[tor-dev] Building better pluggable transports (Google Summer of Code)

[Philipp Winter]

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 07:55:45PM -0400, Tariq Elahi wrote:
> 2. Can manipulate (add, delete, change) said traffic in time and data
> dimensions.

The challenge is to predict what can actually be done with these three simple
atoms.  Be it terminating non-whitelisted TCP connections after 60 seconds,
hijacking TCP connections after authentication or actively probing suspicious
traffic.

> Motivations:
> 3. Block *all* information leakage events. This means if even one ILE occurs
> the circumventor wins.

I suppose, in practice it's absolutely sufficient to block most of it.  Plenty
of deployed censorship systems are trivial to circumvent by exploiting specific
DPI shortcomings (should we call it "spear circumvention"?).  But only if you
have the knowledge to do that.  If only the very small technical elite is able
to bypass the filters, you effectively win.

There's also a social component.  If you, as a censor, can spread enough FUD
about the national filter, people might not even try to circumvent it.

Cheers,
Philipp