[HN Gopher] Doxx/Darkflare: DarkFlare TCPoCDN (TCP over CDN)
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       Doxx/Darkflare: DarkFlare TCPoCDN (TCP over CDN)
        
       Author : josephscott
       Score  : 146 points
       Date   : 2024-11-20 22:49 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | tomsonj wrote:
       | chisel is a similar tool in this space
       | https://github.com/jpillora/chisel
       | 
       | I don't get why headers and requests need to be spoofed if all
       | traffic is over https?
        
         | Titan2189 wrote:
         | > I don't get why headers and requests need to be spoofed if
         | all traffic is over https?
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection
        
           | fragmede wrote:
           | how are they looking inside the packet if it's encrypted?
        
             | sodality2 wrote:
             | DPI doesn't have to decrypt it to make certain guesses
             | about its content. For example, timing information, packet
             | sizes, routing info, etc could lead you to believe it's
             | certain kinds of things (SSH, VPN, etc).
        
         | mhio wrote:
         | The headers are seen by the monster-in-the-middle CDN.
         | 
         | It's obfuscation at best. I'm not sure the encrypted traffic
         | will look particularly php-ish for example. Compressed formats
         | might look vaguely passable.
         | 
         | I can't see any stenography code or libraries in the repo.
        
           | tomsonj wrote:
           | yeah if the CDN is not trusted this tool won't help but then
           | little would
        
         | coretx wrote:
         | Because SNI. Also, State (sponsored) Actors are certificate
         | authorities. HTTPS is the biggest scam in internet history.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
        
           | astrange wrote:
           | This certainly was an issue but it's solved by ECH/DoH. As
           | long as they aren't blocked on your network anyway.
           | 
           | > Also, State (sponsored) Actors are certificate authorities.
           | 
           | To generate a fake certificate as a CA you have to either put
           | it in the Certificate Transparency log, in which case
           | everyone will notice, or don't, in which case browsers will
           | notice (they know what top sites' certificates are supposed
           | to look like) and your CA will get shut down.
        
             | hamilyon2 wrote:
             | Someone should really test it, real red team black hat
             | style and then fully publish the results. Try to mitm https
             | with real unlogged certs and see what happens. Preregister
             | the whole fully detailed procedure on blockchain. And
             | report to public results fully, with proofs of being
             | caught.
        
           | account42 wrote:
           | SNI doesn't expose headers and request paths.
        
         | duskwuff wrote:
         | > I don't get why headers and requests need to be spoofed if
         | all traffic is over https?
         | 
         | Because the traffic is to a CDN endpoint (like Cloudflare)
         | which expects it to be a HTTP message.
        
           | tomsonj wrote:
           | it can still be an https message, who cares what the path,
           | query string, or headers look like? that is all encrypted
        
       | ignoramous wrote:
       | You could straight up connect to the destination (over TCP) from
       | Cloudflare without needing relays; a project I wrote demonstrates
       | TCP over HTTP (for Deno Deploy) and TCP over WebSockets (for
       | Workers): https://github.com/serverless-proxy/serverless-proxy
       | 
       | Proxying projects utilising HTTP/TLS are popular in the anti-
       | censorship community (discussion board:
       | https://github.com/net4people/bbs) and there are many variants of
       | it; ex:
       | 
       | - KCP (over UDP): https://github.com/xtaci/kcp-go
       | 
       | - Bepass: https://github.com/bepass-org/bepass-worker
        
       | a-ve wrote:
       | Is this something like WebTunnel from the Tor Project?
       | 
       | https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/pluggable-...
        
       | est wrote:
       | > Services like Cloudflare, Akamai Technologies, Fastly, and
       | Amazon CloudFront ... support millions of websites across
       | critical sectors, including government and healthcare, making
       | them indispensable
       | 
       | The author is pretty naive. There is a reason why Google was left
       | out of the list, in the 2010s people argue "Google is too
       | important and China never dare to block it" then google's whole
       | IP range is blocked.
       | 
       | Amazon Cloudfront, Akmai, Fastly are also (partially) blocked and
       | barely working.
       | 
       | IMHO cleve tricks like "domain fronting" is just freebooting
        
         | dlenski wrote:
         | > IMHO cleve tricks like "domain fronting" is just freebooting
         | 
         | What do you mean by "freebooting"?
         | 
         | We added domain fronting support to the OpenConnect TLS-VPN
         | client _in 2022_ because it is still working and useful for
         | many people working in censored countries and environments.
         | https://gitlab.com/openconnect/openconnect/-/merge_requests/...
        
           | est wrote:
           | > because it is still working
           | 
           | That's a big "still" and you don't loose anything in case the
           | real owner of the "fronted" domain suffers loss.
        
             | notpushkin wrote:
             | I don't think it's right to assign blame here to any party
             | other than the authoritarian regime that decides to block
             | the whole CDN.
        
           | vundercind wrote:
           | > What do you mean by "freebooting"?
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(military)
           | 
           | Private attempts to meddle in the security and interests of
           | states.
        
       | novakwok wrote:
       | There seems another way to achieve this, using Cloudflare's own
       | cloudflared tunnel.
       | 
       | Install a cloudflared tunnel on your remote server, configure it
       | to forward traffic to that server's hosts proxy server(maybe
       | Shadowsocks) using Zero Trust dashboard, and run the following
       | command on your local computer:
       | 
       | cloudflared access tcp --hostname some.your-domain.tld --url
       | localhost:8080
       | 
       | Then localhost:8080's traffic will be forwarded to cloudflareds'
       | host, the whole traffic is using HTTP2 so might look legitimate
       | to Firewall.
       | 
       | For example if using Shadowsocks on server, your Shadowsocks's
       | local client can connect to localhost:8080 as server to forward
       | traffic.
        
       | theblazehen wrote:
       | How does this differ from tunneling a VPN over something like
       | wstunnel?
       | 
       | We've been running that in prod for several years without any
       | issues, also going through cloudflare
        
       | ameshkov wrote:
       | I made a similar thing once to relay UDP traffic over WebSocket
       | and it supports Cloudflare if needed:
       | https://github.com/ameshkov/udptlspipe
       | 
       | The use case is to relay WireGuard over TCP/CF in a restrictive
       | network, confirmed to work in China, obviously not too fast.
        
       | peter_d_sherman wrote:
       | >"Why CDNs?
       | 
       | Services like Cloudflare, Akamai Technologies, Fastly, and Amazon
       | CloudFront are not only widely accessible but also integral to
       | the global internet infrastructure. In regions with restrictive
       | networks, alternatives such as CDNetworks in Russia, ArvanCloud
       | in Iran, or ChinaCache in China may serve as viable proxies.
       | These CDNs support millions of websites across critical sectors,
       | including government and healthcare, making them indispensable.
       | 
       |  _Blocking them risks significant collateral [commercial,
       | commerce] damage, which inadvertently makes them reliable
       | pathways for bypassing restrictions._ "
       | 
       | (There's also TCP/IP (Internet) via HAM radio (packet radio)
       | and/or StarLink (or more broadly, satellite Internet)...)
       | 
       | Observation: If a large enough commercial corporation has an
       | interest relating to commerce (in whatever area), then if that
       | commerce conflicts with a government block (foreign or domestic)
       | of whatever sort, then the large commercial interest, given
       | enought time, will usually (*) win (they can usually hire better
       | Lawyers, foreign or domestic...)
       | 
       | (*) But not always...
        
         | mschuster91 wrote:
         | > There's also TCP/IP (Internet) via HAM radio (packet radio)
         | 
         | I get the idea and the spirit behind using ham radio to evade
         | censorship, but...
         | 
         | - you're not allowed to run encrypted content over ham packet
         | radio, at least by regulations, plain HTTP is fine but anything
         | SSL is not... don't be a dick and ruin the fun for everyone
         | else.
         | 
         | - ham radio comms is, outside of emergencies such as widespread
         | blackouts or natural disasters, supposed to only be between ham
         | radio operators themselves - no message-passing for others.
         | 
         | - at least in the long-range bands that you'd actually use for
         | cross-country communications, bandwidth is scarce - and you may
         | disturb a lot of people by doing that, or by just blasting
         | around with huge transmitters... Monday late evening in
         | Germany, try to listen in on 80m, there's so damn many Russians
         | on there with extremely powerful transmitters.
         | 
         | Ham radio frequencies are scarce enough as it is and
         | politicians, particularly in authoritarian countries, already
         | aren't happy about it (in North Korea, for example, it's banned
         | and it's one of the rarest countries to DX with). Please don't
         | make life for hams more complex than it already is by abusing
         | what it stands for.
        
       | tripplyons wrote:
       | Reminds me of how people forward requests through CloudFlare
       | workers as a cheap way to get around IP-based rate limits.
        
       | buremba wrote:
       | Is there any tool that does the other way around? I simply need
       | an alternative to cloudflared tunnel
       | (https://blog.cloudflare.com/tunnel-for-everyone/) for exposing
       | localhost port to a public domain that lets me supports anonymous
       | clients. All cloud solutions charge based on users so they
       | unfortunately doesn't work
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-21 23:01 UTC)