#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use File::Basename;

my $rotby;

sub usage() {
    print STDERR "Usage: ", basename($0), " [rotation offset: 1..25]\n";
}

if ($#ARGV eq -1) {
    $rotby=13;
} elsif ($#ARGV eq 0) {
    (usage() && exit(2))if ($ARGV[0]<1 || $ARGV[0]>25);
    $rotby=$ARGV[0];
} else {
    usage(); exit(1);
}

my $xlate;
$xlate = chr(ord('a')+$rotby)."-z" . "a-".chr(ord('a')+$rotby-1);
$xlate = $xlate . uc $xlate;

while (  ) {
    eval "tr/a-zA-Z/$xlate/";
    print;
}

We’re entering a new age of censorship, with more and more governments following the path pioneered by enlightened states like China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the US of A, and suchlike.

Well, there’s always onion routing (tor and its ilk).  But setting that up may be out of practical reach, or create an all too obvious profile.

Suppose some gubberment starts too heed to the instinctive impulse to ban a particular site, let’s say abuccaneer.net.  It’ll start pressuring private parties to poison DNS request (making requests for abuccaneer.net end up at some or other landing page instead), and start bookkeeping a list of IP adresses to be used in blocking ACLs (access control lists) at network level.

First, let’s try and save DNS.  Well, if your ISP poisons DNS, you can always try another public DNS service.  Chances are pretty good it’ll work.  But you’ll want to safeguard your DNS traffic from eavesdroppers: your DNS request may just land you in a very nasty place otherwise.  I’d recommend to give http://www.opendns.com/technology/dnscrypt/ a try.

Then, there’s the actual network traffic.  Direct connections to abuccaneer.net will be dropped (and logged, obviously, with you potentially night-and-fogged afterwards).  You might try an open proxy, but might not be safe from eavesdroppers or poisoning either. So, you create an encrypted tunnel, and proxy through that.  Assuming the other end of your tunnel is out of reach of your local malicious warlords, that’ll help.  Secure shell to the rescue!

#!/bin/sh

cat << E_O_MSG
ABN is at https://localhost:8443
        SOCKS at localhost:8080
E_O_MSG

ssh -D8080 -L 8443:abuccaneer.net:443 me@myremoteshellhost.net

Run this script, and make your browser use localhost:8080 as a SOCKS proxy. Cheers.