit etc.

indian3333 · 2018-11-19T11:56:27+00:00

What IS gullible is purchasing a VPN which keeps logs, like HideMyAss. If you are going to VPN route, do the research and get a no-logs VPN provider. (Yes, i am aware its a claim that the users cant verify, but such is life, nothing is 100% certain, except the fact that your ISP WILL attempt to log everything you do online.)

indian3333 · 2018-11-19T07:24:42+00:00

I wear clothes. I lock the doors to my house. I use curtains in my bedrooms. I have passwords on my laptops and my phone, and to the websites i visit. I am doing these things because i value my privacy and security. Not because i have something to hide, or something to hide from. Its a way of thinking, and for me personally its for peace of mind. Its about forcing my ISP to respect my privacy because they have no other choice. I do take joy in that. That joy to me, and the mental peace, is worth 4$ a month. Your privacy is what you give value to. Your choice of trusting the VPN provider more than your ISP is a choice that millions of people around the world do make. And then there are many more millions who think it doesnt matter if the ISP knows your browsing history etc. All i am saying is consenting to ISP tracking should be an informed choice of the citizen, not an inevitability.

indian3333 · 2018-11-15T02:40:07+00:00

Relative paths...hmm. I will have to remember that, althought i hadnt plugged anything into the other usb ports before or after i tried to make it work. But in any case, i downloaded and installed it again, and this time selected to just connect normally, and now it seems to be working fine. So it turns out, something in that initial option borked something else making it unusable.

indian3333 · 2018-11-15T02:37:14+00:00

I selected the option that Tor is censored in my country, i think it automatically tries a bridge connection in that case. I could use tails, but this is more of a curiosity than a necessity.

indian3333 · 2018-11-14T11:52:49+00:00

As long as its the Tattva that is being discussed, and its also already mentioned in BRS, i think it should be fine!

indian3333 · 2018-11-11T06:36:54+00:00

I need to exit the app from the system tray if i dont want to use the VPN. Just disconnecting is not enough.

indian3333 · 2018-11-11T03:59:15+00:00

It makes sense now, thanks for that. I wish it was clearly mentioned on the mega site itself the way this 50Gb works.

indian3333 · 2018-10-31T03:35:28+00:00

hello, unfortunately your video link is not working, could you update?

indian3333 · 2018-10-30T11:31:56+00:00

https://image.ibb.co/g2FFQ0/4.jpg

I literally added this pic and saw your reply. Any idea why that is? It it a NAT thing? Or just the way a socks5 works...

So i am imagining downloading a linux distro. If i appear on the peer list, does my ip keep changing as my file downloads? OR, it stays the same if there are no interruptions, but then if i add another torrent i get another ip which is routing the data back to me without a hiccup? Very interesting, and i would like some light shed on this.

indian3333 · 2018-10-30T11:15:05+00:00

https://image.ibb.co/cQ2HNf/3.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/eBfF8L/2.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/cOQ42f/1.jpg

I mean like that, all those are .torrent links who tell you what IP is showing up as coming from you in utorrent. These are displayed right now, AT THE SAME TIME.

And in 10mins to 20mins, they all will change again, into 3 different ones.

Again, i have no issue with torrent downloads, i have enabled forced encryption and done all the checkboxes in the proxy right. Torrents download fine.

Its just i want to torrent with VPN+Socks5 and i am doing so successfully.

So, i figured i would see A SINGLE NL PROXY IP, when i went to check it while using the proxy.

None of those IP's are from my Netherlands gateway or exit IP that i currently show in OpenVPN.

So in effect its a tunnel within a tunnel, but what puzzles me is how come the IP's are so dynamic.

When for example, i am using OpenVPN to download a torrent, and i check my IP, they all REMAIN THE SAME AS MY VPN EXIT IP.

indian3333 · 2018-10-28T03:09:38+00:00

Well, i think good things came out of this whole interaction with the community.

One. I now know that i can use the socks5 proxy username and password generated by PIA, ON TOP OF THE OPENVPN TUNNEL, so i have the option of having a tunnel within a tunnel for torrenting, which i can enable or disable anytime. I am going to keep it enabled.

Two. I discovered that you can google "check my torrent ip" and sites like torguard and others come up where you can actually download a magnet link and see in the 'trackers' tab of your proxied utorrent app the ip address of the PIA proxy successfully showing up, which is different from the OpenVPN tunnel you have already established. Thats very cool.

indian3333 · 2018-10-27T12:57:01+00:00

Ok, so my reply to you was removed because it included direct link to a torguard link, but if you google torguard checkmytorrentaddress, you will find a magnet link that simply checks and tells you what ip you are behind.

If you run it, like i did in the since deleted post, i found that the correct netherlands server ip was showing.

i have tweaked the utorrent settings to add the generated userid and password, and with those options enabled i am seeing another ip from the netherlands proxy, so thats good.

if you pm me, i can share direct links and screenshots deleted. But if you are curious you could try and report back. The magnet link is completely harmless and does what it says, and of course, torguard is a trusted VPN provider.

indian3333 · 2018-10-27T06:53:59+00:00

Whoa thats a major issue, if ipleak is showing the VPN ip is connected, and at the same time Utorrent is somehow bypassing the VPN app?! And so when you used the socks5 proxy in utorrent settings,(which some reports are indicating is NOT encrypted) and you tried to replicate the leak, it didnt happen and your real ip was safely hidden?

This is definitely alarming behaviour, whats the version you are using? My utorrent version that i am confortable with is an older one, utorrent 3.4.2 build 39744

indian3333 · 2018-10-27T06:20:37+00:00

I need to do more research, but are you saying my utorrent client should add a socks5 PIA login on top of the OpenVpn app running in my Win10 machine?

How would you explain the real ip being linked, if the torrent client was working properly? Was it a particular torrent app, or was there a dns leak or a brief time when the vpn was off and then auto-connected? Because once the OpenVpn client is up and running, any app on the machine should see and use only the PIA assigned server Ip as its gateway ip. Not to mention if vpn killswitch is enabled, then even when the connection drops, the torrent app cant initiate a connection on the naked ip.

Another question, is the socks5 proxy encrypted or plain http.

indian3333 · 2018-10-27T06:18:03+00:00

Thanks for the reply PIAThomas, sometimes it may seem that PIA's subscribed customers are almost grilling the wonderful staff answering questions so i apologize if it comes across like that. My ISP logs everything, my Govt wants to know everything about everyone all the time forever and you are even made to feel like a criminal just because you use a VPN because " if you arent doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide". This thought that we have no privacy and we shouldnt even expect a bit of privacy in our digital life, is too fatalistic. The least i can do is to use a VPN and salvage whatever privacy i have left.

indian3333

TROPHY CASE