Announcement

Epic for iOS and Android are live in the App Store and the Android Play Store. We're EpicBrowser on Twitter and on Facebook. Please feel free to also email our Founder directly with issues or questions: alok at hiddenreflex dot com

#1 2014-08-20 15:56:18

JimTurney
Guest

mysterious server connections by Epic

I do like and use Epic on my Mac for the last year throughout each day, for browsing well-known sites to block the tracking (I use Firefox for general browsing, especially to sites new to me). I still approve each connection any browser makes to any server with my Little Snitch firewall which has recently started requesting mysterious connections.

In the last week or two, I have refused multiple mysterious attempts by Epic to connect to several servers. I can't associate particular websites with these connections but they are all related to Epic persons or partners.

Epic has tried several times to connect to Sakth.com on TCP port 44300. What is the function of this server for this connection? This port isn't on the WikiPedia list of "well-known" ports nor on IANA's list of "registered" ports, so what sort of network service is this connection used for? en.WikipediA.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers and IANA.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.txt

This domain is registered to Alok Bhardwaj, Epic's founder. One important element of security is transparency. The webpage for Sakth.com simply says "It works! This is the default web page for this server. The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet."

I recommend explaining the connection to the homepage so that enquiring minds will know.

Another recent daily mysterious attempted connection from Epic, also on port 44300, is to Faisal.in which is registered to "ubio Biotechnology Systems Pvt Ltd" in Cochin India and sharing the same IP number as ubio.in. This website appears to be the personal blog site of Faisal Siyavudeen, co-founder of ubio, altho it hasn't been updated since July 2011. I ahve the same questions about these connections as I do about Sakth.com connections.

Finally, I have had several connection attempts recently to "ebrajupybrubonisig.info" (no there is not a misspelling here altho it appears I fell onto my keyboard:-) on TCP port 80.

This domain is related to Epic's proxy provider, Spotflux, but it isn't so easy to tell because it is registered to DACCA Enterprises (no info could be found other than WhoIs, and there it has a bogus phone number +1.5555555555) and Chris Naegelin, the co-founder of Spotflux.

ebrajupybrubonisig.info connects to a Squid proxy server on port 80, epicproxy001.8.spotflux.net, but it claims it is an "Invalid URL". Why use this domain for a connection to an Epic proxy server? I do not have Epic Proxy disabled.

Btw, I have also had daily Epic crashes over the last 2 weeks but I hope that isn't related to these mysterious server connections.

If this topic is not approved, please inform me why so I can edit it...and you can remove this line:-)

Offline

#2 2014-08-20 16:06:09

sai
Guest

Re: mysterious server connections by Epic

Hi, Please do not worry about these connections, these are our SSL proxy servers, we are trying to come with one unique domain name to connect, right now sakth.com, epicbrowser.net, faisla.in, odecide.com are all Epic browser new SSL proxy servers while the other one is from our partner spotflux, which means all your proxy connections will be encrypted, so if any middle man  tries to view the traffic, it will be encrypted, thus protecting users traffic.

However in future we might come with options like only using one server name like epicbrowser.net, but still we are working to make our proxy servers performance optimized and come up with one name.

Offline

#3 2014-08-22 01:23:34

JimTurney
Guest

Re: mysterious server connections by Epic

Thanks for your reply sai.

> these are our SSL proxy servers, we are trying to come with one unique domain name to connect

I'm surprised to read this because I believe it is easier for you to do that today than use these oddball domain names which must each have their own DNS config.

In an hour or less (seriously) you can make, for example, proxy1.EpicBrowser.com, proxy2.EpicBrowser.com, and so on. These subdomains are functionally identical to these oddball domains if you config the DNS for EpicBrowser.com with the same records that are now scattered around.

Also, this unification under one domain is easier to set up with a robust, diversified server DNS host than multiple domain names held by different DNS hosts. Robust DNS hosting is critical to your intentions with the Epic browser with proxy and search functions. Why wait until you optimize the proxy service?

This not only improves your branding and reputation but it makes life simpler for admins as well as those enquiring minds who explore the purpose and source of mysterious connections.

Finally, if you are going to use odd domains and ports, why not simply document that somewhere for us, like that paragraph above that you wrote? I searched and couldn't find anything before I took the time to look into what was happening with a view to helping improve and protect this browser.

> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 … ensorship/

Thanks for the Berners-Lee link! That and Alok's TEDx talk are valuable contributions.

Offline

#4 2014-08-23 06:15:34

alok
Administrator

Re: mysterious server connections by Epic

Great points Jim!!  We should use clearer domains and document this -- we've had to use several different servers for our encrypted proxy and experiment a fair amount with the setup we're using which is a spdy node.js encrypted proxy server (more a prototype so taken a lot of work to get it to scale).

Offline

Board footer