Re: [OT] another proxy, but not open source :-(

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Tue, 25 May 2010 03:30:34 -0400 Justin Aplin <jmaplin@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
>On May 25, 2010, at 2:45 AM, Scott Bennett wrote:
>
>>     I don't know who "Censorship Research Center" might be, but they  
>> claim
>> to have a development project going for another encrypted proxy  
>> service.
>> However, they say it will be free software, but *not* be open  
>> source, so no
>> one can examine what they have done in order to look for bugs,  
>> design flaws,
>> etc. :-(  There isn't much real information at the web site,
>
>Without the community support, I wonder how quickly it could be  
>adopted. I'm assuming it's going to rely on user-run exits like Tor,  

     You may well be assuming too much.  It's not easy to know at this
point because it's still undocumented vaporware.  I still think the
whole thing smacks of being a honeypot for gullible humans.

>and I wonder how many large contributors would be willing to install  
>closed-source software that they're not involved in developing on  
>their servers.

     Well, that, at least, happens all the time.  How many installations
of Windows Server 200[38] would you guess there are, for example?
>
>> but what little there is looks very much like an attempt to sucker  
>> people
>> who don't understand much about security.
>>     Oh.  I almost forgot.  Their FAQ page mentions tor, complaining  
>> about
>> tor's publicly available directory and arguing that their method is  
>> better,
>> while not mentioning bridges.
>
>Haters' gonn' hate. I'll admit, though, that using bridges might be a  
>bit above the "average" user, especially when it comes to finding  
>them. Not exactly plug-n-play. I also don't see why it would be  
>terribly difficult for a sufficiently determined government to amass a  
>large list of bridges and make that option essentially (if not  
>completely) inviable.

     China has done that at least once already.  They apparently managed
to get ~80% of what the bridge authorities had at the time, IIRC.  Yet
the remainder continued to operate and serve many people in China during
that time.  And bridges come and go, just like ordinary relays.  Many
are on dynamically assigned IP addresses, so their addresses change,
thereby invalidating those data in the Chinese government's list.
>
>I am a tad unnerved at the number of links to the donation page,  
>though I appreciate the costs associated with such an endeavor.
>
     Indeed.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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