[hellojesus]

If CAs start to get backdoored, people can operate a la web of trust or other asymmetric protocol where the public key is posted on a public board and the server can verify its ownership of the private key without a third party other than the public notice. More work but should be doable.

[EGreg]

They won’t be able to operate that over public networks in China, because the routers will drop their packets.

You’d need to roll your own mesh network — definitely doable in local areas but the question is how to connect them over wider distances without going through the Great Firewall. Satellites?

[Hoodedcrow]

There are methods to bypass the Chinese Firewall though. the issue is getting people to use them.

[EGreg]

How can people use them for long if they get a knock on the door, from authorities who noticed an anomaly?

[Hoodedcrow]

What anomalies are they looking for? There are protocols that make traffic look like something mundane.

[EGreg]

Have you seen what classifier AI can do?

Go make a protocol that fools all the AIs from every angle, that are scanning 24/7. They can get you on the metadata pattern alone, nevermind even the content.

[hellojesus]

I suppose you could use stenography or something to embed chats in pictures that are client-side scanned.

I use grapheneos and can create storage scopes so that the scanning app would only have access to files I deliberately allow.

Doesn't solve traffic analysis. Maybe some more advanced methods that encrypt over https could work.

[EGreg]

Unless a lot of people are using it, they’ll just go after anyone who is doing suspicious things like using grapheneos

[hellojesus]

Yes, but in what way? Short of the outlaw of general computing, what could they possibly do to stop it?

[Hoodedcrow]

We already have this - it's called Tor and I2P.