[tor-bugs] #5028 [Ooni]: Tor bridge scanning

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#5028: Tor bridge scanning
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 Reporter:  hellais  |          Owner:  runa                     
     Type:  project  |         Status:  assigned                 
 Priority:  normal   |      Milestone:  Sponsor F: March 15, 2012
Component:  Ooni     |        Version:                           
 Keywords:           |         Parent:                           
   Points:           |   Actualpoints:                           
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Comment(by ioerror):

 Replying to [comment:29 karsten]:
 > Replying to [comment:26 ioerror]:
 > > I suggest that you print out a copy of every ip and simply call the
 Chinese embassy to find out if these are blocked.
 >
 > Was that only supposed to be funny, or is there an actual suggestion for
 doing things differently that you want to tell us?

 The deliverable is being driven by a sponsorship item. However, the
 circumstances have since changed - active probing in China means that
 blocking happens in a different, additive, set of ways. Some IPs are on a
 blocklist, some are added by their behavior; thus any scan to a real
 bridge with a tcp connection will merely tell us that the bridge is not on
 the block list but any attempt to use it will almost certainly result in
 an active probe that in turn will probably block the bridge. Any result
 from the TCP connect scan will be either 0) possibly confirmation that the
 IP is blocked 1) a false negative where we believe the bridge is unblocked
 or 2) we will cause the bridge to be discovered and then actually blocked.

 So why risk it? Because a funder has a line item? It seems like we should
 be smarter than that and not be so hung up on line items that we created
 before the environment changed.

 Thus, my point was to be both humorous and also to be blunt - doing a scan
 of bridges may simply result in those bridges being instantly blocked or
 just as likely, I think the data will be inconclusive.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/5028#comment:32>
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