[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 teor):

 Replying to [comment:33 dcf]:
 > Replying to [comment:32 mwolfe]:
 > > Today, I got Tor 8.a3 and it worked without any bridges. I wasn't sure
 if the UAE stopped blocking Tor, or if 8.a3 fixed the problem, so I tried
 one of my old Tor 7.a and it could not load the network without meek,
 while 8.a3 can load without any bridges.
 >
 > Hmm, maybe it has to do with the new directory authority bastet, which
 got added in Tor Browser 7.0.10 (2017-11-14) and 7.5a8 (2017-11-15), and
 had an IPv6 address added in Tor Browser 7.0.11 and 7.5a9 (2017-12-09).
 The existing directory authority Longclaw also changed its IP address in
 Tor Browser 7.0.10/7.5a8.
 >
 > If the censors are only blocking directory authorities, such a change
 may have caught them off guard. If it's not that, I'm not sure what it
 could be.
 >
 > I just added entries related to the above to the metrics timeline:
 >   [[doc/MetricsTimeline?action=diff&version=239&old_version=237]]

 Since 0.2.8, Tor clients haven't relied on directory authorities to
 bootstrap. Instead, they use [[doc/FallbackDirectoryMirrors]].

 The new set of fallback directory mirrors we added in December wasn't in
 many tor releases until recently. So maybe it wasn't blocked until
 recently.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/25137#comment:37>
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