[tor-relays] Help Turkmens to bypass Internet censorship: run an obfs4 bridge!

[gus]

Hello,

Another update:

As it's very hard to get a vantage point in the country[1], we've asked
feedback from users to understand what works there. But, if by any chance
you have access to a machine hosted there, do let me know! You can
contact me in private. :)

Based on user feedback, we learned that obfs4 bridges running on
residential connections + port 80, 443 or 8080 works in Turkmenistan.
Last week I asked some operators to change their bridge obfs4 port and
it worked!

Unfortunately, users reported that censors blocked some bridges. You can
even see that on Tor Metrics graph. For example:
- https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/D1302AC19A71BED956C568AC79DF0048E61D8A2E 
- https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#details/A811AAB7771434CE0DD4D3942173E65DEC49B962

If you're operating these bridges and can easily rotate the IP address, please
do!

Finally, if you want to learn more about censorship in Turkmenistan, you
can check this great presentation[2] from last year.

Thanks for running bridges!
Gus

[1] https://ntc.party/t/vps/2804/9
[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1odIO1Bi9laU-B-JZMoZFWGEwkTl95oq9/view

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 01:00:17PM -0300, gus wrote:
> Hello, just a quick update:
> 
> Some friends from Turkmenistan told me that they don't think this new
> round of online censorship is related to the upcoming elections,
> because it's just a "formal" event. In general, they said, shutdowns and
> internet disruptions are motivated by other events like:
>  - when Russian Duma speaker arrived in TM
>  - the wedding day of the president's grandson
> 
> Anyway, today we tested some of bridges that you shared with us and I replied
> back saying which ones worked and which ones didn't.
> 
> Thank you for running a bridge!,
> Gus
> 
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 04:25:05PM -0300, gus wrote:
> > Dear Relay operators community,
> > 
> > The parliamentary elections in Turkmenistan are coming up very soon on
> > March 26th[1], and the Turkmen government has tightened internet censorship
> > and restrictions even more. In the last few months, the Anti-censorship
> > community has learned that different pluggable transports, like
> > Snowflake, and entire IP ranges, have been blocked in the country.
> > Therefore, running a bridge on popular hosting providers like Hetzner,
> > Digital Ocean, Linode, and AWS won't help as these providers' IP ranges
> > are completely blocked in Turkmenistan.
> > 
> > Recently, we learned from the Anti-censorship community[2] and via Tor user
> > support channels that Tor bridges running on residential connections
> > were working fine. Although they were blocked after some days or a week,
> > these bridges received a lot of users and were very important to keep
> > Turkmens connected.
> > 
> > How to help Turkmens to access the Internet
> > ===========================================
> > 
> > You can help Turkmens to access the free and open internet by running an
> > obfs4 Tor bridge! But here's the trick: you need to run it on a
> > residential connection -- you won't need a static IPv4 --, and it would
> > ideally be run on more robust hardware than just a Raspberry Pi
> > (although that can help, we have found they can get overloaded).
> > 
> > You can set up an obfs4 bridge by following our official guide:
> >     https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/bridge/
> > 
> > After you setup a new bridge, you can share your bridge line with the
> > Tor support team at frontdesk at torproject.org, and we will share it with
> > users.
> > 
> > A complete bridge line is composed of:
> > 
> >     IP:OBFS4_PORT FINGERPRINT cert=obfs4-certificate iat-mode=0
> > 
> > Check this documentation to learn how to share your bridge line:
> > https://community.torproject.org/relay/setup/bridge/post-install/
> > 
> > Just sharing your bridge fingerprint is not the best, but it's fine.
> > 
> > You can read more about censorship against Tor in Turkmenistan here:
> >   - https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/issues/40029
> >   - Snowflake blocked:
> >     https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/anti-censorship/censorship-analysis/-/issues/40024
> > 
> > Thank you for your support in helping to keep the internet free and open
> > for everyone.
> > 
> > Gus
> > 
> > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkmen_parliamentary_election
> > [2] https://ntc.party/c/internet-censorship-all-around-the-world/turkmenistan/17
> > https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/80
> > 
> > -- 
> > The Tor Project
> > Community Team Lead
> 
> 
> 
> > _______________________________________________
> > tor-relays mailing list
> > tor-relays at lists.torproject.org
> > https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
> 
> 
> -- 
> The Tor Project
> Community Team Lead



-- 
The Tor Project
Community Team Lead
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