Tell HN: Russians may soon lose access to the global internet
however, ISPs have begun rolling out white list (essentially an allow list of like a hundred websites) blocks, with mobile internet being essentially completely gone in many places, next step is white list blocks on home broadband ISPs, which has already started happening
these are extremely difficult if not impossible to bypass, with currently working solutions relying on being deployed to domestic cloud providers' whitelisted subnets
however, authorities have already been started cracking down on this, and with KYC requirements for those VPSs, these solutions are likely to soon vanish too (running a VPN service carries jail time with it)
there are some other fringe solutions, like encoding TCP traffic into a video signal, and streaming it over a call via a Russian service like VK video calls, however that relies on those websites being available abroad, and there is no telling how long this will remain a viable solution
i'm not sure what to do to be honest, just thought i'd share, if anyone has any solutions, i'd be very thankful, since i'm out of ideas, outside of going near a border and setting up a point to point wifi signal via a directed antenna (is that even viable anyways?)
thanks
12 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 23.1 ms ] threadIt's not going to work.
The key is to avoid protocols that are too “chatty”. You need simple request/response, with no timeout, where the response could be huge files you have requested. Then you can pass request/response over USB/MicroSD sneakernet or short lived VPN connection (before it can be detected and blocked).
Nostr is useful because identity is a key, so you can publish anonymously but people who like your content can verify that a piece of content comes from you. Also, if data can be brought across the border, it is very easy to republish it. If the situation degrades to where you are relying on sneakernet, bringing a week’s worth of Nostr events across the border and distributing it to others may be effective at keeping a small, slow lifeline open.
I fear we will see the same thing soon in the West especially if this war expands. Good luck and godspeed.
Edit: steganography would also be useful, if any sites that allow UGC are whitelisted.
Which is indeed the motive behind so-called "splinternet" efforts, such as this.
I live in a small town, and so far none of the major blocks people talk about in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and border regions are really felt here. I keep up with the news and it's clear the situation in big cities is noticeably worse.
If you're seriously thinking about this — moving to a small town out in the provinces might actually be a surprisingly workable option, at least as a temporary fix. The infrastructure is different there, and the "targeted" blocks tend to arrive late, if at all. Not a permanent solution obviously, but you do buy yourself real time.
If enough people in dense urban areas ran something like meshtastic or a similar protocol, you could theoretically pass traffic peer to peer without touching ISP infrastructure at all. range is limited but in a city like Moscow where apartments are packed close together it's at least worth thinking about.
I was trying to find a certain github page, it was like a forum entirely within github issues, or something like that, people were posting bypasses--solutions to that problem(for the technically-minded). Now I can't find it.