Weekly Topic: Blocking the Tor Network

The Tor network itself cannot be completely blocked, but access to its connection mechanisms can be made more difficult. There are several such mechanisms:

• The Tor website, where users typically download the Tor Browser, which allows access to the Tor network;
• IP addresses of public Tor nodes;
• Public Tor bridges;
• Tor traffic itself.

On December 8, the government blocked all four of these mechanisms to varying degrees.

On December 9, Roskomnadzor temporarily stopped restricting access to the IP addresses of known nodes, some bridges, and the Snowflake transport. That morning, only the website torproject.org remained inaccessible. However, later that same day, users began reporting new blocks again. The regulator has been following this block-unblock pattern for the past six months to a year, as we’ve seen with DNS and VPN services. It’s clear the agency is conducting tests, but the results of these tests are unknown.

If the authorities continue down the path of blocking, they will likely restrict access to all known nodes and bridges. They may also try to block protocol obfuscation mechanisms. However, it’s unlikely they’ll succeed, as no one has managed to do this effectively so far.

As in other countries like China and Iran, The Tor Project will likely respond by offering users transports that are impossible to block and distributing previously unknown bridges to users.

The Tor Project is a non-profit organization, so unlike businesses, it doesn’t need to generate revenue. Its main goal is to keep the Tor network accessible worldwide. That’s why the organization will fight for Russian-speaking users just as it does for everyone else. In fact, Tor primarily exists for countries where such blockades occur.

For users, as long as Tor remains accessible through various circumvention methods (such as browser plugins, VPNs, or by emailing [email protected]), it’s important to install it. Next, users should learn how to add new bridges, and then set up private bridges for their communities. This is similar to what happened with Telegram: people set up private MTProxy servers and shared them with friends. In the end, blocking Telegram proved nearly impossible, since it was impossible to identify proxy traffic and, as a result, to block it.

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