[Tuna-Fish]

This is how China would attack such a system:

Declare use and possession of it illegal. Randomly search for it among people who they think might have it. Once they find people using it, they punish them very harshly, and widely publicize the consequences of using such a system. Then people will stop using it, because CPC is more than willing to ratchet up the penalties and enforcement until that happens. Up to summary death penalty and massive dragnets where military descends on an area to search every device they find. (The fact that everyone knows they would go that far means they'd never have to.)

There are no technical solutions to tyranny. You can think of such a system working because you live in a country where there is likely a constitution that prevents governments from banning apps they don't like without any actual real justification, and where there are laws that prevent anything you have from being seized for inspection just because the people doing the inspection feel like it.

There is plenty of dissent of all kinds in China. But the locals would never do something so brazen as to start using an app specifically designed to make their communication uncensorable. Because that would be a direct challenge to the state, and the state has a very well documented, extremely blood-soaked history of winning direct challenges through applying brute force.

Instead, the dissent uses the officially approved channels, and stays near the officially approved limits.

[anon57325]

Such a system could also be attacked in a democracy.

Just look at how the US government handled the Liberty Dollar.

It would be even easier now with National Security Letters and Secret Courts. Heck, look what happened to Lavabit.

[Tuna-Fish]

True. My point was that in a democracy, it would be attacked in a different way, and the post I was replying to was thinking about defending from the kind of attacks that would be done in a democracy. China has other tools.