jb55's avatar
jb55 _@jb55.com 1 year ago
“Network relays are built on the modern and standardized MASQUE protocols and can be used to proxy all TCP and UDP traffic” Holy shit! It’s not just web requests. This is way better than your standard VPN. It also obfuscates traffic through http so it’s harder to tell that you’re even using it. TIL @Obscura VPN also uses this. This is the way we can make nostr network traffic private without requiring people to run VPNs.
Apple Support
Use network relays on Apple devices
Network relays are a special type of proxy that can be used for remote access and privacy solutions.
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Replies (25)

jb55's avatar
jb55 _@jb55.com 1 year ago
It’s a protocol, we can set up our own MASQUE relays and use them within the app. I’m not sure if you can use apple’s. If you can it makes sense to use that for users who have an iCloud subscription . @npub1t0ny...jgqv says you might not be able to. cc @Dan Gould
3 replies ↓
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npub1nz3c...yxqu 1 year ago
Apple controls both the OS and the proxy. They can access the decryption key whenever they want. In a perfect world the OS would be open source and verifiable. There’s no competitive reason to keep the OS closed source. Keeping it closed just ensures that state hackers have more attack vectors. Probably just worried about public researchers seeing the number of bugs in it.
1 replies ↓
Dan Gould's avatar
Dan Gould bitgould@bitgould.com 1 year ago
The difficulty with proxying arbitrary traffic like Apple does is that an attacker can flood DoS traffic behind protection. That’s why OHTTP specs 1:1 relay server to gateway server. OHTTP could even work for general Nostr if it were available over WebTransport instead of WebSocket.
1 replies ↓
jb55's avatar
jb55 _@jb55.com 1 year ago
Interesting, gonna chat with carl, curious why they need that. Maybe if they control both the masque nodes
jb55's avatar
jb55 _@jb55.com 1 year ago
This is not what the apple docs says, and its not what I have been reading. From apple docs: “Network relays are built on the modern and standardized MASQUE protocols and can be used to proxy all TCP and UDP traffic”
2 replies ↓
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