dashmo: 06/01/23

dashmo FREESTUFF

BYOPPP - Build Your Own Privacy Protection Proxy

I have read a blog post, where you can build your own privacy proxy server built on Raspberry PI. The post got me thinking about how I can use this to protect my privacy on my Android phone, and also get rid of those annoying ads.

Since I own a Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE with Android 4.3 (with a HW based Knox counter), rooting the phone now means you break Knox, and loose warranty. Past the point of no return ...

This means I have to solve this without root. Luckily newer Androids support VPN without rooting, but setting a mandatory system-wide proxy is still not possible without root.

But thanks to some iptables magic and Privoxy, this is not a problem anymore :)

The ingredients to build your own privacy protection proxy:

One (or more) cheap VPS server(s)
a decent VPN program
Privoxy
iptables

VPS server

To get the cheap VPS server, I recommend using Amazon EC2, but choose whatever you like. The micro instance is very cheap (or even free), and has totally enough resources for this task. I'm using the Ubuntu free tier now and it works like a charm. And last but not least Amazon has two-factor authentication! You can set up an Ubuntu server under 10 minutes. Use the AWS region nearest to you, e.g. I choose EU - Ireland.

VPN

For the VPN program, I recommend the free version of the OpenVPN AS (EDIT: be sure to use OpenVPN AS 2.0.6 or later, both on the server and the client). Easy to set-up quick start guide is here, GUI based configuration, and one-click client installer for Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, OSX. The Ubuntu installer packages are here.

The most important settings:

I prefer to use the TCP 443 and UDP 53 ports for my OpenVPN setup, and let the user guess why.
For good performance, UDP is preferred over TCP.
VPN mode is Layer 3 (routing/NAT).
Don't forget to allow the configured VPN ports in the AWS firewall (security groups).

Other VPN settings:

Should VPN clients have access to private subnets (non-public networks on the server side)? - Yes
Should client Internet traffic be routed through the VPN? - Yes

Privoxy

The next component we have to install and configure is Privoxy. As usual, "apt-get install privoxy" just works. The next step is to configure privoxy via /etc/privoxy/config file, there are two options to change:

listen-address your.ip.add.ress:8118
accept-intercepted-requests 1

Beware not to allow everyone accessing your Privoxy server in the AWS EC2 security groups, be sure it is reachable only to VPN users!

After everything is set, start privoxy with "service privoxy start", and add it to the autostart "update-rc.d privoxy defaults".

Iptables

And the final step is to configure your iptables chain to forward every web traffic from the VPN clients to the Privoxy server:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -s 5.5.0.0/16 -p tcp -m multiport --dports 80,8080,81 -j DNAT --to-destination your.ip.add.ress:8118

Optionally you can block access to all other ports as well, and what does not go through your Privoxy won't be reachable.

Based on your Linux distribution and preference, you might make this rule persistent.

Final test

Now you can connect to the VPN server from your Android device.

After logging in from a client, you get the following nice packages to install on your device:

After connecting, the final results can be seen in the following screenshots. And yes, there is a reason I chose Angry Birds as an example.

Angry Birds without Privoxy

Angry Birds with Privoxy

Stupid flashlight app with ad

Stupid flashlight app with Privoxy

Spoiler alert

If you are afraid of NSA tracking you, this post is not for you. If you want to achieve IP layer anonymity, this post is not for you. As long as you are the only one using that service, it should be trivial to see what could possibly go wrong with that.

Known issues

Whenever the Internet connection (Wifi, 3G) drops, the VPN connection drops as well, and your privacy is gone ...

Sites breaking your privacy through SSL can still do that as long as the domain is not in the Privoxy blacklist.

Additional recommendation

If you are using OSX or Windows, I can recommend Aviator to be used as your default browser. It is just great, give it a try!

PS: There are also some adblock apps removed from the official store which can block some ads, but you have to configure a proxy for every WiFi connection you use, and it is not working over 3G.

More information

dashmo FREESTUFF

New Wave Of Cyber Attacks Target Palestine With Political Bait And Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have turned the spotlight on a new wave of offensive cyberattacks targeting Palestinian activists and entities starting around October 2021 using politically-themed phishing emails and decoy documents.

The intrusions are part of what Cisco Talos calls a longstanding espionage and information theft campaign undertaken by the Arid Viper hacking group using a Delphi-based implant called Micropsia dating all the way back to June 2017.

The threat actor's activities, also tracked under the monikers Desert Falcon and the APT-C-23, were first documented in February 2015 by Kasperksy and subsequently in 2017, when Qihoo 360 disclosed details of cross-platform backdoors developed by the group to strike Palestinian institutions.

The Russian cybersecurity company-branded Arid Viper the "first exclusively Arabic APT group."

Then in April 2021, Meta (formerly Facebook), which pointed out the group's affiliations to the cyber arm of Hamas, said it took steps to boot the adversary off its platform for distributing mobile malware against individuals associated with pro-Fatah groups, the Palestinian government organizations, military and security personnel, and student groups within Palestine.

Decoy document containing text on Palestinian reunification

The raft of new activity relies on the same tactics and document lures used by the group in 2017 and 2019, suggesting a "certain level of success" despite a lack of change in their tooling. More recent decoy files reference themes of Palestinian reunification and sustainable development in the territory that, when opened, lead to the installation of Micropsia on compromised machines.

The backdoor is designed to give the operators an unusual range of control over the infected devices, including the ability to harvest sensitive information and execute commands transmitted from a remote server, such as capturing screenshots, recording the current activity log, and downloading additional payloads.

"Arid Viper is a prime example of groups that aren't very advanced technologically, however, with specific motivations, are becoming more dangerous as they evolve over time and test their tools and procedures on their targets," researchers Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura said.

"These [remote access trojans] can be used to establish long-term access into victim environments and additionally deploy more malware purposed for espionage and stealing information and credentials."

More info

dashmo

BYOPPP - Build Your Own Privacy Protection Proxy

VPS server

VPN

Privoxy

Iptables

Final test

New Wave Of Cyber Attacks Target Palestine With Political Bait And Malware

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