this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Pantherina@feddit.de to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
 

We can also break down users by country. The largest contingent of Snowflake users are in Iran, which has been the case since the Mahsa Amini protests in 2022 1. The graph shows also a large number of users apparently from the United States, but we believe that may be partly the result of geolocation errors, and many of them are actually from Iran. After Iran, the countries with the most Snowflake users are Russia and China.

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[–] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Snowflake relaying from all my devices 1000027251

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Any way to make it work on Android firefox? I have an old android lying around would be nice to make it useful to people in need.

EDIT:

Never mind, installed orbot :)

[–] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You can even do a real relay, not an exit node of course, normal relay should be safe

[–] N0x0n@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Didn't dived to much into Tor, what's the big difference between a real relay node and a snowflake? If you don't mind to briefly explain it !

Haha, yeah I'm aware of exit nodes...

[–] supervent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Snowflake/bridge is used when you do not want the authorities/ISP know, you are using tor or because it might be blocked (like on contries with censorship). When you are running snowflake/bridge you are helping these users. For the contrary, if you use a normal tor relay, they(ISP, authorities, who ever is watching your connection) know, but they do not know what you are doing.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

A proxy is normally only shown if you cannot connect to their entry servers regularly. More apps have this, Signal / Molly, Telegram, ...

So nobody uses a proxy if they dont need to, normally

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Can someone help me understand how this might be a better idea than using an SSL-VPN such as OpenVPN/SoftEther and connecting to TOR from the VPN endpoint instead of using Snowflake?

I'd like to use my own infrastructure and am also looking for comparisons/security analysis of Snowflake

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Proxy is for people that can not access the Tor network.

For your own comfort/anonymity using a VPN is the better option.

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If they could run their own SSL-VPNs and then access TOR through them, like I described, would there be a point in Snowflake?

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Snowflake works for people that may not be able to get crypto or anonymous cash per letter. How would they pay the VPN?

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, I forgot that Monero in exchange for cash might not be an option here. Apologies, you're right. With that, I'd also like a comparison of security between these two approaches

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

Snowflake is encrypted but I dont know with what protocol. TLS at least so at least as secure as the regular internet including all banking sites.

Yeah, Snowflake being tied to this one use case also prevents abuse. Imagine having "free VPN ran on my Computer for the Iranians", that would be abused like hell.