English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@RegDwightѬſ道 Whoops, I got that wrong. It doesn't mean "everything wrong" or "all at fault". It means "everything bent", but only sort of. It's one of those coincidental cognates I guess, because the cases are wrong.

@WillHunting Don't worry, Will, it wasn't a come-on.

@RegDwightѬſ道 So was I wrong? Was I? Was I?

user19161

I have many answers for which I feel the asker should accept, sigh.

user19161

Why do they deprive themselves of 2 points?

David Wallace

Maybe the answer is more valuable to them than the 2 points!

user19161

@DavidWallace Nice consolation!

David Wallace

11:12 PM

Tell me which ones, and I'll go on an upvoting rampage. Maybe.

user19161

Nah, it was just a general remark. I think it applies to everyone.

user19161

I try to accept an answer to all my questions even if it does not really answer the question.

user19161

So I have 100 per cent accept rate across SE.

user19161

I also try to upvote all answers to my own questions as long as it is not utter rubbish.

David Wallace

@WillHunting I'm not sure that you should do that. It might discourage someone who HAS the right answer from posting it.

user19161

11:21 PM

@DavidWallace Well, I don't think not accepting any answer will encourage someone to post the answer. At least I am not encouraged myself that way.

Matt Эллен

Robots are ace

►

David Wallace

@WillHunting If I'm looking for questions to answer, I'm likely to ignore ones that have an accepted answer.

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace I think the same

David Wallace

@WillHunting You should certainly NOT reward people for failing to answer the question.

Cerberus

Do any of you know stuff about internet protocols and DPI?

Do you think it will be possible to disguise an encrypted VPN connection as something else, like perhaps a video stream?

Matt Эллен

11:27 PM

Dots Per Inch?

Cerberus

Deep-Packet Inspection.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus sure

Oh I see

Cerberus

Deep packet inspection

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) (also called complete packet inspection and Information eXtraction - IX -) is a form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part (and possibly also the header) of a packet as it passes an inspection point, searching for protocol non-compliance, viruses, spam, intrusions, or defined criteria to decide whether the packet may pass or if it needs to be routed to a different destination, or, for the purpose of collecting statistical information. There are multiple headers for IP packets; network equipment only needs to use the first of these (the...

@MattЭллен Oh! Really? And is that technology already in use?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Well, that was before you mentioned DPI

David Wallace

@Cerberus Of course. This is the fundamental idea of steganography.

Cerberus

11:28 PM

@MattЭллен Oh hehe.

Matt Эллен

that's true

you can embed the message inside a video or image or sound file

Cerberus

@DavidWallace So no technical difficulties? It's easy to fool scanners?

user19161

@DavidWallace I did not know there is such a word.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yeah but I was rather thinking of regular internet usage, anything you do every day, but through an encrypted VPN, and disguised as a video stream.

I know hiding a file inside a video file is possible, but it is primitive and easy to detect if you know where to look.

Matt Эллен

depends on how you hide it

user19161

11:31 PM

@Cerberus Well, I know how to place a file in a folder, hehe.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus regular internet use would be difficult to disguise as a video stream because the regular servers are not expecting video content

if it is encrypted through a VPN, how would DPI work? I'm not sure it would

user19161

But I can't place a folder in a file!

Matt Эллен

maybe a statistical analysis might figure out what type of traffic it is

David Wallace

@Cerberus I'm not an expert in this field. Why don't you read the wikipedia article on steganography - it explains things better than I ever could.

@MattЭллен Not if your steganography tools are good enough.

user19161

@reg Viscacha!

Matt Эллен

11:34 PM

@DavidWallace right, but I was thinking of regular traffic, just encrypted.

if you send google a search request inside a photo, I don't think it would know what to do

David Wallace

Well, I guess it would have to be a binary. But you could hide anything you like in unused parts of an .EXE, and it would be basically invisible.

user19161

Everyone refresh your browser to see viscacha!

Matt Эллен

s'ok @Will I can see it already

@DavidWallace how would Google process it though?

David Wallace

Do you want google to process it?

Google would generally ignore executables.

Matt Эллен

well, Cerb is talking about regular internet traffic

KitFox

11:36 PM

Hi.

Matt Эллен

so, a thing I regularly do is search on google

hi @KitFox :)

user19161

@KitFox Woof!

David Wallace

@MattЭллен What does Google have to do with regular internet traffic?

KitFox

I'm not a dog!

David Wallace

Hello, vixenly one.

Matt Эллен

11:37 PM

42 secs ago, by Matt Эллен

so, a thing I regularly do is search on google

David Wallace

All morning, I've had the Spiderman theme song running round my head; and it's your fault!

user19161

@DavidWallace With great power comes great responsibility.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmm I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus well, how are you characterising regular use?

David Wallace

So I could email you an EXE that's got a hidden video. But that works as an EXE too.

Cerberus

11:39 PM

@MattЭллен No, you can't see what's inside the encrypted content, but will you be able to see that it contains encrypted content? The goal is to have any inspecting software think it is just some video stream or. Or another stream of your choice.

@DavidWallace Hmm maybe later.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus right, but what is the content?

David Wallace

@Cerberus No, not without decompiling it.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Oh, no: the VPN server would decrypt the stream and send regular requests to the respective sites.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Oh! I see

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Everything you have done today.

David Wallace

11:41 PM

So it would be the EXE equivalent of
10 print "hello"
20 goto 100
30 show Jennifer Lopez naked
100 print "goodbye"
110 end

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Well, if the VPN is expecting it, then there would be no problem

Cerberus

@DavidWallace And it would be possible for the VPN server to find the encrypted content inside the video stream and unpack it, provided that the server had advanced software to do this? Or does such software not exist (yet)?

David Wallace

If it's sufficiently encrypted, it won't be able to.

It will just look like inefficiently written code.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен No? OK, good. With present technology? And an ISP would be unable to find out that it wasn't a regular video stream?

@DavidWallace What if the ISP decompiled bits of the stream to sample it?

David Wallace

If the payload is encrypted, that won't help them.

Matt Эллен

11:44 PM

@Cerberus if you make it encrypted video, then that should be indistinguishable

Cerberus

The goal is for the ISP to never even notice that there is an encrypted stream going on.

David Wallace

Are you planning terrorist activities?

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmmm...are there sites that actually use encrypted video streams?

@DavidWallace I am contemplating the future of file sharing.

David Wallace

Or just video piracy?

Matt Эллен

but if they do DPI on every packet, and the stream doesn't look like encrypted video then I suppose the game will be up

Cerberus

11:45 PM

@DavidWallace Not video: basically all internet usage.

@MattЭллен Hmm yes...and this cannot be hidden with padding or something?

There will be an awful lot of overhead, of course.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus there must be. I bet skype video calls are encrypted. I should say, I hope they're encrypted

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Hmm yes, good point.

Conclusion: if a company that offers anonymous VPN disguises its connection as an encrypted video stream, nobody will be able to find out that it is in fact a VPN connection that's going on?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus Sorry, no idea. stenography is not something I know

KitFox

Bloody hell, there are a lot of Star Wars books.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен OK thanks for thinking along, hehe.

Matt Эллен

11:49 PM

my pleasure

David Wallace

According to that page you linked to, the DPI system that Iran has "enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes."

Matt Эллен

@KitFox you having a Star Wars books marathon?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Yup. Sold by some large American company.

KitFox

I'm trying to find the name of the book I read.

David Wallace

Wouldn't that be a bummer; you send someone a naked picture of Jennifer Lopez and it comes out as Jennifer Aniston.

Cerberus

11:50 PM

Yup!

Very dangerous.