<html><head></head><body> <div>I have been wondering the last few days about the use of bridges in Russia. Are you more likely to help out the Russian population by running the bridge from a Russian data center? I’m considering if I want to pay for a VPS as well, but not sure how effective this may be with the so-called Russian black box. <caret></caret></div><div><br></div> <div><br></div><div><br></div>On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 04:39, <<a href="mailto:newsletter@unicorncloud.org" class="">newsletter@unicorncloud.org</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="protonmail_quote" type="cite"> Hi,<br>I've made the same experience with my node in RU.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Sebastian Elisa<br><br>On 02.01.2022 16:09, abuse--- via tor-relays wrote:<br>> Very interesting!<br>><br>> I have two VPS at different locations with justhost.ru (IQ Data St.<br>> Petersburg and DataLine Moscow - AS51659) and have also noticed a<br>> change:<br>><br>> - on December 30th, both servers could not reach deb.torproject.org<br>> and the torproject.org web page. Both IPv4 and IPv6 were blocked.<br>><br>> - I tried again today and everything worked fine. I even downloaded<br>> the tor browser bundle for Windows over one of the servers just to see<br>> if it works. It does and the signature also checks out (verified on a<br>> different server outside Russia)<br>><br>> - running tor nodes at both locations continues to work<br>><br>> Best Regards,<br>><br>> Kristian<br>><br>> Jan 2, 2022, 08:22 by torrelaysaregreat@gmail.com:<br>><br>>> Hello,<br>>><br>>> i have a relay at profitserver.ru [1] at their Chelyabinsk location<br>>> and recently the relay fell out of the consensus.<br>>><br>>> I can ping all authorities with IPv4 and IPv6 and torproject.org [2]<br>>> is not blocked.<br>>><br>>> I opened the ControlPort and tried to manually create circuits to<br>>> the authorities.<br>>><br>>> extendcircuit 0 authoritynickname<br>>><br>>> getinfo circuit-status<br>>><br>>> I observed that i can successfully create circuits to no more than<br>>> three authorities and it seems to change to which authorities i can<br>>> create circuits.<br>>><br>>> The unsuccessful circuits stay in EXTENDED but never reach BUILT<br>>> until Tor gives up eventually.<br>>><br>>> Currently no other of my russian relays are affected.<br>>><br>>> I am not an expert with the ControlPort but i hope this is proving<br>>> what i tried to prove.<br>>><br>>> Here is the conversation with the support:<br>>><br>>> me:<br>>><br>>> Hello,<br>>><br>>> I am running a (non-exit) Tor relay on the VPS and it stopped<br>>> working a few weeks ago.<br>>><br>>> I can ping the Tor authorities IP addresses but when i try to<br>>> manually create a Tor circuit it seems to timeout 6 out of 9 times<br>>> which indicates some blocking attempts on your (or your upstream<br>>> providers) side.<br>>><br>>> I have a couple of other Tor relays in russia and i have never seen<br>>> routinely failing manually created circuits to the Tor authorities.<br>>><br>>> Do you block Tor or do you otherwise mess with Tor traffic?<br>>><br>>> support agent:<br>>> Hello, i can't say something about TOR network, now.<br>>> We have black box from government, which can control traffic, and<br>>> perhaps block TOR.<br>>> Ourselves don't block TOR<br>>><br>>> me:<br>>> Thanks for your answer.<br>>> The TSPU from Roskomnadzor that is doing Deep Packet Inspection?<br>>> I feel with you and all the russian citizens... :(<br>>> Good luck<br>>><br>>> support agent:<br>>><br>>> Maybe it's a black box<br>>><br>>> If this is indeed their blackbox messing with Tor traffic then it is<br>>> quite subtile because it does not block torproject.org [2] and pings<br>>> to the authorities are going through.<br>>> The relay suddenly was online for one consensus in the last weeks<br>>> and i can still use it when i manually set it as a Guard in my Tor<br>>> client.<br>>><br>>> So if you run a relay in russia and you experience weird stuff with<br>>> it then you may not only want to check if you can reach the<br>>> authorities by ping but you may want to try to manually craft a<br>>> circuit to all of them.<br>>><br>>> Hope that helps anyone<br>>><br>>> Cheers<br>><br>><br>><br>> Links:<br>> ------<br>> [1] http://profitserver.ru<br>> [2] http://torproject.org<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> tor-relays mailing list<br>> tor-relays@lists.torproject.org<br>> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays<br>_______________________________________________<br>tor-relays mailing list<br>tor-relays@lists.torproject.org<br>https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays<br></blockquote></body></html>