Ask HN: Great Firewall in Iran?

I'm kinda burnt out and took a 2 month vacation, and decided to fulfill my dream of visiting Persepolis. The last time I traveled abroad is decade ago, so I assume a lot of things have changed. It was after 911 but the phone censorship was not a thing yet.

- I got a used iPhone SE as a burner phone and created a fake Twitter account, although it hasn't aged yet. What else should I do? (Apparently I'm not gonna put my HN account on my social media list)

- Looks like China's GFW is so sophisticated[0] that it seems evading it is almost impossible. Is Iran's as smart? Do they use deep packet inspection?

- Does Cloudflare Zero Trust work in Iran? Should I create a SOCKS proxy?

- How severe is the internet censorship in Iran in general?

- Not specific to Iran, but I'm a bit surprised that border cops in almost all countries have the authority to force me to unlock my phone. Dark times.

Any advice will be appreciated!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44958621

9 points | by minebreaker 1 day ago

7 comments

  • farseer 7 hours ago
    Censorship may not be as severe as China but the Iranian government is very paranoid these days due to security breaches in the recent war. Some of those breaches were hilarious Tbh and reflected badly on the regime. Its best not to be caught with your pants down while using a VPN illegally. There is not telling what they are up to in their extreme paranoia.
  • u_sama 1 day ago
    My recommendation is to start researching V2Ray and XRay protocols and translate Chinese made tutorials. This seems to be the only protocol (under the xtls-vision-rpx) that works in GFW countries like Iran, Russia and China. Buy for a month a cheapish VPS and rent it for a month in a close country like Armenia/Caucasus Region, set up an XRAY server and then download Streisand for iOS or the equivalent in Android.

    Also the Chinese GFW is not this titanic wall, there are well known exploits that use the 443 TLS port to masquerade as popular wesbites signatures.

    If you need some guidance lmk I can write a full tutorial on how XRay/V2Ray works and how to set it up, as well as a series of scripts to generate stuff :)

    [-]
  • fspeech 1 day ago
    Do you know that Chinese GFW only applies to domestic numbers and services? If you have an out of country number and roaming it doesn't apply to you. I don't know anything about Iran though.
  • thorin 1 day ago
    What makes you want to visit Iran - doesn't seem very relaxing to me and there are lots of other interesting historical sites in the rest of the middle east and Europe. Assuming you are coming from the US?

    Lots of technical questions but what exactly are you worried about - some systems you want to have access to or some data you want to hide?

    I've travelled near the Iran border on the eastern edge of Turkey and the countryside is beautiful! Hope you get the break you're looking for!

  • brudgers 23 hours ago
    General advice:

    + As a guest it is rude to behave in ways you know your hosts consider impolite.

    + As a matter of personal safety, unwarranted risks are unwarranted.

    Buying a cheap phone in Iran and enjoying your bucket list trip is the simplest thing that might work. Why try to fuck with a nation-state. Good luck.

    [-]
    • firefax 20 hours ago
      >Why try to fuck with a nation-state.

      Because they shoot protesters.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Neda_Agha-Soltan

      Cross that line, the gloves come off.

      [-]
      • brudgers 19 hours ago
        I guess that could be the basis for a vacation, but I doubt the OP is going to move that needle with a burner phone and a VPN.
        [-]
        • firefax 17 hours ago
          It speaks volumes that simply circumventing a firewall is "fucking with" a regime.

          I'm guessing Iran is similar to China (restrictions on GPS software etc).

          They may be simply trying to efficiently vacation.

          Having a way to get information out if mistreated can make mistreatment simply not happen.

          The Persian people are very friendly, but they're held hostage by a lunatic fringe.

          When you blame the user for circumventing as firewall, it's akin to blaming a battered woman for "instigating" her man.

          Mature authoritarian regimes do things old fashioned -- they put a minder on you, and keep an eye out.

          If Iran is too poor or stupid to take that approach, then maybe it's a good thing if a single crack in their firewall brings humpty dumpty tumbling down.

          [-]
          • brudgers 16 hours ago
            efficiently vacation

            That’s an oxymoron.

          • cindyllm 17 hours ago
            [dead]
  • iExploder 14 hours ago
    bro, just get a good tour guide, bring a camera and forget about twitter for a few weeks, whats the problem with that?

    locals use VPNs, sometimes they work, sometimes they dont... gov has on/off switch so you are at their mercy, but honestly do you need access to US social media when on a vacation in a desert?

    [-]
    • minebreaker 5 hours ago
      No, I don't do SNS. I created it to show it to the police. Looks like "I don't have any social media" is considered to be suspicious and you are "hiding" something. At least that's true in the US. I don't know about Iran though.
  • ThomasGuy 1 day ago
    [dead]