lix blog

There are multiple ways to bypass the Chinese Firewall, using VPN, anonymous browsers or Tor. But I prefer to use the most simple way, which for me is using an ssh tunnel.

host:~user$ ssh -D 8888 login@myserver.org

(There is also a nice GUI for those who are not familiar with the command line.)

Then I configure my system preferences to use the socks proxy on 127.0.0.1:8888, which can also be done in Firefox Network settings. (see screenshots)

As the Chinese Government also tries to block external sites, such as Youtube and Openleaks, by filtering DNS requests, it’s necessary to filter this too. One could e.g. point them to 127.0.0.1 (in system preferences) and then send through another ssh tunnel:

host:~user$ sudo ssh login@myserver.org -L 53:127.0.0.1:53

(sudo because 53 is a privileged port.)

But actually it’s easier by just hacking the firefox configuration:

Luckily, with SOCKS5 Firefox can control which side of the proxy handles DNS lookups. By default, it does the lookups locally resulting in the scenario above. To change this, set network.proxy.socks_remote_dns = true in about:config. This makes the SOCKS proxy more like a regular proxy, where DNS is handled by the remote end of the tunnel.

… or one can install iodine and tunnel all DNS requests accordingly.

Have phun!

“The Washington Post” and “der Standard” have reported today, that chinese hackers have tried to break into tibetan activist organisations networks and computers to steal encryption keys. Encryption keys are used to sign and encrypt electronic messages like E-Mails. China operates the world’s largest and most restrictive “Firewall” to censor internet communication and obscure information. Further it is known that in China a certain hacker group called “Titan Rain”, that is most probably financed and supported by the chinese government has been attacking the Pentagon and the german “chancelor house. Many tibetan organisations and activists notice a higher amount on suspect trojans and viruses. But thanks to the operation of Free Software such as the GNU/Linux operation system and Free Sowftware applications, such as GnuPG for encryption and the Tor Project for anonymous internet, the damage has been kept low.

I urge tibetan activists, journalists and news reporters to use encryption technology to secure and assure internet communication. To bypass the chinese firewall (e.g. to access the internet from Lhasa) it is most advisable to use Tor or similar anonymiser software. (see my blog post from the 18th of march 2008).