About Nostr and Censorship
Yesterday the CAC banned Damus from the Chinese market just one day after its release. However pandora's box has been opened, there are a lot of alternative clients to Damus and some individuals have the capability to create their own independent clients. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of time before the Chinese regime takes measures to identify and restrict access to Nostr network relays through censorship.
The Chinese government has various methods at its disposal to censor Nostr. They could block IPs of commonly used relays or block access to the WebSocket connections that users rely on to connect to the relays, rendering the network inaccessible within the country. Additionally, the government could also attempt to track down and shut down individual relays within the country, disrupting the network's infrastructure and making it difficult for users to communicate.
Another potential measure that the Chinese government could take is to monitor and analyze the traffic flowing through the network, remember Chinese government has a significant amount of control over the internet infrastructure making attacks feasible, to identify any politically sensitive content. If such content is detected, the government could then take action to censor it, such as blocking access to the relays or shutting them down entirely.
The availability and effectiveness of countermeasures in China against censorship can vary. The Chinese government has been known to take aggressive steps to restrict the use of VPNs and other circumvention tools, such as blocking access to VPN services and websites and cracking down on individuals who use them.
Similarly, using Tor in China can also be challenging, as the government has been known to block access to the Tor network and use various methods to identify and track Tor users.
Relay operators within China could protect themselves from detection with additional security measures such as traffic obfuscation e.g. padding, fragmentation, or shaping of the data, or by using multiplexing, where multiple services or protocols run over the same WebSocket connection.
themangomago / mago
npub1ma…plrzm
2023-02-03 18:55:48
Author Public Key
npub1mag0xyytytadax6e7h9xv3syze4d0ppglv3p46lnvrdmspg6n97sjplrzmPublished at
2023-02-03 18:55:48Event JSON
{
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"pubkey": "df50f3108b22fade9b59f5ca664604166ad78428fb221aebf360dbb8051a997d",
"created_at": 1675450548,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "About Nostr and Censorship\n\nYesterday the CAC banned Damus from the Chinese market just one day after its release. However pandora's box has been opened, there are a lot of alternative clients to Damus and some individuals have the capability to create their own independent clients. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of time before the Chinese regime takes measures to identify and restrict access to Nostr network relays through censorship.\n\nThe Chinese government has various methods at its disposal to censor Nostr. They could block IPs of commonly used relays or block access to the WebSocket connections that users rely on to connect to the relays, rendering the network inaccessible within the country. Additionally, the government could also attempt to track down and shut down individual relays within the country, disrupting the network's infrastructure and making it difficult for users to communicate.\n\nAnother potential measure that the Chinese government could take is to monitor and analyze the traffic flowing through the network, remember Chinese government has a significant amount of control over the internet infrastructure making attacks feasible, to identify any politically sensitive content. If such content is detected, the government could then take action to censor it, such as blocking access to the relays or shutting them down entirely.\n\nThe availability and effectiveness of countermeasures in China against censorship can vary. The Chinese government has been known to take aggressive steps to restrict the use of VPNs and other circumvention tools, such as blocking access to VPN services and websites and cracking down on individuals who use them.\nSimilarly, using Tor in China can also be challenging, as the government has been known to block access to the Tor network and use various methods to identify and track Tor users.\nRelay operators within China could protect themselves from detection with additional security measures such as traffic obfuscation e.g. padding, fragmentation, or shaping of the data, or by using multiplexing, where multiple services or protocols run over the same WebSocket connection.",
"sig": "3f67fed3ef080cd98d353b82e75fc360b343d16855238cd866ecb3d32d9ed3ca9cf0b9c2c92e8eb8073d68e6aa93d9e5ceb4f4d9e621c895c4aa09131f0c50ed"
}