[tor-bugs] #25137 [Obfuscation/Censorship analysis]: Tor blocked in UAE

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#25137: Tor blocked in UAE
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 Reporter:  mwolfe                           |          Owner:  dcf
     Type:  task                             |         Status:  closed
 Priority:  Medium                           |      Milestone:
Component:  Obfuscation/Censorship analysis  |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                           |     Resolution:  fixed
 Keywords:  censorship block ae              |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                   |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                   |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by mwolfe):

 Thanks for the link to gulfnews. I read that article. The new policy is
 that one must rent Botim from the TRA for $30 a month. My cousin is 93,
 knows how to use Skype, and does not want to learn Botim. I tried a free
 VPN, but it didn't work. And, if one uses a credit card for a VPN, the
 bank will report the credit card charge to the government.

 Since, many years ago, they blocked Tor for a few days then unblocked it,
 I tried again with 'My ISP blocks Tor' unchecked. Tor loaded. I tried to
 view a site. It had a hard time downloading. Speed was limited to 16K.
 Normally, the site downloads at 400K - 1M. After 5 minutes, it was still
 loading. I tried trac.torproject.org. Again, it started to load, but after
 5 minutes, was still loading with the Tor start page still visible.

 So I think the block is part of the block of Skype. Tor is (mis)identified
 as a way to do VOIP and so is choked, not blocked. I could read the New
 York Times, but today's paper would take until next week to load. One can
 still type over Skype, but not talk, so the anti-VOIP is based on
 identifying VOIP and choking the traffic, not blocking it.

 Fortunately, ofps4, meek, and Snowflake circumvent the choke.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/25137#comment:19>
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