Hey all, With the SOPA vote on the horizon, now seems to be a good time to talk about censorship at the DNS level. Computers use Domain Name Servers to make the connection to websites. These large servers act as online address books for websites, telling computers where the site they want to visit is located. So the flow is typically *Website Address -> DNS Server -> Website's Host*. If SOPA passes, sites alleged to be infringing copyright will be blocked from visitors in the US: *Website Address -> US DNS Server -> Block Page*. You can customize which servers your computer uses to fetch addresses, and bypass these types of blocks entirely. A good tutorial on how to do that is here: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html Though keep in mind that the server addresses mentioned on that tutorial are located in the United States. So anyone looking to bypass *American*censorship will need to use servers in an uncensored country like Iceland or Belgium. Another good option is using a browser plugin. For FireFox, there are two currently: Soapy and DeSopa. DeSopa automatically fetches server details for websites, but relies on a website that is likely to be blocked once SOPA goes into effect. However, it does work until blocked. I made Soapy with all of the rules it needs to function built into it. With Soapy, every site that is enabled must have redirection rules created for it, but it's also quite light (<50kb, each site is ~200bytes) and easily updated with new sites. DeSopa: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/ Soapy: http://griftastic.com/soapy.html These browser plugins are really quick hacks designed to get into people's hands quickly. (And there aren't any for Chrome, Opera, Safari, or IE yet). There has to be a more elegant and robust solution that we can create for people affected by this type of censorship -- not just in the US, but around the world. It's completely possible to run censorship-resistant DNS servers in uncensored countries, but the critical missing element is a highly usable piece of software that will adjust the user's network settings without a major hassle. DnsJumper might work, but isn't open-source and users have to find unblocked servers to use. What do you all think about this? All the best, Griffin Boyce -- "I believe that usability is a security concern; systems that do not pay close attention to the human interaction factors involved risk failing to provide security by failing to attract users." ~Len Sassaman _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech@lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE