streisand VS wstunnel

https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

Streisand sets up a new server running your choice of WireGuard, OpenConnect, OpenSSH, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks, sslh, Stunnel, or a Tor bridge. It also generates custom instructions for all of these services. At the end of the run you are given an HTML file with instructions that can be shared with friends, family members, and fellow activists.

Unfortunately, that's to the Great Firewall of China, there has been a lot of resources put in to fingerprint VPNs and block them by state actors.

Fortunately, however, there is equally years of some of the smartest minds on the planet working to bypass Chinese censorship, so there are some great OpenVPN alternatives.

I really encourage you to look into something like Shadowsocks which Chinese people have found great success in using over the last several years.

It's quite sad that projects like Streisand[0] were archived, but I'm sure there are other alternatives that might make it just as easy to roll onto a server.

[0] https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

The Streisand Project[0] provided easy installation of well-configured certs, VPNs and various other software on cloud instances. It was great for travelling internationally: run the script and after a few minutes one had a cloud instance and everything one needed to securely access the Internet through one’s own country.

Unfortunately, it was archived in 2021. Is there anything in 2023 which approaches it? I’ve seen Algo[1], but I don’t believe it does as much to help one to avoid packet filtering. It’s also based on Ubuntu rather than Debian, which seems like a mistake with security-conscious server software.

0: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

1: https://github.com/trailofbits/algo

It basically works like any normal VPN. Setting it up is quite easy, you just need a VPS and setup Streisand by following their guide.

You are better off renting a cloud server and rolling your own, e.g. using Streisand, Algo or my own Edgewalker

I currently use https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand which was extremely simple to set up.

What are the main advantages over Streisand?

For a VPN, I use Streisand (https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand) running on a box in a datacenter in Iceland. I also occasionally use other VPNs. I turn off the VPN on my gaming PC when playing specific games.

wstunnel - Proxies over WebSockets. Focus on proxying from behind networks that block certain protocols. Written in Rust with executables provided.

Shameless plug, there is also wstunnel (i am its author) https://github.com/erebe/wstunnel/, hope you enjoy.

If you want to tunnel UDP (WireGuard) or TCP (SSH) over WebSocket protocol, check out https://github.com/erebe/wstunnel

While working in an environment where VPN connections were pretty much all blocked⁰ a friend of mine had success using https://guacamole.apache.org/ to access a remote machine¹. Not quite the same as a direct VPN connection but worth a try if nothing else functions, it looks enough like normal HTTPS traffic that he got away with it.

To keep your wireguard setup more as-is, you could try https://kirill888.github.io/notes/wireguard-via-websocket/ to tunnel that via a web server. In fact https://github.com/erebe/wstunnel which that uses could be used just as well with any other UDP based VPN.

I once tinkered with https://github.com/yarrick/iodine and successfully connected to resources over the wireless on a train, bypassing its traffic capture and sign-up requirement, so that might be an option, though I think fully blocking external DNS is more common now so this is less likely to work²³.

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[0] practically only HTTP(S) permitted, not even SSH, DPI in use that detected just using SSH or OpenVPN over port 443

[1] NOTE: be careful breaching restrictions like this, you are at risk of an insta-sacking if discovered, or worse if operating in some securiry environments!

[2] and the latency when it does work is significant!

[3] and that much traffic over port 53 might get noticed by the heuristics of data exfiltration scanner, encouraging sysadmins to notice and implement a way to block it

You can try with this project, https://github.com/erebe/wstunnel.

There are projects out there (like this) which run wireguard traffic through websocket.