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We usually buy services like VPN, SOCKS, Kerio [Kerio Connect?]... to circumvent Iran's Internet censorship policy. Recently, one of the shops started selling [one of] Kerio's products, for which I do not understand what it is.

My question is: Can the people that I buy Kerio's products from see my data? By these people I'm referring to the seller in the shop [we purchased the product from]. Would they have access to the server [we setup using products they sell]?

I'm asking this because the seller is in this case our government, and we purchase these tools from their agents so we can freely access the Internet, and they can easily monitor us and catch those they consider as offenders.

Editor's note: parts in square brackets [] are my addition, the rest is edited for grammatical and readability reasons, while trying to retain question's original meaning. In case of parts of my edits being unclear, please refer to the previous revision by clicking here, or on the timestamp of the last edit.

Community
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Peyman Tehrany
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3 Answers3

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The Onion Router (tor) was designed specifically for this purpose.

This is a program that you run locally that provides a socks proxy, which allows you to access an unfiltered, and anonymous connection to the open internet. It is very difficult for governments to prevent you from accessing tor.

rook
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  • Thanks, I really don't know how to ask this question My question is If I use Kerio, can the guy that sells it, check what I do. They usually get a server install service on it and then sell it to us, So If I buy Kerio service from them, can they see my data or data is encrypted to them too? – Peyman Tehrany May 02 '13 at 17:55
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In a simple answer, yes. If the reseller has a local installation of the server you are connecting to then it is possible that they can sniff the network traffic using Snort or Wireshark and extract your data. Additionally, there may be logging installed on the servers that the reseller may be able to view and see what you are doing.

However, if you are using some form of data encryption, say a VPN connection (or Tor) it is most likely not going to be as easy to decipher exactly what you are doing.

forest
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Travis
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  • I really do not get it, To be able to circumvent the filtering I use Kerio, When I connect to the Kerio server, It will have all my data (Not encrypted), Right? I am actually looking for a way that does not allow the Kerio server to see my data(for example because they are encrypted). Let me ask this way, How can I use any tools like Kerio or ... that If in case the admin of Kerio server was from government they can not see my data. – Peyman Tehrany May 03 '13 at 09:46
  • Use TOR as Rook stated. It will encrypt that traffic. – Travis May 03 '13 at 13:14
  • Thank you for helping me, But I want to know the answer of the question. It's because we have to change the tools to find the one that works. Sometimes TOR does not work properly and we must try something else. – Peyman Tehrany May 03 '13 at 13:46
  • Ok. Specify that you have used TOR in the original question. Your best method is to probably create your own proxy, internally, and have it encrypt your data going to Kerio. – Travis May 03 '13 at 18:51
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Even if Kerio makes products that are secure, you cannot be sure that the product you would buy is the genuine product from Kerio and not one where the seller has added a backdoor.

Furthermore, even if you do find a reliable product, the fact that you are using that product can still be detected. At a minimum, your Internet service provider can see that you've established encrypted channels to a foreign site, which would mark you as suspicious. This is not a problem if all you want is that your government does not know what site you're connecting to and the data you're exchanging with that site.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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