The DMZ

TildalWave

8:16 PM

bread is out... hit me!

Adnan

@TildalWave What?

TildalWave

Oh so that's what that thingy HideMyAss is... I wouldn't call that as a proxy myself, but since they insist LOL

ok it is a sort of a proxy I guess...

Adnan

@TildalWave Well, it is a proxy. Since it, well, proxies your connection.

The problem is, what kind of a proxy it is

I've always thought it was called "Web proxy", the guys here said otherwise.

So I'm now confused.

TildalWave

@Adnan well OK for lack of a better word I guess it's suitable... but I would (not knowing they call themselves so) insist on another word for it if I could LOL

maybe web document proxy, or HTML proxy? dunno

Adnan

@TildalWave After this conversation, I honestly have no idea.

Hey @Luc

TildalWave

8:25 PM

@Adnan no look I get your point now, I just think the name for these sucks and creates confusion... possibly also other problems because peeps think it's a proxy and then they ask about proxies and get a response for what proper proxies are... I can see all kinds of confusions these stirred

Adnan

@Luc First of all, please check my answer after the last edit. It would also be helpful to skim the last 20 minutes of this chat. Just so we can establish a common ground

@TildalWave True. My answer itself is a manifestation of that kind of confusion

TildalWave

@Adnan I think you should rewrite your answer from scratch to avoid confusion and simply state if this type of proxy then [this and that], and if you meant that type of proxy then [this and that]

Adnan

@TildalWave I'm thinking about that. But if he didn't mean (well.. again with the terminology confusion) web proxies, then my answer would be useless.

As I'll just be almost repeating what others are saying about HTTP proxies.

TildalWave

@Adnan to OP maybe but others will read it also and might find it useful later on, I didn't know about what HideMyAss type proxies do either, for example

Adnan

@TildalWave Alright. Thanks for the advice. I'm doing that right now.

TildalWave

8:31 PM

@Adnan sure... I'm off to eat some freshly baked bread (num num) and watch some naked butts in GoT (num num)... I'll exercise my voting rights later ;)

Adnan

@TildalWave What's GoT?

Thomas Pornin

@TildalWave I suggest "browsing proxy" but that's not very good...

Adnan

Never mind, Game of Thrones

@ThomasPornin I don't if this helps, but long time ago I remember them being called CGI Proxies

@Luc Still here?

Luc

half

trying to get fucked up w8 secure boot to install w7 on a pc upstairs, so I'm afk now and then

/me reads what you wrote above

Adnan

@Luc Is that possible?

Thomas Pornin

8:38 PM

@Adnan Oh, old times. CGI was the technology for doing other things than mere file serving on the Web server, back in the days before ASP and PHP and whatsnot.

Luc

@Adnan I sure hope so, else I've just bricked it

Thomas Pornin

@Adnan I don't know for your PC, but my laptop has some UEFI secure boot thing which can be deactivated in the BIOS, and that's a blessing.

Adnan

@ThomasPornin I'm not sure I can say "Yes I remember those old times" as they're older than me, but I have worked with CGI before. I remember making a whole website with C (no PHP, ASP, or others).

TildalWave

@ThomasPornin It's just executables that handle HTTP requests... as in Common Gateway Interface... and for example WinCGI (which many think Win stands for Windows - it doesn't) is one of them, or FastCGI,...

Luc

@Adnan read/skimmed the chatlog. So you mean a service that just proxies a webpage for you and attempts to change the URLs so they use the proxy as well? Not one that supports the CONNECT command?

Thomas Pornin

8:40 PM

On the other hand, I recently had to battle with a HP computer featuring a Radeon GPU which is not recognized by standard ATI drivers -- it takes a specific driver from HP, which is WIndows 8 only.

TildalWave

...back to butts, bloody hell this GoT where's my zoom option?? :)

Luc

@Luc in that case I agree that the proxy clearly decrypts the traffic (if it was ever encrypted to begin with)

Thomas Pornin

@Luc The kind of proxy @Adnan talks about is somewhere further on the scale of "exported browsing" -- at the end of that scale, there's RDP (or VNC or NX)

Adnan

@Luc They appear be using the same techniques used by a normal web browser. For example, a PHP web proxy usually uses cURL with POST and GET to proxy pages.

@ThomasPornin Oh yes, I was thinking of mentioning VNC as an example to make my though clearer

CodesInChaos

I'm waiting for internet-as-a-service. You don't need internet access anymore, the cloud does it all for you.

2

Thomas Pornin

8:43 PM

The variations are really about how much processing occurs on the proxy (they have to rewrite the URL, but they could render the HTML on the proxy and send back pictures)

@CodesInChaos There was something like this for Nokia phones

Luc

Well then I think it's case solved, we understand each other :P

Thomas Pornin

wasn't there a special Opera version/service too ?

It is not a bad idea per se, but it sure does change things with regards to security.

Adnan

@ThomasPornin Exactly. Opera Turbo

Luc

@ThomasPornin Opera Turbo, yes

aww 2 seconds too late

Adnan

@Luc It's okay. Happened to me 2 days ago

Xander

8:47 PM

And Amazon Silk.

Luc

Btw Thomas, interesting answer you posted in the proxy topic. Mentions the thing that Adnan meant to say, what the others meant to say, mentions CA insertion by sysadmins that I commented... you probably know all of this yourself, but it's easy to see all answers, sum them up, and then claim the reputation for having the best post :p

Adnan

I hope this is much better now

0

A: How proxy servers sniff data

First of all I'd like to make a distinction between what is commonly known as HTTP Proxies, for which, other answers apply, the confidentiality will not be broken unless you add the proxy's CA to your trusted CAs; and Web Proxies (we still can't agree on a name, you may call it HTML Proxy or Bro...

Any ideas for improvement?

Luc

@Adnan yes xkcd.com/859

Adnan

@Luc Done.

Luc

Much better :P

Adnan

8:50 PM

@Luc I guess so (I mean it's really annoying somtimes

:D

Luc

Now I go cry under a rock :( <-- see there I did it too!

Adnan

):)

Fixied

Luc

Looks like lisp, obligatory: xkcd.com/297

@Adnan I can't make suggested edits (only edits), so I'll suggest one here. Additional paragraph: On the other hand, proxies that you configure in the browser's or system settings, can be secure. When visiting a website that should be secure, verify that you're on the right domain (such as "example.com") and that the https connection is not broken (usually a lock icon shows when it's secure). This is different from web proxies because with a web proxy, the domain name is the proxy's domain.

Adnan

@Luc Very reasonable. Edited.

TildalWave

@Adnan Now of course the other big issue...

Luc

8:58 PM

@TildalWave That being?

TildalWave

@Luc I'm back :)

Luc

:')

Adnan

@TildalWave Oh, the Vappu thing?

Thomas Pornin

@Luc Well, if it is the best post...

Luc

@ThomasPornin Certainly true, but I'll keep this strategy in mind :)

Thomas Pornin

9:00 PM

What should (morally) receive upvotes is, as yet, undefined. Every user upvotes or downvotes as he sees fit.

What actually triggers upvotes is a matter of ongoing research. Ape stories are somewhat effective.

2

TildalWave

@Adnan seriously tho... the OP was saying that his connection is censored by government, so chances are these bleeping proxies we don't have a name for won't really work and OP just confused one with another ... so with that in mind, I think it would be cool if you also write similar for the other type of proxy ;)

Adnan

@ThomasPornin Well, to be honest, your answer has the best parts of all of the answers and essentially what could be written on the subject. I see that the most upvote-deserving answer.

@TildalWave I wanted to do that. But the answers answers have covered that pretty well, I don't want repeat it.

@ThomasPornin Oh, and meme pictures

TildalWave

@Adnan oh true ok then... can I go read it? (you were editing it all the time last I was there lol)

@Adnan OK +1 but... ZendProxy?? Realllllyyy??? Zend.... Proxy?? (nothing wrong with your answer, just the name... oh the name!!!)

Adnan

@TildalWave Yeah, as you can see, naming is what caused this discussion.

Actually, I'm quite happy that this discussion was triggered. That bit was integrated in almost all of the other answers. Now we have all learned something new

TildalWave

Zend

The Zend or Zand (literally "interpretation"), refers to late middle Persian (see Pazend and Pahlavi) language commentaries on the individual books of the Avesta within Zoroastrianism. They date from the 3rd to 10th centuries and were not intended for use as theological texts by themselves but for religious instruction of the (by then) non-Avestan-speaking public. In contrast, the texts of the Avesta proper remained sacrosanct and continued to be recited in the Avestan language, which was considered a sacred language. Manuscripts of the Avesta exist in two forms. One is the Avesta-o-Zan...

Adnan

9:09 PM

Okay, I need some help here. I have an area (a park), filled with people. (you can hardly find a place to sit). How can I estimate the number of people there?

TildalWave

@Adnan ever had to count the number of bacteria in a culture at school? same thing... you count people in one defined area, then extrapolate

Adnan

Given that I know the area in meters squared.

Thomas Pornin

@Adnan For crude estimate, you assume that people are square.

Then you count the number of rows and columns of people, and multiply

This also assumes that the park is square

but every physicist would tell you that, as first order approximation, everything is a cube with spherical symmetry.

Adnan

@ThomasPornin I think that might a bit proclamation, the park is far from a square.

TildalWave

@Adnan if you extend one hand and measure from your torso on the other side to the stretch of your hand, that should be roughly 1m... then measure a sample (can be done visually close enough) area and count the number of people in it. Then multiply by how much larger the total area is compared to your sample area

Adnan

9:20 PM

@TildalWave Hmm.. I'll try to get a sample from this image

Scott Pack

The first step in all approximations is to assume a frictionless, perfectly spherical chicken in a vacuum.

4

TildalWave

This is roughly 10m square but only count those that stand with their feet in it.

Adnan

@TildalWave So we can say there are 8 people in that area.

TildalWave

@Adnan I count 48

Adnan

@TildalWave In 10 square meters? I thought of the projection of that selection.

TildalWave

9:31 PM

@Adnan no, in the area... counted again and found 51 now (with marking)

problem is, that it looks to be a lot more crowded high up

Adnan

@TildalWave Okay, now I see what you mean.

@TildalWave Yeah, but hopefully that will average out when I calculate for the whole park.

@TildalWave Currently, I'm trying to get an estimate of the sitting-suitable areas (using this acme.com/planimeter)

TildalWave

@Adnan don't know it... btw the area in red is not 10x10m because there wasn't enough width so I did a 6.6x15... it's an estimate anyway

Adnan

@TildalWave So, with your help with the sample, we can say that the number of people of people in this park was approximately 26194

Wow.. that is very accurate-looking for an estimate

So 26000

TildalWave

@Adnan if it was more or less homogenous then I guess so... but crowds tend to behave differently with one or more points of interest

Adnan

@TildalWave That is true. There was a tent in which they were giving away free beer, that definitely was PoI

TildalWave

9:46 PM

based on this photo I think you can double density at PoI... so your average should then be more like square root of (square a + square b)

Adnan

@TildalWave Well, the whole thing was to prove a friend that they could be more than 10K and to prove myself that they're less than 50K

I was really thinking they're around 50-60K

TildalWave

@Adnan I calculate your average to be somewhere around 0.56/m^2

how big is the area?

@Adnan double vision? :)))

Adnan

@TildalWave Exactly!

@TildalWave I couldn't find anything online, except the area of the whole neighbourhood., which was 0.45Km2

The park was about 70% of the neighbourhood

Most of the park was areas in which you cannot sit

I ended up counting for only 15% of the park. It was about 0.0545 Km2

TildalWave

@Adnan that can't be right that's only 54.5 x 54.5m

Adnan

@TildalWave I'll let you think about that one for a couple of minutes before telling you what's wrong

TildalWave

9:59 PM

@Adnan confused

Adnan

@TildalWave 1 Km = 1000 M... 1 Km2 = 1,000,000 M2

Gilles

@TildalWave sqrt(0.0545 km²) ≈ 233m

no idea where you got that 54.5m figure

TildalWave

@Gilles yes... so? I said it differently?

oh doh sry

Gilles

@TildalWave 54.4 isn't so much a different way of saying 233 as a different number altogether

TildalWave

@Gilles lol

Adnan

10:03 PM

Now I'm confused, was what I said wrong?

Gilles

@Adnan not that I know of (I can't vouch for the accuracy of your figures)

Adnan

Nah, I t was correct.

@Gilles Oh no, I meant the conversion only.

TildalWave

neah it's my fault I always forget to sqrt

Adnan

Alright, I'm off to bed.

Gilles

@Adnan 1km = 1000m. 1Km would be a Kelvin-meter. 1km = 1000m ≈0.54 M

units and prefixes are case-sensitive

k = kilo, K = Kelvin, m = meter or milli, M = mega (or nautical mile, non-SI)

0

Q: Have I understood pedersen commitment correctly?

I want to do a one-sided integer commitment scheme. I.e. the whole process must be non-interactive where I at one point first publicly reveal some data and then at a later time reveal the commited integer which then can be verified. In the pedersen commitment scheme we have six pieces of data p,...