Russia said in the latest news that their country’s largest internet service providers have actively blocked the main website of the Tor Project – torproject(dot)org. Furthermore, the country might also be preparing for an extensive operation of blocking the entire project within their territories.
The Tor Project enables users to automatically encrypt and reroute web requests via the Tor nodes network to browse the internet anonymously. Usually, it is used to protect an individual’s identity online from the wide world of the internet and service providers. It can also hide the online trace of users, evade censorship, and access shared information without being exposed.
The censorship of the Tor Project in Russia began on December 1. Many locals initially ignored it since it was allegedly a side effect of their experiment with their sovereign internet project, Runet.
Nonetheless, Russia has now coordinated to stop the Tor Project, headed by their federal executive body, Roskomnadzor.
As per reports of a Russian NGO, the country began the nationwide blocking on December 1 by a large telecom carrier, Rostelecom. Then, it was followed by the MTS and Tele 2 by December 3.
Some people still attempt to access Tor sites using proxy or covert channels despite the country’s efforts. However, Russia’s blocking operation might have also affected those alternative channels and hindered the attempts.
The Tor Project responds to Russia’s actions against them by publishing a post that pleads people to run Tor bridges and keep Russians online. Their post also highlighted how Russia is the country that has the second-largest Tor users in the world, with over 300,000 daily users, which means that it could affect them adversely once the country-wide Tor block succeeds.
The Russian-based Tor users were also asked to help the Tor Project understand the process of censoring them from a technical point of view through the OONI probe application and running circumvention tests.
On November 17, the Tor Project asked its community to run new Tor Bridges, which might be why Russia decided to conduct censorship against them.
Despite being a dilemma to the community, experts were not surprised by Russia’s censorship on the Tor Project and the Onion network. The country has been gradually controlling the online resources that locals in Russia can access, and this step might only be a part of a larger plan to take control.
