Can governments block tor?

[Arrakistor]

If connections could be posted in such public, mainstream, or embedded
in innocuous ssl, that might prove well. Perhaps it could be retrieved
from  an anonymous proxy service. Quite simply, it seems that you have
to  launder the data and appear to be getting it from an innocent data
source.

Regards,
 Arrakistor

Saturday, August 12, 2006, 7:19:50 PM, you wrote:

> On Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:00:17 -0700, eric.jung at yahoo.com wrote:

>> Secret rendezvous addresses for tor dir servers aren't necessary. In China, for
>> example, all network traffic goes through government-owned firewalls and
>> routers, just like the traffic at your workplace goes through company-owned
>> routers and firewalls. The traffic can be sniffed and logged without blocking
>> it. That way they know who's using tor. It's probably valuable to know who's
>> trying to be a dissedent and what it is they think they're discussing
>> privately.
>> 
>> As for a protocol to keep that hidden, SSL comes to mind. Personally, though, I
>> don't believe you can ever be truly anonymous or secret, so I act accordingly.
>> 
> I'm seeing this as a nightmare.  If it isn't possible to disguise the
> fact you're using or serving tor--and last time I did a tcpdump on my
> outside interface, it stuck out like a sore thumb--doesn't that
> undermine its usefulness?  (And I assume you mean SSL could be used to
> encrypt content, not the destination of a tor server.)